#229: From “You’re Not Partner Material” To Equity Partner (In Just 5 Years)

Heather: Welcome back to Life and Law. This is your host, Heather Mulder. And today I want to introduce you or actually reintroduce you to Allison Williams. She is an international speaker, attorney, and managing partner of Williams Law Group. She’s also a business coach, strategist, and CEO of Law Firm Mentor, an international business coaching service that helps law firm owners crush business chaos and make more money.

 

If you’ve been a longtime listener, you might remember that Allison was a guest on this podcast. I think it was season two, so a while ago, and we talked about something very near and dear to my heart, systems and systemization.

 

But because she has a wealth of wisdom and a depth of experience, I really wanted to get her back onto the podcast to chat about executive authority and how to lead authentically, especially if you’re a female attorney, which is exactly what we’re going to talk about today. Welcome, Allison.

 

[00:01:54] Allison: Thank you so much for having me. Heather, I’m excited to be back and talking to you again.

 

[00:01:59] Heather: I have to tell you, I don’t often ask people to come back on this podcast twice because oftentimes people can’t share a lot. Like a lot of people that I’ve invited on a very, very limited niche that they’d like to talk about. So I’m really excited to have you back on, but because I did love our original experience and I will everybody link to that episode so you can go listen to it if you haven’t.

 

Because funny enough, systems are part of leadership. If you ask me, it’s necessary and we might even get into that. I don’t know today if you. You need to systematize, if you’re going to run a good law firm or law practice. And it is part of leadership. But I really wanted to get more into your leadership experience because you have such a wealth of experience, not just in your coaching, but you’re doing. You know, you’ve started so many different businesses, you’ve grown them. And so I cannot wait to get into this conversation today.

 

But before we get too far into leadership, I’d really like to know your take on the differentiation between leadership and management, because in my opinion, most lawyers manage and don’t lead. So you tell me what your. How you differentiate the two.

 

[00:03:12] Allison: Yeah, so I love this question because it’s one of these things that, like you said, a lot of lawyers don’t lead, they manage.

 

And I think what most people think of is if I own the company, I’m inherently a leader and that’s not necessarily the case. Right.

 

So the way that I distinguish the two is that management is really about ensuring that people do what they’re required to do. It’s the compliance, it’s the, it’s the keeping track of the KPIs, it’s making sure that people understand what they are required to do. It’s very much about having an ecosystem of what’s required and making sure that people are meeting requirements.

 

Leadership, on the other hand, is very much about the future casting. It is about where we are going. And in order for people to go with you, where you’re going, you have to help them to see your vision, understand your vision, and connect your vision with what’s in it for them.

 

So that oftentimes is about who they are as people, what they want to achieve in their careers, what they get out of the work that they are doing. And that is not about you, that is about them. And in order for you to help a person to connect with what is inside of them, you really have to inspire them. And so if you think about leadership from that perspective, it very much is about setting a vision that people can one, be excited by. But two, it’s very much about making sure that you are enabling people to rise to the occasion of their best selves so that they can get work done. And in particular in a growing company, to get work done through other people.

 

So if it is at the base level, a paralegal can be a leader, right? A paralegal needs to get things done through a client. You know, a lawyer needs to get things done through a paralegal, a managing attorney needs to get things done through other attorneys. And so you’re still in A place of enabling and embodying other people to do what they have to do. But it’s not about the task and the compliance as much as it is about making sure that the vision is set and that everyone is on the same page with it.

 

[00:05:10] Heather: So when I think of management versus leadership, I do think sometimes managers get a bad rap in the sense that we assume you should just be a leader, never manage.

 

But the way I like to look at it, and I’d love to know your take on this is, I think sometimes we. I mean, it depends on the role you have. It depends on, you know, your positioning. But there is a need for managers. Good managers. There are good and are bad. And it somewhat depends on your kind of level of experience. And where you are also depends on the size of the firm. So if you are building your own law firm, you need to be a leader. In my opinion, you might also be a manager, but I, I see it as, you need to learn how to lead and you need to learn how to hire the right managers so that they can help manage people. And then maybe you do manage early on, but if you want to really, really ris, be within that full leadership position, you let go of a lot of that and let others manage while you’re leading. What do you think about that?

 

[00:06:13] Allison: Yeah, well, I agree with that. And, and kind of the way that I would, would synthesize it would be good cop and bad cop. Right. So when you are in management, you are typically embodying the energy of bad cop. Right? You are looking for is this person meeting this requirement. So you’re kind of laying things out and you’re checking, you know, you’re checking your list.

