Editor’s Note: Grace Ueng is the founder of Savvy Growth, a noted leadership coaching and management consulting firm, and an expert on wellbeing and performance science. Grace writes a regular column on happiness & leadership for WRAL TechWire.
Recently, I was listening to Michael Akiva, managing partner of Jacoby & Meyers, speak at his firm’s all-hands meeting. One of the questions submitted to this energetic co-founder was what book he most recommended. Michael mentioned Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen’s “How Will You Measure Your Life?” as one of his favorites.
His recommendation brought me years back, when I had the chance to see Christensen speak on campus, reflecting on how he measured his own life, during what ended up being his final years, as he was battling difficult health issues. After meeting him, I have gifted copies as graduation presents. I believe early adulthood is not too soon to be exposed to his book, and it’s a good one to reread each decade.
Origin Story: How Michael Akiva realized his calling
Akiva and his co-founder Jubin Niamehr started their careers at Latham & Watkins. While at this global corporate law firm, Akiva was exposed to their pro bono efforts. He had the opportunity to advocate for families and keep them in their homes during the 2008 housing meltdown and realized how meaningful he found this work. In fact, it was the pro bono work, rather than representing large corporations, that he most enjoyed in his years there. He decided he would focus on fighting for the rights of some of the most vulnerable people, those wrongfully injured. He got together with Jubin to start a law firm to do just that.
Together, they recruit team members who are humble, hungry, smart and attracted to their mission. To fight for their clients’ rights, they espouse Christensen’s “jobs to be done” design theory to understand what their customer, those who are wrongfully injured and in pain, is “hiring” their “product” to do. By empathetically taking the injured party’s perspective and acting in correspondence with discovered needs, their colleagues are constantly thinking creatively on how to best bring comfort and fast resolution for their client and their families.
Reframing my thinking: “Don’t judge a book by its cover”
Akiva and Niamehr had learned of my firm when they read an article in The Wall Street Journal where I was quoted. When they contacted me and I saw they ran one of the largest personal injury firms on the west coast, my immediate reaction was negative. I didn’t think I wanted to work in the personal injury field. But after an introductory call with them, I immediately realized these entrepreneurs were different from what I expected, they were aspirational and inspiring.
They started to turn around my stereotype of this category of law. As part of my consulting process, I immediately dig into the category to learn as much as I can, so that I can start to add value and shape new thinking quickly for the client. I began my discovery interviews for my personal injury law firm client by speaking to those who work in this field of law, attorneys as well as my former cycling coach, Daren Marceau, a nationally recognized forensic specialist and expert witness with decades of experience in traffic engineering, crash investigation and reconstruction. In challenging my original negative perception, instead I found the category very interesting and grew curious to learn more.
How will you measure your life?
I was delighted to find out Akiva and I shared a favorite book in common, and how his pro bono work at one of the world’s largest law firms shaped the focus of the firm he and Niamehr founded and continue to grow. He wants to look back, decades from now, and feel good about how he will measure his life, both personally and professionally.
Akiva takes his life outside the office just as seriously. He wakes up at 5:15 a.m. and exercises and practices 45 minutes of piano. He has weekly date nights with his wife and finds new experiences for her and their three children to do together on trips each summer, winter and spring. He seeks 1-on-1 time with each child and visits his parents on weekends. As I write this, he is about to leave for London where his mom’s family lives, where he will spend spring break with his wife, children and his parents who he invited along.
Meaningful work and celebrating relationships
Meaningful work comes from having earned success and serving others. Akiva and Niamehr provide both of these for all the individuals they hire.
In watching their library of all-hands meetings, I realized just why all the people I interviewed in my discovery process love working for the firm. The founders value their families and their colleagues, so it is no wonder that in their all-hands, they showcase pictures of new babies, pets and people coming back from maternity leave as well as new hires and celebrate anniversaries.
Their team has passion for pushing and finding creative ways to seek relief and support for their injured clients. They recently provided a special bed for one bedridden client whose sister had previously had to awaken in the middle of the night to rotate her. The firm found a technology that could automatically move her to prevent sores so her sister, the caretaker, could get a good night’s sleep and tend to her, refreshed the next day.
They take their friendships at work seriously, with managers offering shoutouts to their people at each all-hands. Anniversaries are considered very special, with each name badge in the office showing years of service. On their anniversary, team members receive flowers delivered to their home. Akiva and Niamehr are starting a regular lunch with those celebrating an anniversary that month as a way to connect in their now-remote work environment. One of the challenges with fast growth is staying connected with each team member, which was much easier when the firm was smaller.
