5 Battle-Tested Steps to Turnaround a Failing Team
Part #11 of How to Build a Large, Influential Law Firm
This series lifts the kimono and exposes the unvarnished details on how we built Sterling Law from scratch to be the largest, most influential family law firm in Wisconsin in less than 3 years.
I hope our story and the lessons help you build your practice or business.
Our law firm exploded onto the Wisconsin legal scene in the summer of 2014.
After 18 months of record-setting growth, we were the fastest growing firm in the state, going from one to eight attorneys.
But, we had a scary secret. We were losing and felt like posers.
This truth hurt.
My pride and ego hurt (not a bad thing). Our financials hurt. Many clients hurt because of our mediocre and sloppy service.
Restarting our Start-up
To escape the ravaging ache, we had to step into greater pain and implement sweeping changes.
The process promised to be strenuous. The casualties would be great.
As the top leader, I understood that my business decisions affected a lot of people that I cared about. This weighed heavy on my heart and filled my mind with dread.
I seemed to be in a constant daze thinking about how to turnaround the firm that I had dreamed about starting for years.
It’s one thing to turn around a losing team that someone else drove into the ground.
It’s an entirely different matter to turnaround a failing team that YOU drove into the ground.
With the benefit of hindsight, my partner, Tony Karls, and I used these five steps to turnaround the firm.
We did not know we were doing these five things at the time. But, they did work. They will work for any failing team.
1) Identify the top 2-3 priorities
Complex strategies never work in business. (Yes, I meant to write “never.”)
Less is always more. Simple gets done.
The dead carcasses of complex strategies litter my past like a medieval battleground. Conversely, when I have fought for simplicity in our strategy, we have usually succeeded.
Tony and I identified dozens of required projects to turnaround the firm.
But, there were a precious few priorities that, if done, would ensure success. We worked tirelessly for weeks to pare the many to the vital few.
In the end, we settled on three priorities. But that was too many.
So, we fought through and debated more until we agreed on two. (1) Focus the firm on one practice area, and (2) Kill the billable hour.
Executing these two priorities supported our long-term vision of building a client-centered firm. They also gave us a huge marketing advantage with our potential clients.
2) Embrace the ego punishment
Once our priorities were clear, the execution started with a personal internal battle.
For 18 months, since June 2014, I energetically sold a vision of a large law firm full of opportunity. It would be a great place to build a career and thrive in times of disruption and uncertainty.
Teammates bought into my vision and left secure jobs to join our team. They were excited and trusted my credibility and vision.
I had spent most of my relationship capital convincing teammates to buy into my ideas.
Now, I had to face them and admit that I was wrong. I had to ask their forgiveness.
I knew many would lose faith in me forever. And some did.
The others would certainly feel skeptical on anything I had to say in the future. Leaders only get so many strikeouts before the team loses confidence and jumps ship.
I was wrong. I had to face it and confess my failures to my team. This is essential.
When a leader fails in his leadership, the team needs to know that he knows.
3) Do it fast
Don’t wait. Get started immediately.
We had our two turnaround priorities. They were seismic and required herculean effort from the whole team.
We needed to cut 40% of our business, along with 40% of our legal team.
There would be heart-wrenching layoffs and expensive client refunds.
Additionally, we were making huge changes to the ways we billed clients. We had to install a new accounting system with updated processes.
The advice from most of our team was to take it slow. Give teammates and clients time to adjust to the new firm structure.
However, I believed that taking it slow was more risky to the long-term health of our team.
My leadership instinct was that there would be deep insecurity no matter what we did. Teammates would see office mates let go. There would be little outside warning. They would not be expecting it. No one ever expects it.
I felt that dragging out the changes over months would prolong the agony of not knowing. When there is a cloud of uncertainty, all kinds of bad things happen with teams.
We chose to go blazingly fast. Within one month, we made the two huge moves. The price was high but worth it.
Be prepared for co-workers to resist and demand a slower pace. Most people only like change when it is their idea.
When you go fast, you break things. The faster you go, the more you break.
The leader’s job is to find the delicate balance between speed and breaking things.
4) Cut once, but cut deep
Cut deep and as close to the bone as you can tolerate.
It is a morale killer and energy sapper to make cuts in waves. No one likes coming to work fearing they will lose their job at any moment.
I have also found that if you are transparent with the “why,” most teams will rally. The turnaround can be a wonderful occasion to build cohesion. The key is being transparent. That is the only way I know to build trust in turnaround situations.
5) Stay focused
Finally, once the cuts are over, everyone needs to be laser focused on executing the top priorities. Distractions are costly.
As you succeed, the natural inclination will be to pile on more projects. Don’t do this.
Success breeds success. Keep bearing down on your top priorities until they are completely executed.
Momentum is a leader’s best friend. Once you have it, protect it like a mother bear.
If your team loses focus, it is the leader’s fault. I have been guilty of this too many times.
I love the shiny, new idea. As my teams have started to win, I have succumbed to the tendency of believing that we should start doing more.
Keep your attention on your priorities. Give momentum and your team’s winning streak time to pay dividends.
The results 30 months later
We did these five things at our firm in Q1 of 2016. The process was very painful. I will write more about that in future installments.
Our team did rally and pull together. Within about 4 months, we were through the worst of it.
We did shrink to four attorneys, from a high of eight. However, as of July 2018, we have grown to 15 attorneys and are helping hundreds of wonderful clients each month.