JCBA PRESIDENT’S PAGE Hon. Jenifer Ashford, 2023 JCBA President


or not. You can either let your brand hap- pen to you or you can be purposeful in de- veloping a brand for you. Because let’s face it, every time you in-


torney, divorce at orney….? What is your reason why? I get asked those fi rst two questions


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oſt en. My response to the fi rst (and the second when I worked as a prosecutor), I loved true crime novels in high school and knew I wanted to be a prosecutor.


read every book on the investigation and prosecution of Ted Bundy. I loved reading about the detective work and the science used to track him down and ultimately convict him of his crimes. To the second question, now that I’m a judge, I would answer “an opening came up that I felt I could do well” or “my kids were in school, and I felt I could resume full time work”. But as I read those answers, I realize those my have been motivating factors, but they aren’t my “why”. A few years back I took a leadership course through the University of Kansas. Every Tuesday for seven weeks, I spent the day with others honing our skills to be- come bet er leaders. One day focused on “branding”. What is your brand? What is your fi rm’s brand? At the beginning of the class, I struggled


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hy did you go to law school? Why did you want to be a judge, prosecutor, defense at-


teract with a client, with another at orney, with a court clerk, with a judge, with your assistant, that person develops an opin- ion about you. T at client, at orney, court clerk, judge, assistant will talk with others about their experience with you and their opinion of you and guess what, you just got a brand. An article from “Psychology Today” published June 29, 2022, by Gall Godlen, MBA, Ph.D., titled “T e Got man Ratio for Happy Relationships at Work” reported the fi ndings from a 2004 study that examined the relationship between positive/negative comments and team performance. You see back in the 1970s, Dr. John Got man and Robert Levenson conducted a study of happy and unhappy couples. T ey found the “diff erence between happy and unhap- py couples is the balance between positive and negative interactions during a confl ict. T at ‘magic ratio’ is 5 to 1. T is means that for every negative interaction during con- fl ict, a stable and happy marriage has fi ve (or more) positive interactions.”


accepting that I had a brand. I knew the City of Shawnee had a brand – “Good starts here” – but I had a brand? I’m just a prosecutor trying to do the right thing, to hold people accountable and enforce the laws. But that wasn’t true. What I learned is each of us has a brand, whether we like it


4 the barletter September/October 2023


wanted to know if that same ratio applied to work relationships. T is research conduct- ed in 2004 found “[t]he most important factor that diff erentiated the most and least successful teams was in fact the ration of positive comments to negative comments the participants made to one another.” T e highest performing teams positive to negative ratio was 5.6 positive comments for every 1 negative comment. Medium performing teams averaged 2 positive comments for every 1 negative comment. T e lowest performing teams averaged 1 positive comment for every 3 negative comments. T is study verifi ed that the “Got man Ratio” of at least fi ve positive interactions/comments for every one neg- ative interaction/comment increased satis- faction amongst those team members but also increased their productivity.


gottman.com/blog/the-magic-relathion- ship-ratio-according-science/ T e study referenced by Dr. Godlen


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tional speaker. As part of my leadership course, we watched one of his Ted Talks. Simon’s message is that every successful, innovative, impactful leader or company or organization shares a common start- ing point. T ey start with “why”. He notes that all leaders can say what their compa- ny does. Many leaders can say how their company does what they do. But only the most successful can tell you why they do it. It’s the why that sets them apart. T e why is the reason you do what you do and why people care. He goes on to say that a good “why” has


two components – a contribution and an impact. You do something to make some- thing happen. Making money is not a why per Simon – it is a result. Winning cases is not a why. Achieving large set lements is not a why. T e why is what you contrib- ute that is unique about you, what sets you apart from all other lawyers and what im- pact you wish to achieve with your contri- butions. In Simon’s Ted Talk he uses Apple as an


Simon Sinek is an author and inspira-


example of a great company who starts with why. He calls it “the Golden Circle”. He draws three circles on a piece of paper starting with a small circle and then put- ting a larger circle around that circle and then one last circle around the fi rst two circles. T e outer circle he labels “what”, the middle circle he labels “how”, and the inner circle he labels “why”. He notes that many companies start


at the outer circle and move their way in. T ese other computer companies mes- sage goes like this: we build great comput- ers (what we do), our computers have the latest technology, they are sleek, easy to use, and have beautiful graphics (how), do you want to buy one? He says what sets Apple apart is they do


the reverse. T ey start with the why. He says that Apple’s message goes something like this: everything we do and everything we make is for the purpose of challenging the status quo and to inspire our users to do the same (why), our computers have the latest technology, they are sleek, easy to use and have beautiful graphics (how),


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