 

Right. A leader, on the other hand, is good cop. And if you think about what, what a cop is in our society, you know, and how law enforcement lives. Right. Right now there’s kind of a lot of political charge around law enforcement, so I’m not going to go into anything in particular, but you just think about what a good cop is. In a community, you’re usually talking about people who are saving the cats out of trees, right? Who are helping the elderly across the street, who are, you know, encouraging children to learn how to avert threats and to, to know who are the good guys and the bad guys. Right?

 

That’s very much about setting a tone and letting people see the goodness in you so that they can ultimately live out that tone. And so if you think about it from that perspective, in a law firm, particularly if you are a solo owner, you Start and you have to do both of those things. Right. There’s a leadership hat where you are talking about the future, you’re getting people excited about the opportunities.

 

You might be talking about KPIs but much more from the perspective of what’s in it for you. Right. When we meet this objective, I’ll be able to pay you a larger bonus. When you meet this objective, your career advances, but then you have to put on your management hat and it’s very much about ordering tasks and making sure that systems work and checking against compliance issues and making sure that you’re ethical. And so you will have to do both of those things and you will have to ensure that both of those things are done. But in a well run company, especially a well run law firm, the leader is not typically going to be in the management role except periodically as they are managing their leaders.

 

So you know, there you still have to manage people who are even in a management position. Everyone does not get to be free of management, but you have to do both.

 

[00:08:15] Heather: And I’m really glad we’ve made that distinction because I think it’s really confusing to a lot of people. They don’t totally like. We all know there’s a difference between managing and leading, but what does that really mean in the day to day life? And so you’ve done a really good job here of differentiating the two and how that may, you may move back and forth and also how when you scale and when you grow, how you probably manage less and less. You still have some people to manage, but it’s less people and you’re doing less of it and you’re really more in a true, quote unquote leadership position.

 

[00:08:51] Allison: Right.

 

[00:08:52] Heather: So thank you for that because I, I don’t think it’s, I don’t see it talked about enough in this way. And I think people get really confused as to what it really means to lead versus manage.

 

[00:09:03] Allison: Yeah.

 

[00:09:04] Heather: And they also think, oh well, I’m a leader, I don’t have to manage. Or I, you know, Right.

 

[00:09:08] Allison: So. And that’s not necessarily the case and the questions. Right. So, you know, I always tell people the way that you can always differentiate when you’re in management versus leadership is what question are you asking? Right. So if you’re asking the question did you do? You’re more likely in the management category. But if you’re asking the question how can you do, you’re more likely in the leadership capacity. So if you just think about it from your day to day to make it an easy Mind hack as to which embodiment you are, you’re working toward, that should help.

 

[00:09:37] Heather: So when people talk about authentic leadership, I hear this all the time.

 

And it, it seems to me everybody has a very different viewpoint of what that actually means. So define for me what you mean when you talk about authentic leadership.

 

[00:09:52] Allison: So authentic leadership is really living true to your values and it is making hard decisions consistent with your values. And when I say hard decisions, it’s only hard because most of us have kind of a limiting belief that there’s only so many good people in the world that we don’t want to upset. The apple cart lawyers tend to be, in the grand scheme of things, risk averse. So we’re trying to create stability and that usually means not having change. And so more often than not, when we see a problem, we don’t ask the question, is this person fit for this role?

 

Will they do the work that’s required in this company in the way that we require?

 

They ask the question, how much can I tolerate in order to avoid having to make a change? Because change will be destabilizing.

 

And so while you’re aiming to create stability in a company, you should never be willing to compromise on your values in order to get there. And so it’s really challenging for people when they don’t define their values and make decisions based on that. And this is not warm and fuzzy, right? This is not fluffy. When I say define your values, I mean put it down on paper and then create established metrics as to how you will evaluate people consistent with how those values will actually show up in business. So for instance, we prioritize our clients needs. Might be a value system. Well, how does that, you know, how do you codify that into behavior for your team? Well, that might be. We return phone calls within 24 hours. That might be every communication that we send is wrapped in a kindness message. Now not just you need to do this, but, but we understand your challenge, right? So we lead with empathy, we end with empathy. You have to give people something concrete to do so that they don’t have to discern your values from the ether. But they actually know this is the way we behave in this company.

