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The Perfect Effort Is Not A Fiction

by with No Comment Coaching & ImplementationSystems & Processes

Fall is on the horizon. This only means one thing: movie theatres are back in the rotation for our potential family outings. Last Monday after school it was an unusually rainy, cold day, so I surprised the kids by picking them up and heading to the movies – one of our favorite, favorite things to do. Our first movie of the new season was “When the Game Stands Tall.” This film is based on the true story of the De La Salle Spartans, a high school football team from northern California. It is a moving plot about a team that didn't lose a game, not one single game, for 12 years from the early '90s to the early 2000s.  They ran their record to 151-0. This is not just another movie about football; it tells about a mission to lead boys into manhood and prep them to carry the burdens of the society into which they soon will enter.

Screen Shot 2014-10-01 at 9.21.11 AMThe foundation of the movie is Coach Bob Ladouceur’s unique coaching process, which he called “The Perfect Effort.”“Coaching is about human performance and how to get each player to realize their potential through the actualization of their individual talent,” Coach Lad once said.  “While winning is important – it is why we play the game and keep score – the emphasis is on ʻthe process,ʼ what each player must do that in aggregate leads to victory. The formula for success in team sports is simple.  The implementation of that formula is complex and is the art of human performance.”

“The game stands tall when we display the conduct and actions that not only make our life more productive but also improve our community,” he added movingly.

The Perfect Effort is more about bringing your “A” heart with your “A” game. It is about unwavering perseverance and not being defined by a loss.

Whether it is a football team, an office team, a marketing team, etc., The Perfect Effort process applies wherever you go. The singular success of a 151-0 record was created not because the De La Salle Spartans spent more hours in the gym than any other team. It was not because they fought harder than any other team. The success came from being very clear on what their individual roles were, how to integrate with each member on the team, and the impact of the whole of the process and the team organization – all with integrity and collaboration in mind, never focused on the individual. It was always about The Perfect Effort within the core values of the team first and foremost.

What I love most about movies is how they can deliver powerful messages in 120 minutes that are so relevant to our day-to-day lives. They can break through even if you’ve heard the same messages before, i.e. LWP with our unending stand for embracing of process with a team-centric approach to reaching the goal. Sometimes, most times, it takes a light, fun environment to drive the message across the goal line. 

Molly L. Hall, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.

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Rules of Vacation

by with No Comment Coaching & ImplementationSystems & ProcessesTeam Building

I’ve had a few implementation calls with a team that is 100% committed to reaching their revenue goal.  They’ve got all they need in their pipeline, marketing is producing leads, workshops are getting filled, production is keeping up as much as possible with the growth, etc.  They have such determination to reach goal that it’s been inspiring to participate in their conversations, anchor them to the LWP tools and support them.

Bigstock-Happy-couple-on-the-beach-of-s-49742783At this point, the key to their success lies in creating and committing to the old 40-40-20 time split.  You know, the “40% lead generation/lead conversion, 40% revenue-producing activity, 20% firm development” ratio.  The hardest part is the reality of making it happen AND holding each other accountable that they are doing what they committed to on their time template.  So, to make sure they were on the same page, communicating and setting standards and ensuring that their intentions were set in stone, they created their firm's “Rules of Engagement.” 

This had such an impact on the team that they decided to take their rules a step further.  When talking together and planning for the upcoming vacation for the attorney, the team created some “Rules of Vacation” to make sure he took some much-needed time away without having to worry about the office during his absence.    

