Reflection and Reality

As I reflect upon the close of the 2009 calendar year and the recent memories of family yuletide, it reminds me of the feelings I had a year ago just three months after the crash in September, 2008. It's nice to put 2009 behind us and being December was our best month of the year, gives me hope for 2010. The full reality is it's a new year and we start at zero. What will we be doing this year to take ourselves to a new level? Over the past several weeks, I have found myself reevaluating employees' strength and identifying where they are best-suited. I find myself too quickly trying to "blame them" for struggles they currently have. Upon reflection, I realize the struggles employees have stem from a lack of them working within their skill set or a failure of expectations. We evaluated each employee over the last several weeks of 2009 and repositioned people into their skill set so they can work more naturally without having to feel like they're failing on a daily basis. The three elements to look at with employees are attitudes, skills, and knowledge. If they have a great attitude but are still struggling then look for their skill set. See if it is a skill set necessary for the job they are asked to perform. If they have the skills set but just are not doing it properly, then it is likely a knowledge issue. Focus on getting them the knowledge they need to do their job properly. If their attitude is poor, work with them to improve it, or, and if not corrected, consider replacing them since a poor attitude was the greatest loss of the skill sets and has the greatest impact on your firm's success.

The second preparation for the New Year was ensuring that I had budgets in place. Running a law practice without budgets is like getting up in the morning and not knowing what you're doing. It is critical in these early weeks of January we take the time to identify your revenue goals for the year and your expense goals. Profit is made by either increasing revenues or decreasing expenses. I recommend you use your 2009 numbers plus 20 percent for revenue budgets. Your expense numbers, examine them. If they are more than your revenue numbers, you must reduce them. Let me restate that. You MUST reduce them! This must be the year you get off the “hamster wheel” and start putting yourself first. It's just like the oxygen mask on an airplane, you must put your own on first. You're not good to your employees, or your family, if you're not financially well yourself. I wish all of you a prosperous, focused and happy 2010. I look forward to growing with you.