A new client was in a car accident with her grandson recently. Everyone’s OK, but the car was totaled. If you look at the crumpled car, it’s hard to believe no one was hurt. Truly a blessing. After the accident, she was thinking that if something had happened to her and her husband- there was really no way for anyone to quickly connect the child to his parents. As a result, she’s made some laminated cards with information and tucked one in the carseat. I told her she should blog about it, but she doesn’t yet blog, so there ’tis. A lesson you can learn and share without going through the car accident part. A reminder that none of us are immune. I don’t know if car seat instructions include this advice, if they do, I wonder how many people take it.

Perhaps you’re thinking about home fire drills or teaching your kids to use 911. However, “emergency planning” applies to all kinds of emergencies. It relates to the notion of always having a reserve or a backup plan. It’s carrying an energy bar if you’re going to a conference, or blocking an afternoon off after a morning you know is going to be stressful. (& scheduling a massage, if you can!) Backing up your data is an emergency plan.

Plan some time to create and update your emergency plans over the next week. And please, spread the word about ensuring there is contact information in the car seat!

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week. - Joseph Addison

Had a very successful entrepreneur tell me that taking the weekend off was like a miracle. She experienced the energy of starting the week fresh. On Monday, she took care of issues that she’d been hanging onto for weeks. She felt more creative.

Stephen Covey calls it “Sharpening the Saw” in The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.  Michael Gerber tells us that our work is not our life. 

Sometimes you have to work weekends. Most times, I’d argue that you don’t. Making up for an unproductive week on the weekend won’t serve you well.  Get your work planned out and connected to your calendar and then use time off to recharge. Make me happy. Heck, there might even be a few other people in your life who’d be happy to see more of you as well!

I was working with someone on a staff management issue recently. She was incredibly frustrated and wanted to lay down the law and move on. When she described the situation, it was clear to me that her employee needed to be heard. He didn’t need to be right; he likely had already accepted the outcome, but he wasn’t going to give up until he was heard.

Listening is one of the most important skills for a successful entrepreneur. Or parent, or spouse, citizen of the world…you see where I’m going?  Even if you think there’s no value to be gained- consider that sometimes you give the gift of listening. The gift of making sure someone else is heard. And, if you’re keeping good company, it’s a gift you’ll receive back from someone else when it’s your turn!

Fear of the facts is something that puts you in good company! Two weeks before she was slated to ski in the 2010 Olympics, Lindsey Vonn injured her shin.  In an interview that aired during the opening coverage, Lindsey admitted that she avoided having the injury diagnosed. She didn’t want an MRI. She didn’t want an x-ray. She knew her dream was in danger and she didn’t want to face it. She didn’t want to be taken out of the games.

Many of my clients feel the same way about their financial results. However, just as Lindsey found, “not facing” is different than “not knowing”. She didn’t have the details, but she did know that she had a serious issue.  Eventually, Lindsey needed to have her injury diagnosed in order to treat it most effectively. Similarly, you need to understand your financial situation and real prospects in order to make the best decisions for your practice.

Financial results are facts.  The bottom line is that knowing is better than not knowing. Financials aren’t about how “good” a person you are; they aren’t about what you “deserve”; they aren’t about what you’re “worth”. Financial facts don’t even show how hard you’ve worked. The root cause of your fear might relate to an action you aren’t prepared to take or decisions you aren’t ready to make.  Still, it’s better to take control and own your future than to let it happen to you. How you respond to the reality of your financial outlook is up to you, don’t let fear stop you from taking a good look at that reality.

Create a process around evaluating your financials on a monthly basis. If you do, you’ll find that your resistance disappears and you can focus on the important work of adjusting what you’re doing so that you get the results you want to see.  And, just like Lindsey, who won a gold medal in her first race of the 2010 games, you just might find you’re in better shape than you think you are! Don’t fear the facts. Face them.

I’m doing a productivity webinar with Larry Port of RocketMatter tomorrow. It’s at 12pm ET. Time blocking is an extremely valuable technique, so if you’re someone who finds himself overwhelmed or frustrated with how you spend your time- it will be time well spent. There are some things I wanted you to know walking into the seminar.

Plan on paying attention. This is a dense subject, I use slides that you need to look at. I talk about time blocking because people tell me it changed their lives. Really. But it takes focus to “get” it. I’m trying to create an interesting presentation, but there is a high education component, which does tend to impact the entertainment factor! (and I’ll also try to talk slower, but, man….it’s hard)

Time Blocking isn’t something that only ”perfect” people do. Time management is messy and iterative. It’s a matter of finding what works for you and then doing it consistently. Don’t stay away if you think you can’t do this. You’ll learn something. Promise. You don’t have to do everything I show, just what works for you.