What’s great about it is they had fun, but they also set standards for what will and will not take place on vacation.  They gave permission to check in with the office, but only at certain times and for specific reasons, and that leads to boundaries and standards.  The rules also make certain that he is present with his family during the time away.  My favorites are #’s 7 & 8:

ATTORNEY RULES OF VACATION 

  1. Vacation means vacation – trust your team – you have the right people in the right places – they have your back when you are in the office at all times – they will have your back when you are out of the office at all times!!!
  2. Vacation begins at 5:01 P.M. on ________, 2014.  Your spouse has permission to call at 5:02 P.M. to make sure you are on your way home.  You have permission to work until 9:00 P.M.  on the day prior to your vacation starting, if you choose, in order to “clear the decks.”
  3. Attorney may not call the office unless it is in response to a 911 text, email or voicemail from the team.
  4. Attorney may check and respond to emails at assigned times approved by spouse once in the morning and once in the evening so that they don’t have anxiety about it throughout the day. 
  5. Attorney MUST at all times be on vacation.A
  6. ttorney MUST at all times have fun.
  7. Attorney MUST at all times be present to the family.
  8. The family MUST make attorney put on either Mickey Mouse ears or a princess crown and send that picture to the team for future blackmail and accountability purposes.
  9. Attorney MUST tell himself or herself every day that this vacation will not be a repeat of any dreaded prior vacations and remember what a great workplace we have created to permit such a vacation. 
  10. Attorney MUST not call the office 100 times a day!
  11. The family MUST hold attorney accountable for any deviation from items 1 through 10 and attorney MUST be willing to accept and suffer the consequences for breaking any of the rules.  (The team suggests letting the grandchildren make grandpa into their favorite princess, including putting on make-up, and sending those pictures to the team to provide ample incentive to obey rules 1 to 9.)
  12. Attorney MUST get the initials of family members as proof that they  went over the Rules of Vacation together and had fun doing it.

I, _________________, acknowledge that I have read and understand the above Rules of Vacation. 

Attorney signature ______________________________

I know we are winding down vacation season and headed back to school and then quickly into the holidays. But grab onto these rules and make them your own and empower your team to communicate so you can power down on that next get away – whenever it is!

If you want to learn more about Lawyers With Purpose and how we can help you take your next vacation AND generate revenue, join us October 20-22nd in Phoenix, AZ, for our Practice With Purpose Program. Click here to register today!  Seats are filling fast and October is right around the corner so grab your seat now.  If you're a member and would like to come to the Practice With Purpose Program, please contact Angela directly at acrowther@lawyerswithpurpose.com.

Roslyn Drotar – Coaching, Consulting & Implementation, Lawyers With Purpose

Pipeline

It’s Time To Report!

by with No Comment Coaching & ImplementationLegal MarketingSystems & Processes

As a former school teacher I’ve had ample opportunity to be on both sides of reports cards – both getting grades, and giving them.  When we were children, report cards are handed out primarily for our parents’ benefit.  The further we go with our education, the less grading is for parents, but to give us as adults, a means to measure our successes … or failures.

Even though most of us have finished our formal education, and few of us measure our progress through life with grades, we continue to use numbers to measure our successes and achievements.

“How many pounds have I lost on this diet?  How many days have I gone without smoking?  How many miles did I walk?  How much did I earn this year compared to years past?”

We know that an essential key to success is writing down one’s goals.  But those who are successful also document their progress in a consistent way, so that their path to success can be adjusted if need be.

The Pipeline Focuser™, one of the LWP Five Key Focusers, provides a format to document weekly progress by tracking: 1) the number of initial or vision meetings scheduled each week; 2) the outcome of each of those meetings; and, 3) the total dollar amount of engagement agreement value for the week.

The Pipeline Focuser™ is probably the least understood focuser of the Five Key Focusers.  But the information it captures documents an important aspect of your firm’s growth and is directly reflected in your monthly revenue.

PipelineTake a look at the sample, completed through the end of the week.  Note how the focuser reflects the meetings on the firm’s calendar.  This focuser is ready to be reviewed by the team in their weekly staff meeting, together with the focuser for next week, which will show the potential new clients and matters for next week.  It will also indicate which prospects did not engage, and what further action may be needed (see the Follow-up Focuser™).  Here is your firm’s weekly report card.

If your firm is not currently tracking this information, either through the Pipeline Focuser™, or some other system, I hope you will make this a part of your firm culture going forward.  

