The importance of building your law firm’s superstar success team.

A couple of weeks ago I had an employee who started to pout when I asked her to follow through with her job duties. The rest of my A players on the team began to also comment on her bad attitude. They did not appreciate her attitude as well.

When she initially started she seemed interested in the position, but after a few months, after the excitement of having a job waned, she changed. When I asked her to perform a task she would whine and complain. Before firing her, I decided to give her a chance and I spoke to her about her poor attitude. After our meeting, she half-heartedly tried to change. Rather than outwardly complaining, you could see her negativity in her facial expressions and body language. Finally, I had enough and let her go. I am happier, my team is happier and my bottom line has increased.

Dan Kennedy in his book “No B.S. Ruthless Management”, states that you MUST Hire Slowly and Fire Quickly. Over my thirteen years of law practice I have found this has been extremely true and I regret not knowing this practice management tip when I first started to build my firm.

Now I know that people think that since we are lawyers, we are ruthless and cut throat. However, this is far from the truth. The lawyers that I know are caring and often too loyal.

When I first started my practice I would keep an employee on longer than I should. I felt loyal to the employee because they had been with me for a couple of years. This hurt my law firm. The A players on my team did not appreciate the poor performer’s continued employment. After I started to cut the non-performers my practice changed dramatically. Your team is part of what will make you successful. Think of yourself as a coach of a football team that wants to win the super bowl. Can you afford to have a team member who is not pulling their weight?

You owe it to yourself, your family, and the A players on your team to let the non – performers on your team move on to a job that would be better suited for them.

In the situation that I mentioned earlier, the employee that I hired to be a marketing assistant was interested in legal work. The marketing assistant position was not a good match and it showed in her performance and attitude. By letting her go I was letting her move on to find a job that was a better match for her interests. This improved my firms’ bottom line and it reaffirmed to the rest of the team that poor performance will not be tolerated. Your team is only as strong as the weakest link. Attitude is contagious and you cannot afford to have an employee infecting the rest of your team’s attitude and hard work ethic.

The next time you want to hire an employee take your time. You should be recruiting year around so that you are not desperate to hire. Most hiring mistakes occur when hiring is performed out of desperation.