Are your customers, or your employees, always right?
For another worthwhile read this morning, check out the Top 5 Reasons Why "The Customer is Always Right" is Wrong from the Chief Happiness Officer Blog. Reason Number 4, it results in worse customer service:
[W]hen you put the employees first, they putthe customers first. Put employees first, and they will be happy atwork. Employees who are happy at work give better customer servicebecause:
- They care more about other people, including customers
- They have more energy
- They are happy, meaning they are more fun to talk to and interact with
- They are more motivated
On the other hand, when the company and management consistently sidewith customers instead of with employees, it sends a clear message that:
- Employees are not valued
- That treating employees fairly is not important
- That employees have no right to respect from customers
- That employees have to put up with everything from customers
When this attitude prevails, employees stop caring about service. Atthat point, real good service is almost impossible - the best customerscan hope for is fake good service. You know the kind I mean: courteouson the surface only.
Do you put your customers first, or your employees?
Need a Vacation?
Brad Feld has a great recap of the ways he takes time off to recharge, including a quarterly, week-long vacation and semi-regular weekend getaway:
Go Dark Weekend: When I find myself feeling burned out, Ido a go dark weekend. I turn off my computer and cell phone at 6pm onFriday night and don't turn it back on until 5am Monday morning. Icancel anything that is scheduled for the weekend and just do whateverI feel like doing. This is usually a once a quarter event;occasionally more frequently depending on how busy I am. I'mconsidering doing this around each of my marathon weekends also.
Anyone reading this feeling burned out? How about "going dark" this weekend and reconnecting with your kids?
Got Anxious Clients?
Think about it. Every client who enters a lawyer's office is anxious. In fact, they'd probably prefer going to the dentist. That's why this article on How to Deal with Anxious People is important reading. It sets out some research, with some valuable tips for deciphering visual cues, that every lawyer should know. Here's why:
The more you talk over or at anxious people, the more pressure youput on their middle brain and the more they will close their minds towhat you are saying.
Alternatively, the more you talk to an anxious person -- or even better yet, with them -- the more you alleviate that pressure and the easier it is to access their upper brain and open their minds to you.Here's a critical point, though: the approach you may think you aretaking in a conversation with an anxious person may not be the approachthe other person perceives.
Also worth remembering when you are confronted with that big guy in the bar who accuses you of cheating at pool.
Notice What's Right Before Fixing What's Wrong
So often, we focus (obsess?) on fixing what's wrong with our selves, our families or our businesses. For a week, try to focus instead on what's right. Make a list of the three things that are the "right-est." Take your three things and do just one thing this week to make them even better. Challenge your family, friends, staff and even clients to do the same. You can always go back to worrying next week.
How to Run Your Law Firm Like a Startup ... or Not.
Jason Calcanis heads up Mahalo, a human-powered search engine. In this post, widely circulating around the tech/startup blogosphere, Jason gives 17 tips on saving money while running a startup that will (I didn't say should) surely resonate with some BigLaw managing partners. Some of his "really good" ideas (since toned down a bit in an update to the post):
- Buy everyone lunch four days a week and establish a no-meetingspolicy. Going out for food or ordering in takes at least 20-60 minutesmore than walking up to the buffet and eating. If you do meetings overlunch you also save that time. So, 30 minutes a day across say fourdays a week is two hours a week... which is 100 hours a year. You getthe idea.
- Don'tbuy a phone system. No one will use it. No one at Mahalo has a deskphone except the admin folks. Everyone else is on IRC, chat, and theircell phone. Everyone has a cell phone, folks would rather get calls onit, and 99% of communication is NOT on the phone. Savings? At least$500 a year per person... 50 people over three years? $75-100k
- Buyyour hardest working folks computers for home. If you have folks whoare willing to work an extra hour a day a week you should get them acomputer for home. Once you get to three hours of work a week from homeyou're at 150 hours a year and that's a no brainer. Invest in equipment*if* the person is a workaholic.
- Fire people who are not workaholics
... come on folks, this is startup life, it's not a game. Don't work at a startup if you're not into it. Go work at the post office or stabucks if you're want balance in your life for realz. - Getan expensive, automatic espresso machine at the office. Going tostarbucks twice a day cost $4 each time, but more importantly it costs20 minutes. Buy a $3-5,000 Jura industrial,get the good beans, and supply the coffee room with soy, low fat, etc.50 people making one trip a day is 20 hours of wasted time for thecompany, and $150 in coffee costs for the employees. Makes no sense.
