A couple weeks ago, I was at the Association of Legal Administrators conference.  On a number of occasions I heard about the topic of silos and individuals when discussing what is happening in law firms.  I’ve also seen this in many of the law firms that I’ve visited with over the past 10 years.

Consequently, as I have developed the Pathway to Success model for achieving goals I purposely put the word teamwork into the template.  Here is what I picture as the ideal team and how it would work in a law firm.

Maybe the place to start is looking at why working as a team matters.  Well, studies over the past several years have shown that people who work as team are able to accomplish more than those who work individually. I find that when a firm is working in silos and its focus is on the individual, ideas are not shared, and problems that are happening don’t get addressed.

This is because everyone is more concerned about their own work, leadership and training of other people in the firm doesn’t happen, and the list could go on. But you get the point.

Developing a team mentality will help your firm achieve your goals.  When teams work together problems can be solved, ideas are shared, associates are mentored, paralegals get all of the information they need to do their jobs, and so on.  Each of these has an outcome that leads to higher productivity and greater profitability.

So next time you think about what your practice should look like consider the benefits of having a team working together to achieve your goals.

Last week I was at the Annual ALA conference and had a great time meeting with people. At the conference I gave out gratitude journals because gratitude helps people be happier, healthier and smarter.

Another great side effect of gratitude is that it helps you gain respect at a faster rate. The key to moving forward on the Pathway to Success is having respect for yourself and for your team.

So you may be asking why respect matters. The reason why respect matters is that we need to work together to get to our goals.

Have you ever been in a situation where you work with someone you don’t trust or respect?

It’s hard to achieve your goals if you don’t respect the people around you to do the job that needs to be done. We end up micromanaging them to ensure that the job is done right. This makes it harder to achieve our goals and wastes precious time.

Last Friday I presented at the 13th annual Elder Law Conference on getting to what matters most. So why do this presentation?

Too many practices are struggling to do what is the most important. And the reason has nothing to do with the fact that they are trying to do the wrong thing. It has everything to do with needing a different structure that allows the attorney to have the focus they need.

My presentation lays out the leadership structure that is needed to get you to what matters most.

Over the next nine weeks my blog posts will be devoted to my Pathway to Success system that walks a firm through the entire process. Then next year I will be releasing a book called, “The Pathway to Success.”

I look forward to connecting with you and learning from you what is working and what isn’t working in your practice.

You’re busy in your practice and working 60+ hours a week. You’re probably thinking, “I’m worn out.  I’m ready for a change.  Yet work keeps piling on, which is great because the cash flow keeps coming in.”

But think about the things that you’re missing. Wouldn’t be nice to get home before 8:00 at night?  Wouldn’t it be nice to have weekend off?  This sounds like a pipe dream right? This is just the way it works.  It’s the way it has worked for the past 100 years.  Attorneys just plain and simply have to work this hard. It’s a badge of honor.

But what about the cost? Sure the income is great, but it’s hard to find the time to spend it. You’ve missed more activities with your family than you care to count.

The good news is that there is a better way. And it starts with understanding how decisions work in your firm. Take, for example, the last time you went or someone you love went in for surgery.  Did the surgeon prep you for surgery?  Did the surgeon make sure that your papers were filled out before hand?  Did the surgeon wheel you out of surgery and take you to recovery?

Absolutely not!  They performed the surgery, they made sure that they did the technical procedures that they spent time training for.  They also have systems in place for training their staff.

Now think of your office. When is the last time you had to deal with a bill or make sure that the client was called? If you are still dealing with things that don’t require your experience then guess what? You are the bottleneck in your firm.

So how do you go from being the bottleneck to the person that only deals with problems that require your expertise?  The answer is through systems and procedures. You create an environment where your staff knows what decisions they can make and the decisions that they need your help with.  The reality is that you are making the same decisions over and over again, which is causing you to work weekends and evenings.

Most people look for a silver bullet to help them shave off 20 hours out of the work week. But there is no silver bullet. In order to shave off 20 hours you have to start with 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there. And one of the places to start is to teach your staff how to make the right decisions and have a process to ensure that it gets done.

So the next time you get pulled away from doing a critical task, take a moment and think about whether you should have to answer the same question every time or if you could do like we did for our other clients and put a process in place to help your staff know what decisions they can make.

Has this ever happened to you? You thought you trained a team member to do a job a certain way, but the results were not what you intended.  If this is the case for you then you should understand some different training methods.  They are listed in the order of least effective to most effective.

1. The sink and swim method  – You ask a person to do a job and then expect them to get it done and if they don’t make it then you just reassign them to something else or worse let them go.
2. The benevolent sink and swim method – It’s similar to the first sink and swim, but you just continue to let them plow through the tasks and hope they get it right someday.  You believe they will get the task done and there is no threat of being fired.
3. Written instructions on how to do the job, now go and do it – This is getting better. At least they have instructions on how to do their job.  But in many cases they still are sure exactly what to do because the instructions aren’t necessarily clear and they are hard to understand.
4. Watch – Do Together – Ask Questions –  In this type of training you actually sit down with the person to show them how to do the task. Then you do the task together.  Next, they do the task on their own with the ability to continue to get feedback on what is working.  You also have instructions that are clear on what needs to be done.

The reality is that the effort you put in to training your team member is critical to your success.  If you aren’t training them with the best practices possible you’re setting them up for failure.