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How to Excel as a Professional and a Leader with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-26
00:15:14
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- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by David Pivnick. David's a lawyer partner leader at McGuire woods, and we're going to talk today about excelling as a professional and as a leader and tips and thoughts on how to excel as a professional and a leader. So, David, I'm going to walk you through four to five questions and the reason David's a great guest for this, he's had a fantastic leadership career as a litigator. He also is valedictorian of his law school class and is one of these kinds of people that excels in so many things and has mentored several people as well in their careers towards excellence. David, I'll start with this from your experience. What separates professionals that constantly excel, those that just do fine? What do people that do great do differently day in, day out versus others that that that do fine but don't seem to excel and end up being the leaders in organizations or the leaders in their field?
- [01:09]
B
Yeah, great, great question, Scott, and thanks for having me on. I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you. The first thing, and it's sort of, you know, you referenced constant in the question and then talked about, you know, what people are doing day to day. And I think the consistency day to day is a significant component of what helps people really excel and helps to separate the top performing professionals. It's that concept of showing up and delivering 100% every single day, regardless of personal circumstances, whether you're feeling a little under the weather, etc. And I don't mean to suggest people are robots and can just completely ignore other issues in their lives, but I think the ability to show up and deliver a strong performance at a consistent level day in and day out can be overlooked. But I think that's one of the best ways for professionals to excel and it helps instill confidence in the team you're working with internally, with clients or customers on the outside world. People knowing they can depend on you and sort of get your best effort day in and day out, I think is really an incredibly important trait. And then the second thing is when you're talking about doing that at an excellent level, performing at a high level, taking every matter, every client, every dispute, every deal, seriously dealing with it with the sort of weight that it deserves, not looking at small clients and big clients, but just clients and recognizing that they all deserve excellent service and excellence every day. And I think all professionals that are good in their profession have the ability to deliver excellent work on A given day. I think those who truly excel are doing it every day for every customer and are making a point of not taking a minute off, let alone a day off, let alone a month off or a matter off, etc.
- [03:21]
A
And talk for a second about habits or disciplines that matter most early in someone's career when they're aiming towards excellence, but might be overlooked if you had to think about a couple behaviors that are really important, that sort of compound in importance over time. What would some of those be?
- [03:40]
B
The first one, and I tell young associates this all the time, to me, responsiveness is absolutely critical, particularly young. When you're a young professional or early stages of a career, I think the responsiveness and making sure people know that you're on it, that you're on top of a given task, given assignment and you're going to take care of it. And I think sometimes people hear that and think, you know, this guy's telling me he wants me to give up my evenings and weekends and be available around the clock. And that's very much not what I mean. I look at the responsiveness less about dropping everything at the drop of a hat and doing something immediately and more giving the acknowledgment. I got your email, I got your voicemail. I'm on it. I understand what's being asked. The deadline works. I'll be handling it, making sure that the folks who are coming to you with assignments or projects or trying to involve you in their work know that you're going to handle that work and handle it well and in the timing that was anticipated. So sometimes that might require urgency in the actual output, but, but more often it's just the acknowledgement of I saw your request and I've got this, I'm going to handle it. You know, it's incapable hands. You don't have to think about it right now because I'm thinking about it for you and I think there's tremendous value in that. The second thing, which I think is more difficult, I think that's sort of an easy one and I think doing great work, product again as a young professional is critical. And then I think the third one that I think is really important for young professionals, attorneys or otherwise, is, is taking ownership of projects and not just viewing day to day activities as tasks and looking at it instead of how can I get involved in this project writ large? How can I help manage or do work for a given client on a more holistic basis? How can I take a case and play a meaningful role in the case. So, you know, if we have a new matter come in and we're going to file a motion to dismiss, I'm going to ask associates to help with the research, I'm going to help get help drafting sections of it, et cetera. But taking the ownership and coming up with additional arguments I hadn't suggested or coming back after the motion is filed, say, hey, should we start drafting discovery? What's next in the case? Here are some big picture thoughts. Do you want me to reach out to the client to pull in these materials so we could start being proactive in our discovery responses? That kind of thing I think really sets people apart, shows that they're on it day to day, that they're really thinking about what the role requires, not just a given task. Because anyone we work with, any associate we hire is fully capable of doing any given assignment that I go to them and ask them to do. But the ones who truly excel are the ones who are not just going to do exactly what I ask, but they're going to take it a notch beyond that and be contributing to the team more fully.
- [06:43]
A
Thank you. And I love both. These things are so important. This first concept of responsiveness in letting somebody know, communication, we've got it handled, we're working on it, what's deadline, whatever it is. And there are people that you send something to that do a great job on it, but you don't hear that they're working on it. And thus, of course, the person who sends it has stress because they don't know that it's in good hands and being taken care of. There are others that tell you, this is where I'm at, this is what's going on. And that of course, is incredibly helpful because you know what's going on with it. And it just lessens stresses all the way through and leaves another thread that's tied down versus dangling out there. So I couldn't agree with you more. And then obviously competent, great work. So, so important talk about when you see a young professional who's got great potential, not really on the track they should be and not quite operating where they should be. Talk a little bit about how can they course correct before they start to get themselves in trouble or start to get on the wrong track.