 

That is how you’re able to embody authentic leadership because your values are ultimately going to set the tone in your company.

 

Where most people fail here is that they think there is a right way to behave. And oftentimes they’re basing that on companies that they’ve worked in before. You know, I don’t want to be Like John’s company. I do want to be like David’s company company. Or I love Susie’s, you know, approach to working with people, but I hate Rebecca’s approach to working with people. So I’m gonna do more of this and less of that. But they don’t think about what is true to them, and so they end up with kind of a hodgepodge. Right. Some of the things are more of what we want, less of what we don’t want. But some of the things are kind of a gray area. And that gray area tends to fall through the cracks when we’re making decisions. And so you don’t really get clarity as to your values and you’re not then authentic with them. It becomes really challenging for people to know how to behave.

 

[00:12:34] Heather: I love that you brought this up, because I don’t know if you know this, but values are huge for me have always been. It’s how I chose the law firm that I ultimately went to to make partner. It’s how I aligned for my clients. I always made sure that my clients were aligned to my values because no way was I going to work with somebody who wasn’t. And it’s also how I chose my people as well.

 

And so I love that you are so values based now.

 

[00:13:04] Allison: And.

 

[00:13:04] Heather: And I love that you gave some very specific examples. Something I want to note that you said that I have found to be very true, at least in my clients.

 

And I think lawyers in general do this. I know what I don’t want. They’re really good about seeing the things they know they don’t want, but they don’t really know what they do want or the why behind it. And I think values are key to that.

 

And if we haven’t sat down and said, okay, what are my values? And defined them, define exactly what they mean, and then gone further and actually figured out contextually, what does that mean in my day to day, how business is done, how we interact with one another within the firm environment and with clients, then you really don’t know enough about who is and who is not the right fit.

 

You can see that somebody might not be, but you don’t always know the exact reason why. You know, a couple of them, okay, this is just wrong. I don’t think this, you know, this is what I don’t want. But you haven’t been able to articulate to yourself. And if you can’t articulate to yourself, you really can’t articulate to others what is expected and what you need. And then also the Hiring decisions are going to be all over the place. It’s all. It’s going to be chance. Right.

 

So a question I have for you though is how do you.

 

I know that values are important to you, and I know that they’re very important when it comes to not just leadership but hiring. So do you have any tips or suggestions for how people can more quickly suss out somebody, whether somebody really is a values fit or not?

 

[00:14:38] Allison: Yeah, so, I mean, that’s an excellent question.

 

We actually work with our clients on this quite a lot at law firm mentor. And one of the things that we always have them do is we have them fill out an evaluation of their current team and an aspirational chart as to what they desire in terms of their attitude, aptitude and fit for the company.

 

So the cultural fit piece is really the values piece. And that’s the part that most people do have challenge with. In our experience, though, it really isn’t so much that people don’t know what they want, it’s that they don’t feel entitled to ask for what they want, especially women leaders. And so a lot of times lawyers will say, well, what I really want is I want a workplace where everyone gets along and where there’s not friction. And at the same time, they’ll say, I want a workplace full of big D energy. People who are really aggressive litigators who are fighting the, you know, fighting the good fight every day for justice.

 

And we will have to talk to them and say, okay, the desire for comfort is a homeostasis, you know, embodiment in human beings, right? So you’re not wrong for wanting that.

 

But at the same time, if you desire to have people who fight all the time, that’s inherently conflictual with people who get along all the time, right? So I want you to think about which one is more important.

 

And at the end of the day, I think a lot of people have the belief system that I’m supposed to say, what’s most important is that we all get along, right? Because I don’t want the headaches of having to deal with people who don’t get along. I don’t want the HR issues. I don’t want the disruption in my day of having to deal with interpersonal disagreement. But I’ll say to them, okay, so if I were to tell you that the most aggressive litigators tend to be people who are not conflict avoidant, who are going to be conflictual, who are going to advocate for what they want, even if it’s discrepant from what you’re telling them they’re entitled to, and that there’s going to be a lot of that in your, in your day to day experience.

 

And you would have to be willing to tolerate that in order to have the level of economic success that a high d litigation practice requires.

 

Are you willing to accept that to the detriment of your, you know, your, your experience of everyone getting along? And a lot of times they’ll say, I’m not.