If you want to learn more about Lawyers With Purpose and are interested in attending our Practice With Purpose Program to learn more about Medicaid, Asset Protection and VA, click here to register today to reserve your spot.  We'll see you in Phoenix in October!

Nedra, Catale – Coaching, Consulting & Implementation, Lawyers With Purpose

Mom

Marketing Lessons From Mom

by with No Comment Coaching & ImplementationLegal Marketing

You know how you become a parent and one day you hear those same words come out of your own mouth that you heard from your own parents when you were growing up?  There’s that moment of total shock when you realize that YOU’VE BECOME YOUR MOM!

One of my mom’s favorite sayings is “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

Only now, as an adult, do I totally understand what she meant.

MomAs an Implementation Coach, I am constantly coaching firms who, with the best of intentions, began a Relationship Management System, scheduling Synergy Meetings right and left.  Perhaps they made a great first impression.  They made a lot of promises, handed over a folder of materials, and … didn’t follow up.

Now, six months, a year, three years later the law firm must deal with a wounded relationship.  They must decide whether to attempt relationship CPR or chalk the relationship up as a DOA and move on. 

When the law firm is located in a smaller community, this situation is even more painful.  There are fewer potential synergy partners in a smaller pond to pick from and, in a smaller pond, word can spread quickly that your firm doesn’t live up to its promises.

What can a firm do to revitalize a failed relationship?

Step 1.  Determine the potential value of the relationship.  Long ago you met with this professional.  Were you impressed with their resources, business approach and openness to work with you? On a scale of 1-10 how did that first meeting – the Synergy meeting – end?  Was the failure to move the relationship forward the result of lack of follow-through by you and/or your team, or was the failure to thrive a result of lack of follow-through on the part of the other party?  If your take on the meeting scored fairly high and if the failure was a result of lack of attention on the part of you and/or your team, proceed to Step 2.

Step 2. Apologize.  It’s amazing to me what a heartfelt apology can accomplish! If you see the potential in the relationship, and regret your lack of follow-through, then say so, ask for a second chance, and promise to do it right this time.  Be ready to follow through – most people won’t give you a third chance.

Step 3.  Keep your promises.  Integrity is a matter of keeping your word, even to the point of never being late for an appointment and meeting deadlines.  Honor your word, and you and your firm will become known in your community as a firm with total integrity.

These are all things my mother taught me, but life has continued to teach me. And yes, I hope that I will pass them on down to my own children…even if I do find myself sounding just like my mom!

If you want to learn more about marketing for your estate planning / elder law practice, please join us for our Asset Protection, Medicaid & VA Practice With Purpose Program in Phoenix.  Click the link and register today!  This WILL sell out!

Nedrea Catale – Implementation Coach, Lawyers With Purpose

Snausage

What’s Your Snausage?

by with 3 Comments Coaching & Implementation

My dogs are great!  They’re beautiful, smart, loving and fairly obedient.  (OK, your dogs are all right, too.)  But my dogs are great!!

SnausageWhen Samantha was a puppy, her favorite treats were “Snausages.”  I haven’t seen them on the market in a while and we long ago moved on to other treats, but Snausages were a hard act to follow.   My younger daughter taught Sam to roll over for a Snausage and just taking the bag out of the panty would cause Sam to stop, drop and roll …. over and over and over without stopping until she was rewarded.

Sam’s love for Snausages prompted a philosophical family discussion that I still find fascinating.  The question is – “What is your Snausage?”

So picture this – me, literally stopping, dropping and rolling across the floor over and over again … for what?  My Snausage for a long time was my mom’s hot apricot cobbler with a scoop of Breyer’s Home-Made Vanilla ice cream on top.   But in recent years I’ve tried to stop making my life about food as a reward, and to focus on “feeding” my inner child, or should I say “dog,” in other ways.

I’ve discovered that the best rewards are not the ones I give myself, but the ones that are given to me from others.  And I’ve discovered that other people feel the same way.  So how can I give you a Snausage?