I’m going to be offering a free follow-up call to attendees. Info will be posted after the seminar. An open coaching session. I always do, because I want to be sure that you can put the concept into action. I want you to get full value. I respect your time. To be honest, very few people ever take me up on it, which means that it’s a terrific opportunity to get some spot coaching. It’s a conference call, I take questions, I’ll ask you what you’re coming up against, and so on.

I’m not a role model for marketing. I do coach marketing, so I want to be sure that you get the “do as I say, not as I do” flavor of my marketing. If you were doing this, I’d ask you to do more pre-seminar PR. It would have been in your signature line, on your posts, etc. There’d be a notice and link to registration on your site. I’d also ask you to have a free offer, a reason to send people to your site. You’d exchange a freebie for an email address, so you could build your “list”. For me, it might be a newsletter subscription. One of my favorite tips in the marketing book I’ll be giving away is “Always have a next step.” I’m offering the follow-up, so you’ll know where to find me, but you won’t have to give me your email address. While I don’t practice what I preach, just know that it’s because my biz dev focus is on building my coaching skills so I have good referral sources. If you’re in a high growth mode, I expect different action from you! [and I’m considering blocking time to get the dang newsletter production on my calendar…]

This seminar will be valuable whether you’re a lawyer or not, whether you’re solo or not. I coach partners in firms, I coach non-lawyers who are referred to me by lawyers. Everyone will learn something you can put to use in order to ensure that you’re doing more of what you want, and less of what you don’t want every day. RocketMatter is a generous sponsor of this webinar, there’s minimal promotion.

I’m nervous. Like many of you, I have a love/hate relationship with presenting. It’s not my core competency. Love to share the information that I think could just change your life; hate to be in front of the class. Virtual seminars, which are great for convenience, are especially hard because I count on a connection with the audience to save me when my presenting skills let me down! Hard to connect over the airwaves. You might have to put up with some umm’s, etc. I’ll try and keep the heavy breathing to a minimum. Note- preconference, instead of thinking “holy crap, it’s too much of me talking, I’ll put 100 people to sleep”, I’ll be visualizing two things: first, you, putting time blocking to use next week, thinking how much it will help you meet your goals; and, second, Larry telling me it was the best webinar RocketMatter’s produced.

Bottom line, see you tomorrow!

I wrote this post in January, never sure if I’d publish it. Yesterday, I learned that someone special in the world died, unexpectedly. As another friend described, it was “devastating”.  Just as in my post below, I’m freshly thrown off track. So I decided to post after all. Hopefully someone will find it valuable. Here tis. Too long, as usual.

If you’ve worked with me, you’ve heard me rail against anger as a “waste of time and energy”. Grief, and the sadness that comes with it, is different. Right now, grief is part of my story. Recently I connected the dots and realized that grief is a time management issue. Grief is a time bandit! 

Without a lot of background, my brother has at last been give a year’s timeframe to live. He has had a tragic life, the choices he made brought him to this point, and yes- by many criteria, it is a “blessing”.  His quality of life is poor. Still, there is grief and sadness as I go through this time.

I need to choose how to be with this grief over time. I know that because I did a lot of spinning in November and December, before I acknowledged grief as an extra variable to consider in my work/life balance equation. I was energized by a great autumn, had a lot of plans for 2010, and I was determined that this wouldn’t impact my plans. Right. Instead, I basically shut down. I’ve been gone. Didn’t follow up with leads, missed appointments, etc. 

A coaching conversation finally woke me up. I was talking with someone who had to revise goals to account for an unexpected illness and recovery. I made the point that recovery takes time, that it’s appropriate to be realistic and account for that, even though it meant delaying the action that defined “success” to my client. Sometimes “success” is about being as healthy as possible, and doing what you can and want to, not what you “should”. Turns out, I’m in the same boat!

Here’s my approach, perhaps there’s something you can use as well:

• Take extremely good care of myself. Be healthy. Physical and mental health are a priority.
• Ask for help. Support structures come in a lot of flavors: friends and family, therapy, a neighbor who walks my dog, on and on. Spend time with the people who give me energy.
• Be clean and current in my relationships. Be there, but honest. Be aware of my own boundaries. Make sure that I have no regrets.
• Be practical. Schedule white space. Leave days open. Outsource or delegate where I can.
• Stay where the energy is. Don’t do things if I don’t have the energy for them. Be aware of “flow”.

The most important thing is giving myself permission to move energy to the “life” side of the work/life balance equation. I’m kinder to myself. I feel relieved. I have permission to redefine success.

I’m fortunate to have the luxury of choosing to work less. Whether or not you have the wiggle room to take care of a crisis by working less, it’s important to recognize the impact and account for it in the best possible way. Pay attention to what’s really going on. You might not be able to take the same approach I did, but you can be clear in your intentions for dealing with whatever it is that might be knocking you off balance.  Make choices about what you do and don’t handle. Do what serves you well.