 

And I say, that’s okay. That’s a choice that you’re making. But then don’t tell me that what you want to do is grow this type of law firm. You can grow a law firm, right? You can have a very large. We have helped other law firms to grow a very large estate planning practice or a very large business law practice, right? But you have to think about what you want to create. If you want to create a well full of people who fight all day, they’re not going to fight all day. Everyone except you and everyone except your team.

 

So there becomes a values conflict. And when you have a values conflict, almost invariably when you define what you want in the value set, when you start looking at your cultural fit, you have a really hard time defining that clearly. And you’re giving out a mixed message. Even though you’re saying, I want everyone to get along, you’re. You’re attracting people who are, let’s make sure we get along. So I’m not going to fight if it means that I’m going to sacrifice getting along, right? So you’re not going to get what you want over here. If you’re getting what you want over here, you have to decide. And that might mean sacrificing money, that might mean sacrificing prestige. That might mean, you know, that might mean you have to have interdepartmental difference, right? You can have the litigation department, and those are the scary people that are kept on a separate floor from everybody else.

 

There’s ways to create this, but you have to be clear about what you’re creating. And not enough people think about that. They think about attitude and aptitude. Right? I want somebody who can do the job. I need somebody who’s good on paper, who’s ethical, who can keep my clients happy, who can serve. Right. Who knows what they’re doing.

 

But. And they’ll think about attitude to a certain degree. Right? Attitude is how we approach the law, right? With somebody who has a certain level of conscientiousness, somebody who has a certain level of diligence somebody who wants certain certifications on their resume, Right. Somebody who’s going to generally try to cooperate with what management asks of them. Most people are clear on that. The cultural piece is where we get a lot of conflict.

 

[00:18:49] Heather: And I think it’s because we don’t understand what that really means.

 

And that’s why they need somebody like you or I to help them discern, okay, what does this really mean to you? What culture is it you really want to create? And, and this was very important because you’ve touched on this already. There are trade offs.

 

Every decision you make has trade, something lawyers hate, Right? We hate trade offs. We don’t want to have to make trade offs. I hate to break it to you, but every choice, every decision has a trade off. So you might as well get really clear around what it is that you want and what the trade offs are so that you can make intentional decisions in the right direction towards what you actually want. And also, sometimes you’re willing to make. You know, maybe as you said, if you want to create a big law firm and you want a litigation section, perhaps there’s a way to do it.

 

But you have to understand your litigators don’t just turn off that portion of them.

 

They’re good litigators for a reason. So that does come with some trade offs. But it may be worth it if you find the right ones that fit in other ways and you have your guardrails and boundaries and different things in place.

 

For some people, they’re going to say, no, I don’t ever want to deal with that. Others are like, okay, I could do that, but you’ve got to do it very intentionally.

 

[00:20:06] Allison: Yeah. And, you know, the piece that I think doesn’t get talked about enough is the fact that for a lot of people, they will say that they’re willing to make the trade offs. Like, if they really want the litigation practice, they’ll start down the road of creating that. And then the friction happens. And instead of saying, okay, there’s friction, this means I need to grow in my conflict management skills, right? This means that I have to set the tone. Right? I have to be a better leader because I have to set the tone for what we will and won’t accept, how we, how we will engage in conflict, Right? Because.

 

[00:20:35] Heather: Right.

 

[00:20:36] Allison: People are going to have conflict. Even in the most conciliatory and the most cooperative environments, people disagree, Right. So you’re always going to have to deal with that. But the question becomes, when you have people that are dealing with it in a way, that’s toxic, that’s emotionally draining, that’s energetically frustrating for you.

 

How do you get rid of that energy? Well, the reality is you don’t get rid of it. You learn how to exist with it long enough to diffuse it so that you can move the people through the conflict. And most people recognize at some core level that means you have to evolve. Right. Almost invariably when people have a problem with conflict, even if it’s somebody else’s conflict you’re not involved in, I always say there’s a leadership issue here because we haven’t set the tone. We haven’t set the expectations for even how we engage in conflict. So what ends up happening is people start yelling and screaming and cursing and doing whatever they’re doing, and you say, oh my God, that’s not acceptable here. Right. Okay, a little too late for them to know that now. All right? Because they’ve already done what they’ve done. So now you have to course correct it and set a new tone and expectation. But most people recognize that feels bad because that feels like I failed because I did not set the proper tone. I did not set the expectations, I did not train. I don’t want to be told that I’m wrong or bad.

 

I don’t want to have to evolve through this. I want to look at you and make you wrong.