Akiva shared, “My focus is on creating a better life both for me and for anyone I come in contact with – and if they grow, that’s recognition enough for me. One of my favorite things is when I hear someone at the firm repeat to other people something I’ve taught them and not give me credit for it. I plagiarize books and mentors religiously – and I strongly urge everyone I work with to do the same with me. If I happen to say something that strikes a chord, repeat it over and over again.”
Jubin Niamehr and Michael Akiva, Cofounders & BFF@W
Best friend@work
What I find the most unusual is how close they are as partners and co-founders. They eat lunch together nearly everyday. They order the same healthy salads. Niamehr is often complimented for having a lot of discipline with what he eats. When I traveled to meet them for our kick-off, I felt confident in just saying that I would have the exact same salad Niamehr had.
I work with them together as a team. They have very different personality types, and they complement each other. Their team describes them as “yin and yang.” They encourage transparency and healthy debate, and have encouraged me to be very open with them, and to push them. They fully respect each other and have each other’s back. They absolutely love what they do and feel lucky they have a work partner as well as a life partner with whom to share their journey.
As I said in my column last week, the fabric of trust takes time to weave. Niamehr and Akiva have successfully woven a deep fabric of trust. I consider it a privilege to help them further their mission to live a meaningful life for their families and the clients they serve.
———————————————————————————————————————
Our mutual book recommendation & highlights from Christensen’s meaningful life
To honor Clayton Christensen and the last lecture I was able to be in the audience before his passing, I share an outtake from my column: How Will You Measure Your Life?
My 25th reunion: How will we measure our lives?
In his decades of teaching at HBS, students always sought out Christensen’s advice on how to have a successful life and to be happy. Christensen wanted to package up his beliefs to help future generations, which is why he wrote this very different book, combining his personal beliefs with the business models he had previously developed.
Jubin Niamehr and Michael Akiva — work partners and their life partners!
I had a second row seat to Christensen’s talk and his wife happened to be in the same row. Christensen applied his “jobs a company’s products are hired to do” concept to our personal lives. He spoke of how your relationships always need your attention, even when you don’t think they do. He suggested that we ask ourselves what your job in that relationship is, to better understand others and intuitively do the right thing. He used the example of his job as a husband.
What is a husband hired to do?
Sit in the exact position of the wife and think about what jobs are arising in her life that she is trying to do and what things you as a husband can do to help her with those jobs. Develop a product that will do the job perfectly. The words he used included: Selflessness. Sympathy. Being there. The “customer” will then pull you into their lives without any persuasion needed at all.
I couldn’t help but look down my row to see his wife’s radiant face as Christensen spoke so sincerely from his heart, how much he focused on the job he was hired to do as her husband, all of us knowing his days with her on earth were likely to be shorter than they had hoped. As I wiped the tears from my eyes, I could see that nearly everyone in the auditorium was doing the same.
I was one of a very long line of alumni who had a chance to speak to him after this talk. He patiently stood in the front of that line with the cane in his hand to balance him. I told him that he and Ben were inspiring me to focus my writing and speaking not just on entrepreneurship, but also on one’s whole life. He offered to schedule time to chat further. Christensen had a true passion for helping others be their best selves that permeated every aspect of his life.
Sadly, his health did not allow that future chat, but his heart-felt encouragement in that reunion interchange pushed me ahead in my work.
Balance work & relationships: A virtuous cycle
Christensen’s thesis and message, that employees and bosses both need to hear, is that counterintuitively, taking time away from work for family, relationships, etc. can have a huge positive impact on your career and happiness in the long run.
About Grace Ueng
Grace is CEO of Savvy Growth, a management and marketing consultancy that since 2003 has been helping leaders and the companies they run achieve their fullest potential through conducting strategic reviews, marketing audits, and coaching.
A marketing strategist, Grace held leadership roles in marketing, business development and product management at five high growth technology ventures that successfully exited through acquisition or IPO. A TED speaker, her work has been covered in The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast, and Inc.
Contact her firm for more information on Grace’s flagship workshop, HappinessWorks™.
Subscribe for free to her Happiness & Leadership@Work. You will receive one research based lesson each week to learn to be a happier and more productive leader: click here