- [07:48]
B
Yeah, I mean, the first thing is identify where the course correction is needed. And sometimes that could be, you know, I or someone else supervising is seeing an issue and can sort of go with specific feedback. And that's a little easier, I think when it's a more general someone's floundering a bit or is just not reaching their potential. Sometimes there's direct feedback. But I think the first thing is doing a little bit of internal reflection. That self reflection is a starting point to figure out where are you missing the mark, Is it a timeliness and deadline issue? And then maybe you need to focus a little bit more on your calendar and task management. Is it a performance issue you're not delivering, you know, the quality that's expected? Is it a sloppiness issue, which. Which I see too often with with younger professionals where they're trying to rush from one task to the other and they may not take the extra 10 minutes to proofread, which. Or an hour to proofread, whatever it might be. And particularly in the professional environment where you might have a PA who can assist you with that or even, you know, have AI do a proofread, that's not a substantive reliance. It's just getting that extra check. Sometimes it's stuff like that that's very easy to correct and address. So I think the self reflection is the first thing. I think the second thing is where you've identified a concern, whether it's internally. As a young professional, you know, you're not hitting your marks quite the way you're intending or would like to, or someone else is telling you that a supervisor appear, whatever a client would be very unfortunate. But whatever it might be, I think the second is figuring out a plan of how you're going to correct it. Again, if it's sloppiness, making sure you're getting an assignment done a day or two before it's due, so you have extra time to put it down and then come back to it, give it a proofread with a fresh set of eyes, relying on a colleague to proofread, which hopefully isn't required at this level, but could happen, or having your PA do it, that that kind of work can be very helpful. So I think figuring out the issue first and then setting a plan on how to make it, if it's a time management issue, using your calendar more rigorously, taking on less work, or trying to navigate, that could also be helpful. And if it's just a pure quality issue, you know, sometimes that might be a skill set problem which is a lot harder to fix. But where the skills are there, then I think it's really just figuring out who you could talk to to get advice, how you could up your skill set, whether additional research is needed, whether you might need to take a course or two on writing or presentation skills and then getting out there and continuing to do it. And I think the biggest thing that people forget about is once you've sort of figured out the problem, how you're going to plan to fix it and start trying to execute on that, going back and checking to make sure you're getting it right, whether that's sort of keeping a checklist internally of what you're trying to accomplish and making sure you're starting to hit those metrics, or following up with mentors and supervisors who effectively say to them, here's what I'm working on, here's what I'm working towards. You know, how am I doing? Are you seeing the improvement that I think you should be seeing? I think those are the steps that are. That are important and it's important for people to remember it's all a process. You know, you're not. You're generally not going to be evaluated by one, one day, one project, etc. It comes back to what I said earlier. Consistency of effort and delivering strong results day in, day out, because then you're going to build the credibility that allows you to have a day that's less perfect than your other days and to grow from there.
- [11:39]
A
Thank you. The next question I have for you, David, is this. Let's say you're working with a young professional, and not necessarily to be a young professional, but professional, someone who's truly trying to be great at what they do, to have a great career. They want to be elite. They don't want to be just successful, they want to be fantastic. What does excellence require over the long run? How does someone do that?
- [12:09]
B
Yeah, it's a great question. And I think the first thing is I think people internally need to decide what it means to them to be excellent or elite at what they're doing, because that answer is not going to be the same for every person. And, you know, this is a callback to literally, you know, at this point, it blows my mind, but it's been 16 years since I joined McGuire woods and since you and I first met. And you may not remember, but, but during our first meeting, you made a comment to me that you effectively said. I'm paraphrasing it many years later, but you effectively said, you know, wherever you go, you'll be an excellent lawyer, you're very smart, but I think I could help make you into a valuable contributing partner at a law firm who's relied on by clients and has his own business. And again, I'm paraphrasing, but that concept really resonated with me. And I remember it all these years later because I'd always sort of looked at it as, I'm going to go be a great lawyer. That's what I'm going to do. And you're framing it as, you'll go do that wherever you are. But there's more, I think, has really been influential in my career in terms of how I'm trying to position myself. And so one of the things I would say to someone who's trying to figure out how to thrive, how to be elite, is, what are you trying to be elite at? Because someone might just say their goal is to just be a good lawyer. They don't want the stress of a leadership role. They don't want to have client management or client development on their plate. They want to great be a great lawyer. And so I think the. The advice to someone in that situation would be very different than someone who wants to generate business and be a trusted advisor in a more holistic manner. Do clients and internally. And so the first thing to me is figuring out what you're looking to accomplish. I think the second thing is talking to folks who have done that and done it well and getting their ideas on how you could build, not being shy to go collect that feedback and recognizing that there's lots of different ways to thrive and to succeed. So getting advice from one person is going to be much narrower than getting advice from three to five people, where you're going to get some different perspectives and different thoughts that may ultimately be very accretive. And then the last thing which will circle back to the first question answer is once you know where you're trying to go, once you started to map it out and put a business plan or a personal plan in place, showing up and delivering on that consistently every day and doing excellent work, bringing that quality day in and day out. That's what I would sort of tell a young professional looking to set up a career and truly trying to excel. However, whatever manner they're trying to excel.
- [15:10]
A
Fantastic, David, this is so helpful. Again, we're talking to David Pivnick about developing leadership, developing excellence in your craft, in your profession. David, what a pleasure to visit with you. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. Thank you very much.
- [15:27]
B
Thanks for having me, Scott.