 

And if I can look at you and make you wrong and say, oh, yelling, cursing, that’s wrong, bad.

 

That’s a you problem.

 

I don’t have to grow and change.

 

And so a lot of people will say what they want and they will start down that road. And as soon as a problem arises, they solve the problem by extracting the person from the culture. They fire the person or they engage with the person in a way that has that person want to leave because they don’t allow that person to become their best self because they don’t set the tone of leadership. Right.

 

[00:22:22] Heather: Right.

 

[00:22:22] Allison: So it really becomes. That’s why I say all of the problems dealing with people are leadership problems. In fact, there’s a whole section in my book that’s coming out in March on people and leadership issues and how a lack of leadership can very much filter into an organization in ways that you don’t even see.

 

And it means that you’re in a constant state of self auditing and self management.

 

And that becomes very challenging for people. And if you’re not willing to go on the personal development journey in growing a business, the business is never going to grow beyond you.

 

[00:22:53] Heather: That is correct.

 

If you really, truly want to grow that business and be a leader, then you’re going to have to be okay with a huge personal development journey and admitting you’ve made mistakes and failures and understanding that that’s okay. It’s an opportunity for growth to be better, to get better, because that’s, that’s really what it is. You, you got to, in my mind, you, you have to flip that switch of, okay, I have to admit I made these mistakes. What can I learn from it? Where do I go from here?

 

[00:23:26] Allison: Yeah.

 

[00:23:26] Heather: Because if you can’t do that, you’ll never learn. And that’s actually how you create a toxic environment, is by being that person. The blame is always with the others. It’s never with me.

 

[00:23:36] Allison: Right. The conflict avoidance. Right? Yes. And so much. I mean, whenever we hear lawyers talk about how it’s so hard to find good people, to manage good people to get them to do what they’re supposed to do, almost invariably, I’d say 99 times out of 100, we’re going to ask enough questions and you’re going to get to, ah. So what really is at play here is you’re not willing to evolve to the type of person who can deal with the type of people that you want in your company.

 

Because the bigger the fish, the bigger the ego that comes with it almost invariably. Right. So you’re going to have those challenges. And those challenges give you the greatest opportunity to become a better version of yourself. Whether you choose to have a company or you choose to sell the company and do something else with your life, it allows you to free yourself from the attachment to whatever the issue is. Right. It’s kind of like Don Miguel Ruiz. I quote often from the four agreements. I don’t take it personally.

 

If it’s not personal and it doesn’t attack you, then you can say, ah, this is a data point. All right, what can I learn from this experience? What am I hearing from these people and what do I need to say in this moment in order that they are able to disengage from this conflict in a way that solves the problem in the best interest of all people? It’s, it’s, it’s simply a question of how do I deal with this? And then it becomes the opportunity for you to get to your next level.

 

[00:24:55] Heather: So is this inability to look inward to yourself and see your role and be willing to grow one of the bigger people related mistakes, you see?

 

[00:25:08] Allison: Well, I mean, so there’s always failure to look inward, Right? That’s kind of the Starting point. But I also say that when we look at people, what we are often doing is we’re projecting the easiest way to see this, and I did this at actually one of our leadership retreats last year is we did an exercise. I don’t know if your audience or you are familiar with Myron Katie, but I’m a big fan of Byron Katie and her work is very much about turning around what we are seeing and saying in other people. And so I had my leaders do an exercise where I had them write down the five most nerve grating attributes of a person that they were in conflict with over the past year. And I said, the conflict doesn’t have to be that you’re fighting and screaming, right? It just think about people that annoyed you, things that just got on your nerves, it got under your skin that you just couldn’t, you couldn’t stop thinking about it. You’re like, I just want this to go away, right? If it had any type of nervous system response for you, write it down. So people wrote those down. And then I said, I want you to now sit and look at your list. And I want you to write either one of two statements in front of either I am or I was never allowed to be.

 

So if you wrote down, you know, John Doe annoys me because, you know, he shows up with problems with no solutions. He’s always got a problem and never has a solution, then, right? I am. Right. So is it more true that you are somebody who shows up with problems without solutions, or is it that you were never allowed in your lifetime, in your childhood to show up with a problem with no solution?