I didn’t face my facts. Sometimes, despite your best intentions- you might have to change your work/life balance. Give yourself permission. If the fact is that everything is not OK, do what you can to make your way through in the best way possible for you. Remember the airplane/oxygen mask instruction, and take care of yourself first. When it’s time to rebalance, you’ll be ready.

When I hear this, my first question is always “too high for whom?”  My general rule is that unless you are priced far above every other lawyer, then business lost on price is business you shouldn’t be taking anyway. If you didn’t have financial pressures, you wouldn’t miss those clients, so don’t spend your time or energy worrying about losing them. Work with clients who value you as much as you value yourself. Being slightly out of price reach is a way to build your positioning over time.

Here are some things to consider when you set your fees:

1.       Include wiggle room in your margin – when your practice is built on tight margins, you have no room to handle changes or things you couldn’t anticipate. Constant conversations about changing fee estimates drive clients crazy. When you’re stressed out because you’re not making enough money on a matter, you will dread your client’s call. You won’t be eager to “go the extra mile” that creates loyal clients.

2.       Don’t think of yourself as selling hours. Remember what you’re offering for that fee.  Be paid for your experience, for the results you deliver, for the sum of your knowledge. Your pricing is part of your brand. Pricing too low is as great a threat to your success as pricing too high. If you’re feeling this fear, chances are, your prices are not too high. Use marketing strategies to position yourself as an expert to support your fee levels.

3.       Never “dextify” your pricing. Dextify is my favorite non-word, it means “defend, explain or justify”.  Never, ever dextify. Instead, say “in my experience, that’s the size of investment you need to make to ensure the result that you want to see.”  Or try, “if it’s out of your budget, then maybe I can refer you to someone you might be able to afford.”

Remember that for some, $500/hour is perfectly reasonable, while others will balk at paying a percentage of that number.

And, the last thing to consider about your fees is that your work funds your life. How much time you spend working, and the return on that time determines how much income and free time you have.  If your fees don’t support the life you want, you’re wasting your time life.

Delegation is a 2-way street. With a new employee, delegation serves a training function. When you’re working with someone more seasoned, it’s still a critical process. Make sure you’re managing your side to maximize the impact leverage has on your bottom line.

8 points to consider when you delegate work to an employee or contractor:

1. Define the assignment exactly. Describe end results as well as any interim deliverables. Consider mocking up tables or charts; indicate about how many pages you expect to see. Talk about how long you think it should take. Be as specific as possible. If you have something that looks similar, show it.
2. Be clear on due dates and deliverables. Ask “when do you think you can have it done?” If the answer doesn’t meet the requirements, follow up to see if there are other priorities you can rearrange. At the end of the conversation be clear on commitments. Never leave it at “as soon as you can.” If you think the person has over-committed, question the deadline. You’re training your employee to be reliable as well as realistic.
3. Specify when you want to see drafts or work-in-progress. If this is a complex task or a new deliverable for the person, you might want to see a very early draft to make sure the work is moving in the right direction. This can save you a lot of time on the back end.
4. Establish approval and inerim check points. If there are any critical check points, create appointments for reviews. Make sure you aren’t a bottleneck in the project. Don’t let the dates slip without notice, keep the project on track or manage expectations. It’s very important that you and your employee respect these agreements.
5. Identify anyone else who might need to be involved. Discuss dependencies. Ensure that anyone else who needs to be involved is aware of the schedule. Make sure your employee understands that he should raise a red flag if the project is slipping due to dependencies.
6. Discuss anything else needed to start the project. Files or file/system access? Equipment? Supplies? Samples?
7. Anticipate potential obstacles or challenges. Identify issues that might arise and how they might be preempted or addressed. Create an issue escalation process.
8. Ask, “is everthing clear?” Each point should be discussed as needed. This is the wrap question, a chance to be sure you’re on the same page. If you have doubts, ask the person to run through the assignment with you. This seems like such a no-brainer question, but I promise you’ll get some surprising responses at some point in your career as a manager!

If you’re not getting satisfactory results from the work you’re delegating, the first place to look is in the mirror. Before you blast your employee, be sure you’re doing your job to set him up for success! Delegation is another task that takes time up front, when you feel you don’t have any. But if you don’t spend that time day 1, you just might end up wasting it on rework as you face a deadline too close for comfort.

Nothing gives your business a boost like adding an employee to your team. How you manage that person will determine the return on your investment, both in terms of leverage and energy.

In The Art of Possibility, Ben Zander and Roz Stone Zander write about an idea they used with a class of graduate music students. To put their students at ease and open them up to possibility, they came up with the idea of taking away the negative pressure of competition for grades. On the first day of the class, they awarded each student an A, with one requirement.  Each had to write a letter, dated the end of the semester, beginning with the words, “I got my A because….,” describing in detail the story of what will have happened by that time.

