Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices

How your people use their voice mail may seem at first both trivial and unimportant. BZZZZZZZZZZ WRONG!!!

The reason you open you wallet wide for a Ritz Carlton is because of the experience.  Do you think it’s a coincidence that you are greeted by name at the front desk?    (Did you see the secret service-type ear phone worn by the doorman who opened your car door and asked if you were checking-in and for your name?  As you walked form your car, the front desk staff was given your name – they did not not need to recognize you from last time.)

Two highly respected bloggers, Tom Collins of morepartnerincome and Patrick Lamb of In Search of Perfect Client Service respectfully disagree in their respective posts: Voice Mail -- a Lawyer's Friend or Foe and Voicemail--Useful Tool Or Devil's Folly?  Tom sets out some rules worth considering and Patrick builds on them adding his own perspective.

PUNCHLINE:  Take five minutes, read the posts, and then do the unthinkable.  Create your own protocol (that you think optimizes the client’s experience with your voice mail system) and then ask your partners, associates and staff to comply.  Trivial and unimportant?  Your competitors hope you think so.

Guy Kawasaki two days in a row? Not my fault - his. Guy was traveling on:

from

to

when he decided to create this email gem called The Effective Emailer. Guy recites a dozen sensible and perhaps essential rules of email etiquette.

I almost called this post: "Don't FUQ with me and I won't FUQ with you" but then I thought it may not be so obvious that this Kawasakism really means "Fabricate Unanswerable Questions". As for the title I chose, when you read #10 in his post you will learn how to avoid "a sure sign of bozosity"!

FASTFORWARD: Our Edge International project for a non-email protocol to dramatically reduce emaill within organizations continues. I think we're ahead of the curve (few people know they want this or care) which is exactly where we want to be. In the meantime, email behaviors neeed all the help they can get and I thing Guy Kawasaki's contribution is the best I've seen recently. Stay tuned.

Thank you Tom Peters for this tidbit from a post called "Stuff…":

ALL THERE IS. Damn it! I keep forgetting this! Leaving it out of presentations! Namely, a PP slide that simply reads : You = Your Calendar. THIS IS MY #1 BELIEF ABOUT MANAGEMENT. Or: "You can't bullshit your calendar." Or: "Your calendar knows ... do you?" All we have is our time. The way we distribute it is our "strategic plan," our "vision," our "values." Period. So how'd you spend your precious time today? Tell me, and I'll tell you what you actually care about—it's simple and unerring.

FASTFORWARD: I have an expression I use when talking for senior power partners in client firms: "Your behaviour is so loud, I can't hear what you're saying". This is usually in the context of seniors lecturing juniors about perfection but the juniors have their eyes fixed firmly not on what the seniors are "saying" but what they are "doing" Tom Peters has this so right — a reminder to every single one of us to make sure that our 2006 calendars consist of the behaviours that are in harmony with what we aspire to (otherwise we are engaging is self deception). Thanks for the reminder, Tom

Today's story in the Register, Server bug cripples Dublin law firms, is about Dublin law firms getting one-half million unwanted emails on top what Is likely a large volume in the first place.

I contend that the usual flow of emails is crippling. So, at Edge International, we are working with pilot clients on dramatically reducing the volume of emails through the use of internal Blogs and Wikis.

If you are involved in the senior management in a law firm (or other professional services firm) and are very interested in strategies to reduce email volumes without losing the beneficial data and communications, drop me a note and I will happily keep you posted on our progress.

"The Smorgasbord Effect. Our choices are like a smorgasbord at a restaurant, so many, that we try to take a little of each and thus overload our plates. We need to return to the restaurant model, where we make a deliberate choice, and then enjoy a fixed amount of food. It has been noted by someone that we are often afraid to make deliberate choices because we realize that every choice precludes others. If we take the mountain road, we cannot drive by the lake along the valley road as well. So some people put off making a decision (like getting married) just to keep their options open. Others simply try to say "Yes" to everything. "Yes, I'll have some of this and some of that and some of that, and, Oh look, I must have some of that, too."

This is from Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips Blog, in particular, a great post called Just Too Busy which brings us via Robert Harris, this and seven more thoughts about why we are so busy. Jim Calloway says: "These points are very brief so you do have time to read them." He's right.