 

Because for some of you, when you hear, you know, one of my leaders gave that as an example, that might annoy that particular leader, somebody else in the room. Yeah, that happens. I don’t like it, but like, whatever, right? It’s not, it’s not something that energizes you. If it energizes you at your core, almost invariably it is something that you are seeing that you wish you could do that somebody else is doing to you or something that you do to other people without having a conscious awareness of it. And we found that to be 100% true with every single item on every person’s list.

 

When you see that, when you see that projection piece, one of the things that you should think about, a lot of times you’re making termination decisions or disciplinary decisions about a person, it’s not really about the person, it’s about what they make you feel about yourself through having to deal with whatever they’re doing.

 

And we see that with when people have conflict around, you know, two paralegals can’t get along. So the managing paralegal is like, oh, you know, these two people are always butting heads with each other because they don’t problem solve. They accuse each other without doing research.

 

They’re very conflictual with each other. Like I just can’t get them to disengage. And when you start to explore a little bit, what they’re oftentimes doing is they’re imputing to the other person a story that they either feel about themselves or that they wish they had been allowed. Like, you know, sometimes you have a person that’s very entitled. Right. I’m entitled to have all of my activities done when I want them done. I’m entitled to have my communications responded to right away. The other person might feel annoyed by that because they were never allowed to have the entitlement of being first. Right. They always kind of felt like they were in last place. And so a lot of times they’re responding to a behavior by another person that triggers them and it’s not really about the other person. That’s again, back to Don Don Miguel Ruiz. I don’t take it personally because it’s not personal. Right. The behavior is kind of a trigger for something that you’ve already experienced that oftentimes is causing you pain. And when you get people to see that, a lot of times they’re able to self audit. That doesn’t mean it immediately goes away. The problem is still there. Right. It’s well worn. But then oftentimes you can get people to say, huh, maybe this isn’t about that other person. Maybe this is about how I’m receiving it. Maybe I can, you know, give myself some different thoughts, some different activities so that it doesn’t injure me the same way. And yeah, I might not ever like this person, but I don’t have to be emotionally triggered by the person. I have to be angry at the person. And you’re able to diffuse a lot of conflict that way. And I find that when people get to that place in business and in leadership, they will oftentimes be able to self solve and then they can help others solve for that particular problem. You get a lot more cohesion even in highly conflictual environments. And you don’t have to have such great turnover with people that have difficult personalities because the law has got a lot of them.

 

They’re not going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[00:29:36] Heather: Yeah. And sometimes the more difficult personalities really are the ones who have some great strengths and there’s a reason you have them.

 

So if you could do this and figure out, okay, can I make some changes around how I feel?

 

And then when you. I think what people need to understand is when you’re triggered like that, you can’t think rationally enough to figure out how to effectively deal with it in any way, shape or form.

 

So if you tamp down that you can figure this out, tamp down on those emotions a bit, feel less triggered, you can maybe see other opportunities, you can maybe see other avenues and other paths as opposed to I just have to get rid of them.

 

[00:30:22] Allison: Very true, very true. Yeah.

 

[00:30:25] Heather: So, okay, let’s talk ego a little bit, because we lawyers have some egos, right?

 

And this is something that I know every coach who’s. Every coach to lawyer out there has dealt with, because every lawyer I’ve ever known has been like this. The I can do it best, I can do it better, I need to do this myself mentality that we all. It. It completely impedes leadership and as you say, fuels chaos. So let’s talk about that a little bit.

 

[00:30:55] Allison: Yeah. So I mean, when people talk about the I can do it better myself, I like to approach it from the perspective of what if you’re right?

 

I always ask that question. Let’s say you’re the smartest person in the room, right?

 

Let’s not challenge that belief system at all. You have eight people in your company. You are the most capable. You can do the most activity. You can do it the fastest, you can do it the best, you can do it with the greatest precision. You can get the client the greatest outcome.

 

Where does that leave you?

 

And almost invariably they will say, it leaves me working 90 hours a week, being tired, being overwhelmed. The consequence is pretty logically easy to follow.

 

So then the question becomes, how then are you going to grow this company if you have to be right now, you are the best person, right? According to our story, we’re just going to accept that as fact that you are the most capable person. How are you going to grow beyond yourself if you’re the most capable person?

 

Well, then the next answer is also logical. Well, then I have to get better people. I have to get people who are better at it than I am.

 

And then you hit the fallacy, which is there are no people out there that are better than I am.

 

Right? Because the ego wants to attach to the idea of supremacy. So we say, okay, great, so basically, you’re stuck where you are. You’re never going to leave this, you’re going to get to be superior all on your own. So superior and broke. How does that feel?

