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May 2008, Issue #24

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In this issue:

Breakdowns & Train Wrecks In Law Practice Management

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I was reminded of how human minds work this last month when a law practice management project a client of mine was working on with his vendor suddenly went awry and a “train wreck” occurred. I thought about how we needed to work on “breakdown technology” so we don’t have a train wreck again in the future since train wrecks almost always make matters worse and not better. Breakdowns also do uncover what is missing so they are not all bad by the way.

Let’s define some terms first. What is a breakdown? If something happens in the workplace that has you feeling angry, frustrated, disgusted or some other negative emotion or you think something bad has happened with yourself, colleagues, partners, one of your employees or vendors then that is a breakdown. If there is a goal in mind (like servicing clients and making money) then something that gets in the way of that would be a breakdown. What is a train wreck? That is when you make something bad that has happened worse by how you handle the breakdown.

So let’s start at the beginning of our train wreck. I am reminded about a quote from author and physician Ron Smothermon, M.D. that goes as follows:

“The mind is an organ system that includes all of the physical being. The purpose of the mind is to survive and be right. To these ends it will do anything. “

And that my friend is where the train wreck begins. The mind creates reasons, excuses and justifications to make itself right, usually with little or no thought – the term is “automaticity” in the psychotherapy field. The mind wants to be right and makes the other person wrong, the mind wants to win and have the other person lose and the mind wants to think it is good and the other person is bad. Especially in the heat of the moment since this is the time where a train wreck is most likely to occur. The mind makes the other person wrong, lose and bad so it can be right, win and be good - often if even the facts do not support the case. In fact the mind usually does not stop at the term “bad” it makes things awful, horrible, terrible, catastrophic and just should (now should is another “hot” word as well) not be which just fuels the fires even more to the coming train wreck. The truth about a law practice management breakdown situation is when you analyze the breakdown there are three factors (habitual mind sets that are hard wired in the mind) in every breakdown as follows:

1. What is wrong with me?
2. What is wrong with you?
3. What is wrong with it?

In the order listed above, that is how my mind automatically goes when the breakdown happens. My mind always defaults first to “what did I do wrong so this happened?” It is like I am being sent to the principal’s office for doing something wrong but I have no idea what – at least until I think it through carefully and objectively. Unlike my mind, your mind might default first to “what is wrong with you so this breakdown happened”. Others might go to “what is wrong with it” (“it” = the system you are in – it is not my fault or your fault it is “the system’s” fault). Now in my client’s situation his mind seemed to have gone straight to “what is wrong with you” and the train wreck occurred. It did not help that the vendor’s mind also went straight to “what is wrong with you” first so we had an even bigger train wreck. Naturally there was a big fight with two minds wanting to be right, win and make the other person bad. This really served no one where they made each other “wrong, lose, and bad.” Oh, and of course my mind was asking what is wrong with me when I first heard that this train wreck had happened.

If you look at any breakdown objectively in law practice management you will almost always find the breakdown occurred because something happened in all three areas listed above. No matter how you slice it you will find you had something to do with causing the breakdown and the other party or parties are not the only ones with responsibility for the breakdown. In fact the others may have none. Looking at breakdowns you and/or I can almost always see where you as an entrepreneur, manager or person had some responsibility in causing the breakdown. Of course having a coach in this situation is of added value. After all human beings do have an area of “don’t know what they don’t know,” the knowing of which makes all the difference in the world. Maybe what I am talking about here is at least close to the concept of mitigating circumstances in law. Then by profession I am a psychotherapist not an attorney.

Here are a common few causes of breakdowns traced to you in no particular order:

1. You did not communicate clearly your wants, needs or expectations.
2. You have not designed systems well and/or have no systems in place that guide the processes and actions of your team.
3. Your communications leave room for the listener to infer things in what you said or wrote that you did not imply or intend.
4. You have not trained your team adequately.
5. You hired someone that is a marginal employee at best and you continue to keep them on board in spite of poor performance. Sometimes you have let personal feelings override good business principles.
6. You don’t pay top dollar for superior staff. What some would say is penny wise and pound foolish.
7. Your expectations are out of line about what can be accomplished by your team given the realities of your workplace or their level of skill. Maybe you don’t have enough team or the right team.
8. You don’t encourage your team to challenge your thinking, tell you what you don’t want to hear and tell you what is not working in your practice.

Don’t believe me or want to challenge this model? Then call me up the next time there is a breakdown and let’s talk about it and see where we come out using the model. We will examine A = what happened; B = what your thoughts/beliefs are about what happened so that C = you felt and behaved in a certain way. I will support you in disputing and evaluating your thoughts and beliefs at point “B” in an objective way as well as look at all three of the breakdown factors. Take me up on my offer here:

http://www.law-firm-marketing-coach.com/contact.html

This model of the ABCs of feelings and behavior with the “D” for dispute and “E” for evaluate was created by a psychologist named Albert Ellis, PhD in the 1950s. If you would like a PDF graphical representation of the model just email me and I will send it to you. Albert Ellis is considered one of the most influential psychotherapists in all history. He passed away in 2007 at the age of 93. If you want to learn more about Dr. Ellis go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Ellis.

Law firm marketing and law practice management is really as simple as ABC with some D & E added. If you would like to learn more about putting systems in place to prevent breakdowns and train wrecks go pick up my complimentary 7 part email course on “How To Increase Law Firm Productivity” here:

www.law-firm-marketing-coach.com/time-management-series.html

Comments, ideas, questions or topics you would like to see addressed in future newsletters? I would love to hear from you. Just reply to this newsletter and tell me what you think.

To your success,

Henry Harlow
Founder, www.Law-Firm-Marketing-Coach.com

PS: Get your #1 attorney marketing problem solved today. Spend complimentary quality time with me on the telephone. Details online at:

www.Law-Firm-Marketing-Coach.com/contact.html.