- Stock the fridge with sodas---same drill as above.
Sound like BigLaw to you? Well, except for the awesome coffee machine. That's not a cost like copies that you can pass on to clients.
This Speech Sponsored by ...
My pal JoAnna Forshee has (finally) started to do some blogging at her new venture InsideLegal. She recently hosted the InsideLegal Summit, and it appears to have been a fantastic success. The one topic that really caught my eye was the debate surrounding the "Pay to Speak" trend. What is Pay to Speak? It is when conferences (like LegalTech*) allow vendors to "sponsor" a conference track. The controversy, which has been brewing in the legal conference industry for a while, is over what level of control the vendors have over their sponsored track, and what responsibility conference organizers have to disclose that control.
Why is this a big deal? If a (fictional) company XYZ Discovery Solutions pays $25,000 to sponsor the "Electronic Discovery" track at a conference, what do they get for their investment? More specifically:
- Does XYZ get to pick the topics for the track?
- Does XYZ get to choose the track's speakers, favoring those who sell or promote XYZ products, and excluding other speakers who don't?
- Does XYZ have a responsibility to present information the attendees want to hear instead of information they want attendees to hear?
If the answers to any of these questions are yes, do the attendees know that the "CLE accredited" sessions they attend are given by a hand-picked rosterof sponsor-friendly speakers? And are any CLE accreditation rules compromised?
Right now, the answers to these questions aren't clear, and I'm sure each conference organizer and each sponsor approach the "sponsored track" differently. I don't think the sponsored track should go away, but I do think some disclosure is in order. Just as lawyers must avoid actual or apparent conflicts of interest (which in some cases can waived by agreement), conference organizers must recognize the inherent conflicts that arise when a for-profit vendor sponsors, designs and staffs a CLE accredited, "educational" session
At a minimum, the conference must disclose whether the speakers in a sponsored track are chosen by the conference or by the sponsoring vendor, and whether those speakers are paid by the vendor.
I applaud JoAnna and her InsideLegal partner Jobst, for getting this out in the open. Your comments are welcome.
* I use LegalTech as an example here only because I know they have sponsored tracks, and the InsideLegal Summit happened in NYC at the same time of LegalTech. I don't know what the vendors get for their investment and what rules (if any) LegalTech places on the speakers or the content in those sponsored tracks.
(How) Do You Take Credit?
Here's a great idea for ways to remember the folks who've helped you along the way, from this post on How to Take Credit:
So when the time comes to take the stage, remember that you didn’t get here alone: go ahead, grab the microphone and acknowledge your team. Do it before a crowd and in e-mail. Say it with bonuses and baked goods -- but be sure to say it. No one likes to be left out. By sharing the credit the right way, you won't diminish your own accomplishments, you'll add to them by building a reputation as the kind of person people want to work for and for your focus on developing others.Not sure whom to credit? In their book, Becoming a Resonant Leader, Annie McKee, Richard Boyatzis and Frances Johnston suggest keeping running lists of peers who have helped you along your route to success -- along with notes about what you actually learned from them. Keeping such a list will likely help ensure that you don’t forget them in your acceptance speech.
I really like the idea of keeping a running list of people who've helped you along with a note or two about how they've helped. This is a pretty powerful way to not only remember how you've gotten to where you are, but to also remind you to give help to others who seek it from you. More on this in the next post.
Kill Your Projects, Not Your Clients
Here's an interesting idea from Scott Young that may just help with your growing to-do list: Set up a Project Kill Day. In short, you schedule a distraction-free, off-site day to "kill" off one of your projects. Check out the entire post for his step-by-step guide.
Not sure which projects you have that merit an entire day? Try writing down the first client-related task you think of in the morning and the last one you think about before bed. If it is the same one for more than a day or two, kill it before it kills you!
An Interview with Me
Just in case you're interested, here's a link to an interview I did about innovation, law practice and becoming a former lawyer. It's here if you'd like a listen:
Build a Better Firm Workbook
While I finish the e-book, I thought I'd share a workbook of sorts thatI've been using as a handout when I speak to groups about buildinginnovative law practices. I hope you like it.