 

Right? And then we have to start chipping away at it. So I always tell people is, you know, let’s not debate the I am best at this. Let’s accept that that is true. But here’s the thing. You don’t need best in order to grow a company, you need minimum compliance with your standards. So you have to first set your standard and then you have to find people who can meet your standard. And it doesn’t matter that you can meet your standard. On, you know, scale from 1 to 10, you’re a 10. If your standard is 7.5, you need 7.5 or better. That’s it, right? And then the other thing that people have to realize is even if you find people who are not at the 10, you’re the 10, you’re the elite, they’re at the 7.5, right? They’re in the middle of the bell curve. And they are, they are consistent with what your standard is. There’s only so many hours in a day.

 

So if something requires a 10, you might have to go get yourself a 10 person to deliver it. But you have to realize a 10 person is going to have a 10 salary demand. They’re going to have, they’re going to have, you know, a 10 level of expectation of autonomy and freedom. They’re going to require more.

 

And you have to ask yourself, you might be a tenant doing the task, but are you a tenant leading a 10?

 

And almost invariably the answer is no. So that means again, you’re going to hit up against a ceiling. And what I tell people then is, okay, so now what we have to do is we have to set our standard and we have to see what we’re willing to accept. Because for a lot of lawyers, they believe that they are exceptional and what they’re willing to accept is nothing less than exceptional. So there’s a big delta there. We have to psychologically best that delta. Like, what can we get ourselves at a standard of that we can accept and get people to meet that standard.

 

And at the same time, the time that they’re freeing up for you has to be devoted to being a better leader so that you can lead the tens.

 

Because when you stack your deck with lower level people, you’re saving yourself money in the short term. You are increasing risk because they don’t have the same level of conscientiousness, capability, independence that is going to be required.

 

You are increasing Cost, because in the short term, they cost less in terms of what they pay in salary, but they will typically increase your rate of grievance risk and malpractice risk. So you have to, you know, you have to build that into your economic model. And then they are also costing you what I consider to be the most important thing, which is the peace of mind.

 

I can step away from my company for months at a time, for years at a time. I have no worries whatsoever that my clients will be taken care of. My team is going to run things well. My staff will be taken care of. If somebody needs to be hired or fired, they will do that and take care of that for me. I have no concerns in that regard. And I’ve tested this multiple times through things that I did not plan.

 

Last year, I had multiple surgeries. Last year, my mother died suddenly. Last year I had a whole lot of things land, and none of them stopped the business. In fact, last year, my law firm grew about 48%.

 

So you have to consider that, you know, when you are unavailable, people have no choice but to rise to the occasion. But you have to have created an opportunity for them to do that.

 

That requires you to be a better leader, which means that really has to be your focus once you get all of your core functions in your company taken care of.

 

[00:35:36] Heather: So what happens, though? Okay, say they hired.

 

You’ve hired a team.

 

You’re a small but mighty firm.

 

You’re scaling, and you’re starting to realize that you don’t really have the right staff for what you’re scaling to.

 

Maybe you even feel, you know, held hostage by them. You just. You’re stuck. What do you do?

 

[00:36:01] Allison: Yeah, so this is really the hard part. It always starts by looking at, you know, an honest assessment. I always say it’s really hard to assess people honestly. When you’re frustrated, tired, triggered, you know, it’s kind of like halt, right? You know, hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.

 

You know, don’t. Don’t evaluate in that state, but, like, put it down for a moment. Give yourself a moment of clarity. And for a lot of people, they’re in such agitation that it’s really hard to find that. But you do have to find that. Get yourself kind of out of trigger, out of anger, and then just look at your team and say, what do I desire for my company?

 

And put those attributes down and then evaluate your people against it. And if they don’t meet it, then you need a plan for exit, and you need a plan for getting in the team members that you want. But here’s the thing.

 

Don’t go thinking that you can just go to market and get great people. Because here’s the thing, a 10 doesn’t want to work with a 2.

 

So if you’re surrounded by twos, you’re going to have to go through what is probably going to be a very uncomfortable, very, you know, unsettling experience of extracting the twos so that you can get the tens in.

 

And that part is the part that most people avoid. And so what ends up happening is, and I say this often, you don’t deal with your stuff. Your stuff deals with you, right? If you don’t decide, this person needs to go, and we have a plan to get in a better person, so we’re going to hire a better person and let that person go. We’re going to let that person go and hire a better person. Whatever the order is, is the order.