The authors found that the practice of giving the A allowed the teacher to line up with his students to produce the desired A outcome. This contrasts with the typical relationship, where the teacher aligns with the standards against the student. (like my University of Chicago visiting econ prof who warned us day 1 that 3/4 of the class would fail…) The experiment yielded strong results. The book is full of insights and I highly recommend it if you like to read about motivation, performance, and, my favorite - possibility. 

The “so what” of the story is that how you manage your employees from the day they start working with you makes a difference. Often, my clients are so swamped by the time they hire that they don’t think they have time to manage a new hire in. Yet, those first weeks are critical, with long-term impact. Whether you’re adding a new hire or a contract employee, there are three things you need to do to kick off a great working relationship.

1. Make time to manage:

• Block time on your calendar for orienting your new employee, preparing the work you delegate, and to do the actual delegation and followup.
• Schedule a 60-day performance review, whether or not you have a probationary period. EVEN IF YOU ARE THRILLED WITH PERFORMANCE. Formalize it. Performance management is not about problem-solving, it’s about proactively creating a high-performing team. If you have the habit of openly discussing performance in a win/win manner, you’ll create a relationship and environment that will support you if you DO have problems. It’s professional, not personal.
• Establish a schedule of short checkpoints with your new employee, appointments on both your calendars. This gives the employee the assurance that he will be able to get time with you and lets you stay close to the new employee while you’re getting clear on performance expectations and developing trust in his capabilities.

2. Put your new hire at ease:

• Welcome your new employee, let him know you understand there’s a learning curve and tell him you’ll support him to make it as smooth as possible.
• In the beginning, let the employee know you’ll have a high degree of involvement, but that you expect that will decrease.

3. Let him know what it takes to get an A grade:

• You hired someone who wants to do a good job. Make sure that the two of you are in agreement on what that means. Discuss the position and work towards creating specific performance goals and standards. Use the process of creating performance goals as a tool to aim and guide performance, as in the Zander experiment- when the students detailed out how they’d earn their A’s. By the end of the initial 60-day review period, you should have a performance management framework that you can use throughout the year.
• Be precise about your expectations related to work hours and attendance. You must have guidelines and you must be clear about things like days off, vacation requests, etc. The objective here is to make sure you have a fact-based policy to go to in the event that you need it. Lateness and attendance problems will make you crazy; start with clear guidelines and nip problem behavior in the bud.  You want to be understanding, but always with the perspective that you hired a resource, you need that resource, and you count on the resource.

There are so many things to think about when you bring someone new on board, and I’ve just touched a few here. I’ll end by referring you to the title of the post- it’s key to realize you’ve got a new job too. In the beginning, you’ll work harder than before as your employee comes up to speed. I understand the principle of “throwing someone into the deep end”- but it’s important to get a foundation in place that’s going to support you when you need it. So, if you’re expecting the newbie to “hit the ground running”, be sure to plan a time in the future (on your calendar) to start doing your job as manager. The difference between “satisfactory” and “optimal” performance is significant in terms of money in your pocket and your level of stress. Don’t settle. Manage.

It’s impossible to avoid the notion of goals entirely at this time.  I’m big on goals, but I know they can have as negative an impact as they do positive- depending on how you think about them. Still, it’s my first post of 2010, so you’re getting something about goals. Inevitable.

There are three kinds of goals- being, doing, having. Most people focus on the second two, with action plans and milestones.  But, in fact- the “being” goals might be most important when it comes to achieving the “doing” and “having” goals. A goal of being confident supports the goal of doing marketing activities that will bring in high-value clients, which, in turn, supports the goal of having enough income to pay off debt.

The beauty of the “being” goals is that the only prerequisite is choice. If you choose to be more confident, you can start right now. If you choose to be someone who takes very good care of herself, you start right now.  You’ll argue that it’s not that simple, but how about giving it a try? Let it be that simple. Take confidence, you could spend a lot of time in therapy understanding why you lack confidence, but in fact, you could also just start where you are and choose to be confident. To act confident. There are resources that can help. Books about self-talk, for example, and you might use tactics like a “brag” book or fan club, but it starts with that clear intention of being confident. 

Finally, we get to the title of this post. Who do you want to be?  Take a sheet of paper and write “I am a man/woman who” at the top. Then make a list of everything that comes to mind. Then, yes, you know what’s coming. Action. Once you have a list you like, think about how you can start being that person right now. You don’t have to write anything down on a calendar, you don’t have to make an announcement. We aren’t talking “resolutions”. Just start being exactly who you want to be, in every small and large way possible. 

As you walk out of whoever it was that you were being before you decided who you want to be, you might make some misteps; you might think the shoes don’t fit. Or- you might find that you’re much more comfortable than you expected. Either way, you get to choose who you want to be every moment of every day. What an excellent way to start a new year- being just who you want to be!

Happiest of new years to you, dear reader.