Think REAL Big: Ten Ways to Build a Better Firm. (Download pdf)
Boise, Idaho ... Here I Come!
I'm going to be in Boise, Idaho on Monday (November 5) to speak about innovation for lawyers to the Idaho Bar Association. If you are in the neighborhood (and really, who isn't?) come on by.
15 Thoughts for Law Students: A Mini-Manifesto
I've written a few mini-manifestos for clients and lawyers before and remain quite enamored with the format. Here's one for law students with some random (semi-related) thoughts on law school and the legal profession. Let me know what you think, and feel free to add your own in the comments.
1. Law school is a trade school. The only people who don't believe this to be true are the professors and deans.
2. Want to piss off your professors? Ask them if they've ever run a successful law practice.
3. Being good at writing makes you a good law student. Being good atunderstanding makes you a good lawyer. Being good at arguing makes youan ass.
4. You can learn more about client service by working at Starbucks for three weeks than you can by going to law school for three years.
5. Law school doesn't teach you to think like a lawyer. Law schoolteaches you to think like a law professor. Believe me, there's a hugedifference.
6. You can get through law school without understanding anything about what it is like to be a lawyer. That is a terrible shame.
7. The people who will help you the most in your legal career aresitting next to you in class. Get to know them outside of law school.They are pretty cool people. They are even cooler when you stop talking about the Rule Against Perpetuities.
8. Your reputation as a lawyer begins now. Don't screw it up (and quitbragging on your MySpace page about how drunk you got last night).
9. Law is a precedent-based profession. It doesn't have to be a precedent-based business. Be prepared to challenge the prevailing business model. Somebody has to.
10. Experienced lawyers work with clients. Young lawyers work with paper. You like working with paper, right?
11. You are about to enter a world where getting your work done in half the time as your peers doesn't get you rewarded. It gets you more work.
12. Except for prosecutors and public defenders, nobody tries cases anymore. Especially not second year associates.
13. You have a choice: You can help people and make a decent living, or you can help corporations and make a killing. Choose wisely.
14. There are plenty of things you don't know, and even more things you'llnever know. Get used to it. Use your ignorance to your benefit. Themost significant advantage you possess over those who've come beforeyou is that you don't believe what they do.
15. People don't tell lawyer jokes just because they think they are funny. They tell lawyer jokes because they think they are true. Spend your career proving them wrong.
Web 2.0 Replaces Lawyers Again?
Brian Benzinger at Solution Watch writes about a new service called Tractis, which "allows you tonegotiate and execute worldwide legally binding contracts online." Significantly, the service also has sort of a contracts wiki that allows folks to upload contracts and templates that can be edited, commented upon, tagged and shared. Very cool/scary for lawyers. Find out for yourself and take the tour.
The Mobile Lawyer 2.0
It has been a long while since I've been so WOW'd by a business model as I've been this morning. Simply put, this is the BEST template I've seen for building a home-based practice from, of all people, a physician. Dr. Jay Parkinson, MD is building a web-based medical practice. From his website:
- I AM A NEW KIND OF PHYSICIAN.
- I strictly make house calls either at your home or work.
- Once you become my patient and I've personally met you, we can also e-visit by video chat, IM and email for certain problems and follow-ups.
- I'm based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. My fees are very reasonable.
- I'm extremely accessible. Contact me by phone, email, IM, text, or video chat. Mon-Fri 8AM-5PM. 24/7 for emergencies.
- I specialize in young adults age 18 to 40 without traditional health insurance.
- When you need more than I provide, I make sure you wisely spend your money and pay the lowest price for the highest quality.
- I've gathered costs for NYC specialists, medications, x-rays, MRIs, ER visits, blood tests, etc...just like a Google price search.
- I mix the service of an old-time, small town doctor with the latest technology to keep you and your bank account healthyl
How much for this service? According to the "How it Works" on his site, his fee is "far less than your yearly coffee budget but a little more than your Netflix." His web site also provides "Real Life Examples" that describe, in plain English, how you'd use his service. Oh, and he's blogging, too.