First, I need to discover what you really want and need, and then figure out how to give it to you.

As implementation coaches, we often suggest that teams review The 5 Languages of Appreciation by doctors Gary Chapman and Paul White.  Chapman and White have been incredibly generous to share their quiz on line, together with a brief interpretation of the results.   Have your team members take just a few minutes to go through the quiz, and share the results in a team meeting.  You’ll discover the best way to motivate and appreciate each member.

Then share this story, and just for fun … ask them what their “Snausage” is.

I’d love to hear from you!  Drop me a line at ncatale@lawyerswithpurpose.com with “Snausage” as the subject.  What’s your “Snausage?”

Nedra Catale – Coaching, Consulting & Implementation, Lawyers With Purpose

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Compassion Fatigue

by with No Comment Coaching & ImplementationTeam Building

“You have a clean slate every day you wake up. You have a chance every single morning to make that change and be the person you want to be. You just have to decide to do it. Decide today’s the day. Say it; this is going to be my day.” ~ Brendon Burchard


The emotional, physical and financial needs of our world can be undoubtedly overwhelming. As we become more and more comfortable with the vision, design and signing meetings, we then begin to move fully into and embrace the counseling side of serving in the estate and elder law industry. With this comes the journey of compassion:

  1. We will feel for people in pain – even people we don’t know personally.
  2. We will want people to be encouraged and hopeful – even people we don’t know personally.
  3. We will seek to help people practically – even people we don’t know personally.

Bigstock-Man-pushing-a-boulder-on-a-mou-56958671Beyond the "conference room," you will begin to find that you are naturally feeling this and wanting to do it. Once you gain knowledge in the tools, competency in the legal technical and confidence in your team, you will begin to lead and guide from a place of compassion. And this is how you attract people to your office, without even trying. Your ability to actively listen and solve problems is utterly absent from your competition. And everyone sees it.  So your calendar begins to fill up with potential money appointments:  Initial contacts increase (yay!), vision meetings increase (yay x2!), your hire rate increases (yay x3!).

But if there is not time in your calendar to “empty your backpack” of all compassion – stories, grief, troubles and struggles that you get to solve all day (not to mention the employees waiting at your door in-between all these fantastic meetings) – you will be burdened. Imagine a backpack filled with the heaviest cinderblocks you can imagine. At some point, you have to put the backpack down or else you’ll break your back. That's compassion fatigue.

In an unrelenting world of constant giving and solving, filled with back-to-back appointments and very little breathing space, it eventually becomes impossible to “muscle through” week in and week out. Then we start to see our initial/vision and hire rates decrease because that bountiful compassion has turned into resentment and frustration. And we might tell ourselves, “The lucky streak has ended,” but as humans we are just not conditioned to continue at that pace without operating at a deficit.

We have to refill our tireless giving “compassion account.” When your reserves are in deficit, you can’t truly give.  Here are some quick suggestions for how to refuel your compassion account, “empty your backpack” and let go of all the emotional stuff you picked up throughout the day. This should take no more than five minutes at the end of each day to allow you to hit the ground running the next day with a full account:

  • Get a journal or notebook and keep it at your bedside.
  • At the end of your day, download all the stories you picked up from the day: prospective clients, existing clients, referral sources, client complaints, employee issues, even whatever may have hit you personally at home, because all compassion and heartache are created equal. 
  • Jot down the NAME (Smith case, Sally the receptionist, my son Timmy.)
  • What the story/situation was. Keep it simple and don’t make it into a dissertation. Just brain dump the emotionality of what occurred. This part is important: Connect and dump the emotional compassion that occurred in order for you to truly unload the backpack.
  • What did you provide in regards to coaching, conflict resolution, counseling, etc. to provide value? It is equally important for you to get the WIN in it, to know you were part of holding a safe space for X to have a breakthrough in that moment with the resources you had.
  • Then detach and let it go, and write down, “My job is not to rescue. My expertise in helping X was more than enough for today. I am not responsible for the circumstance, only for coaching the person. This is no longer mine to carry.” 
  • Celebrate the victories and share them with the team.  Acknowledge what you have done as a huge accomplishment.  Give yourself kudos – don’t minimize what you’ve done.
  • Pretend you’re a duck!  When you are in a leadership role – and you are as an entrepreneur and intrapreneur – you will take hits.  You've got to let them roll off your skin, just like a duck lets water roll off its feathers.  Work this muscle until you see the results.
  • Build “pause” time in your calendar to reframe yourself between appointments.  Use that time to do something for yourself, to make deposits into your compassion account.  Doing this will allow you to always “show up” genuine and prepared, with your clients feeling heard and you feeling confident.

