When it comes to putting your plans into action, it’s not the new thing you start doing but the old thing you stop doing that really makes all the difference.
It’s a truism that the hard part about business strategy in a law firm is actually getting it implemented. The same applies to departmental business plans, initiatives to improve know-how and drives to improve financial performance. Whatever you are planning, however hard it seems at the time to work out and get agreement on what to do, the really hard part is making it happen. The same applies to individual development plans and even those great ideas about what we all want to do with our lives.
Great implementers have discovered a secret. It’s this. Your firm, your team, you – you all have only so much time. Getting something new onto your agenda isn’t enough. It has to be far enough up the agenda that it will get sufficient time and attention to get done. And the secret is . . . to find time to do something new, you have to stop something you are already doing. It really is as simple as that.
There are people in the world without enough to do, but hardly any of them work in law firms or read the Sherwood e-newsletter. You are busy, busy, busy.
Strategy is lots of things. It’s analysis, it’s creativity, it’s being in touch with clients and the market. It’s about analysing your competitors. It’s having your feet on the ground – being realistic about what you and your firm can really accomplish. It’s about clarity and a sense of purpose. Also it’s about prioritising the allocation of resources – and doesn’t that sound dry and boring? Perhaps. But your time and attention are key resources. To be high priority, a project or an activity or a person has to have the ability to jump the queue of things demanding your attention. We know this. So why do we find it hard to see the natural and necessary corollary. That to move something up the queue means that everything else has to move down it. And unless you spend much of your time thumb twiddling, getting done something new means that something you were already doing must drop off the end of the queue.
You see, we all try to squeeze in the new project. I’ll work harder. I’ll work more efficiently. I’ll find time somewhere. It’ll get done somehow. But it won’t. Most of us have already used up all our spare capacity, improved our efficiency as far as we are ever going to, and found all the extra time we can. So forget all that nonsense. Instead identify what you are going to stop doing in order to give that new thing sufficient time and attention. Then name it and stop doing it. Be deeply suspicious of yourself, your colleagues, your firm until you see the old activity actually stop and stay stopped.
Politicians seem – or perhaps just pretend – to be very bad at this. Our priority will be education. The Health Service is our top priority. We will reduce gun crime. We will work to reduce Third World debt. Great. So, if that is now high up your agenda, what have you resolved to pay less attention to? And what have you actually dropped off the bottom of the agenda completely? Because unless you can tell me that, I can have no confidence that you will invest real time and attention to what you say is your priority.
Contrast some people that are really good at putting their plans into action - great athletes and musicians. They make space in their lives for practice – not as an extra, but instead of something that’s less valuable to them.
So if your firm decides to build that new practice area, if your team is going to improve its profitability, if you are going to do the things you know you want to do with your life. . . identify what you will stop doing. Then stop it. Then make sure it stays stopped.
Happy implementing.
Contact Julian Boardman-Weston