Lawyers, if you are looking for a real dose of inspiration (or a glimpse to the future of mobile practice) you HAVE to check this Parkinson's site and business model. Simply brilliant. Great idea, great web site, amazing copy. If I were still practicing, I'd steal it in a heartbeat. Look at it now.
Via: Zoli's Blog.
Justify that Messy Desk
From an 2002 New Yorker Essay from Edward Tufte:
Paper enables a certain kind of thinking. Picture,for instance, the top of your desk. Chances are that you have akeyboard and a computer screen off to one side, and a clear spaceroughly eighteen inches square in front of your chair. What covers therest of the desktop is probably piles—piles of papers, journals,magazines, binders, postcards, videotapes, and all the other artifactsof the knowledge economy. The piles look like a mess, but they aren't.When a group at Apple Computer studied piling behavior several yearsago, they found that even the most disorderly piles usually makeperfect sense to the piler, and that office workers could hold forth ingreat detail about the precise history and meaning of their piles. Thepile closest to the cleared, eighteen-inch-square working area, forexample, generally represents the most urgent business, and within thatpile the most important document of all is likely to be at the top.Piles are living, breathing archives. Over time, they get broken downand resorted, sometimes chronologically and sometimes thematically andsometimes chronologically and thematically; clues about certaindocuments may be physically embedded in the file by, say, stacking acertain piece of paper at an angle or inserting dividers into the stack.
But why do we pile documents instead of filing them? Because pilesrepresent the process of active, ongoing thinking. The psychologistAlison Kidd, whose research Sellen and Harper refer to extensively,argues that "knowledge workers" use the physical space of the desktopto hold "ideas which they cannot yet categorize or even decide how theymight use." The messy desk is not necessarily a sign ofdisorganization. It may be a sign of complexity: those who deal withmany unresolved ideas simultaneously cannot sort and file the papers ontheir desks, because they haven't yet sorted and filed the ideas intheir head. Kidd writes that many of the people she talked to use thepapers on their desks as contextual cues to "recover a complex set ofthreads without difficulty and delay" when they come in on a Mondaymorning, or after their work has been interrupted by a phone call. Whatwe see when we look at the piles on our desks is, in a sense, thecontents of our brains.
Ah, now I know the piles are there for a perfectly good reason. Thanks to Stephen O'Flynn for the tip.
Thoughtful Law Blog
David Bilinsky has a great new blog: Thoughtful Legal Management. Check it out!
Raise the Roof or Lower the Ceiling?
I found something interesting in a study titled The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing People Use (via Science Daily -- my new favorite RSS subscription):
“When a person is in a space with a 10-foot ceiling, they will tend to think more freely, more abstractly,” said Meyers-Levy. “They might process more abstract connections between objects in a room, whereas a person in a room with an 8-foot ceiling will be more likely to focus on specifics.”The research demonstrates that variations in ceiling height can evoke concepts that, in turn, affect how consumers process information. The authors theorized that when reasonably salient, a higher versus a lower ceiling can stimulate the concepts of freedom versus confinement, respectively. This causes people to engage in either more free-form, abstract thinking or more detail-specific thought. Thus, depending on what the task at hand requires, the consequences of the ceiling could be positive or negative.
If you are designing your next office or workspace, should you build in different ceiling types and plan to do different kinds of work in each one? For lawyers, should you take your depositions in low-ceilinged rooms?
LinkedIn for Litigation?
Guy Kawasaki explains how to use LinkedIn's Reference Check Tool to avoid bad bosses. In essence, you can input a company name and a range of years to find people who worked at the company during a given time period.
This would be a great tool for locating potential witnesses in a litigation action. Input the plaintiff/defendant company name and the years before, during and after the actionable conduct. LinkedIn will serve up a list of people who may know a bit about company/facts/etc. Even better, they may no longer be employed and more likely to help you.
I'm Sorry for Your Loss. Was He Funny?
A quick tip for meeting the family of a decedent at estate wrap-up time, courtesy of Tricks of the Trade:
If you have to interview a grieving family after a death, a good question to ask is: "Did he have a good sense of humor?"
This will almost always shake the family out of their grief, makingit easier for them to talk to you, and bring up an anecdote that reallyshows the character of the dead person.