You will begin to notice how much compassion was actually turning to clenching for your clients, which is a circumstance that creates undue pressure on us to “deliver.” Yes, you have to deliver on your promises (planning, etc.), but when the delivery becomes all about the person's circumstance vs. about the person, which we all do day in and day out, that blocks the unpacking of the backpack to eliminate the compassion fatigue.

If your interested in joining us in Chicago, book your flights now!  There are still just a few seats left so register today and be in the room to experience what the Practice With Purpose Program is about and what we have to offer.

Molly L. Hall, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.

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Equanimity – Lawyers With Purpose

by with No Comment Team Building

There is a famous quote by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr that says, “God, give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.” 

For the past three years in the month of January, I have enrolled in a 40 day challenge through my yoga studio. The premise of the challenge is based on the book “40 Days to a Personal Revolution” by Baron Baptiste. The 40 day program integrates physical, nutritional and mental exercises, all with the goal of leading us to a place of greater clarity and presence. I have yet to complete the 40 day challenge and come out as the same person I was at the beginning.

Bigstock-Take-A-Break-46486348Throughout the program we work with Baptiste's “12 Laws of Transformation.” This week we are working with “Equanimity.”

 

Baptiste explains equanimity as “the art of meeting life as it meets you – calmly, without drama or fuss.” It got me thinking about the day-to-day life of working in a small/non-corporate/family-like office environment. It’s impossibly easy to get reactive when we feel like we aren’t in control. It happens in a million small (and big) ways throughout the day. You overhear the DOFI (LWP terms = "Director of First Impressions") telling the client X, the boss takes his or her lack of X out on the team, our kids act up, we have a slammed day with tons of money appointments on the books when a snowstorm shuts down the town. We react. And it all has a trickle-down effect with an endless cycle of stress, reactivity and blame. But we don’t get out of the cycle by wrestling for control. It’s all in how we handle it.

We think we can change things by taking charge, by “grabbing the bull by the horns.” But, as Baptiste says, “If you think about it, grabbing a bull by the horns would be a crazy thing to do.” We change by finding equanimity and learning to relax right in the middle of conflict-filled moments. And THAT is where those in our lives mirror what they witness. There is a saying you hear endlessly at LWP, “So go the coach, so go the coachee.”

We all known there are innumerable things we cannot change – we all witness that too many times throughout our day. I am learning this week, through working on equanimity, that when I give myself the permission to stop and pause, to be still, I actually do have the ability to accept the things I cannot change. With the team member I have been personally investing my time to “coach” and realizing I want it more than she does,  I am able to instantly and humbly admit that willpower and ego are ultimately ineffective over the reality. And then I let go. And in essence, that is equanimity. It is the way out of frustration and force. I’m learning – IN REAL TIME – this week that resisting and control only lead to more struggle, and I am experiencing how to move through them from a less reactive space. No matter what arises.

 Here’s a question: Can you see yourself as the person on a sinking ship who maintains composure, allowing you to help save the lives of others on board? I invite you to stop and power down for a few minutes and jot down where you may be holding on a bit too tightly for control, which is always harder and much more work. And think about where you can find equanimity. Because the power to do so can summon courage and save lives – yours, your team's, your business's and those of everyone you impact in your community.

Molly L. Hall, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.