 

If you don’t make that decision, that person is going to screw something up that’s going to get you sued or that’s going to commit an ethics violation, or that person is going to do something that’s going to terminate other people in your company.

 

The people that you want to stay are not going to want to be there. They’re going to leave. Your company is going to collapse around you. So you have to be intentional. And this is where having those difficult conversations comes in, having that come to Jesus moment. You hired them. It is ultimately your responsibility.

 

Don’t stay in the shame and blame of that. Just accept it as a fact and say, I’m going to do better in the future. And that’s all that you can do. You cannot unwrite the past. It’s done now. Now you have to decide what does the company require. And you have a duty to not just yourself, but to your employees and to your clients, to give them the best possible team that you can acquire. And you cannot do that if you’re holding on to dead weight.

 

[00:38:20] Heather: And it’s hard because we don’t like change, and we also don’t like hurting people, even when we know that person is not really the right fit for where you’re going and where you need to be.

 

And we also don’t like admitting we made a mistake in who we hired.

 

So it’s hard.

 

But I found also that when we, as you said, clearly write down and define, like, what is it that we want and where are we going and we have a clearer vision, it doesn’t make it easier. I mean, it does in a way, but it makes it, it makes you more motivated to be able to do the hard thing.

 

[00:38:59] Allison: It makes it simpler to take that stuff. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, and a lot of times I tell people you didn’t necessarily hire the wrong person, but you outgrew them.

 

[00:39:08] Heather: I think that’s usually what’s happened. They worked for. And that, that’s actually makes it harder because you can see back, well, they were the right person for this and this and this. He’s like, but that’s not who, that’s not where you guys are now. And that’s growing towards.

 

[00:39:21] Allison: Yeah, those are the hardest terminations. I actually had one of those like a couple of years ago where the person was the most loyal. You know, every time. You know, my, my firm is very much committed to charity and this person would always lead the charity fundraisers and was like the most committed, the most dedicated, had the greatest personality, had the greatest disposition for clients. I mean, was just a great human, but could not do the things that her role entailed. And there was no other role that this person could, could do. So, you know, you’re left with a, with a choice of, you know, right person, wrong time. What do I do? You have to make the decision that’s best for the company today. The company doesn’t get to be where it was five years ago.

 

[00:40:04] Heather: Right.

 

[00:40:04] Allison: Ten years ago.

 

[00:40:05] Heather: What was the role three, four years ago is not necessarily the role of that position now because the company has changed and it’s just something. It’s hard.

 

[00:40:16] Allison: Yeah.

 

[00:40:16] Heather: But necessary.

 

[00:40:17] Allison: Yes. But you know what was really great about that whole experience, as hard as it was for all the people involved, was the, this person’s direct manager had become a friend and it was like, oh, like we didn’t even involve this person in the decision making. This person, we had to tell this person, the problem has gone on long enough. We cannot solve this problem. We have tried every manner of coaching, training, developing, etc. It’s not going to get better. This person is just not a fit.

 

We had to let the manager know and the manager was devastated. Oh no, can’t we do anything? Can’t we do anything? And ultimately I’d say maybe three months into that person is gone, new person is coming in. The manager came to us and was like, oh my God, my life is so much easier. Like, I just, I didn’t know this was even possible.

 

And it was really just like true light bulb moment. And just by virtue of that, that particular manager significantly elevated in the course of a year, by virtue of Having a better team.

 

And partly it was because, ah, now that I’m. You don’t even realize that as a manager, when you care about your team, you oftentimes create these maladaptive tendencies where you are managing around them, okay, well, I can’t give this to this person. I’ll just do it myself. Right? And then you justify in your mind, oh, it’s just easier and faster for me to do it this way. So you create a whole system around you doing certain things. But when you hire a person who’s more proficient, more efficient, more capable, and that person naturally does the things that are intended for their role, you’re like, oh, not only do I get a better outcome, I get my time back. I get my time back that I can actually spend doing things that get us to the next level. So I can spend more time training up our sales team. I can spend more time overseeing our attorneys, I can spend more time training our paralegals, whatever it is that your role is. And then you start to see, okay, having better people is not just something that the company wants, it’s something that I require. I get to be a better version of myself when I have better people to steward into whatever functional capacity we require. And that’s really where leaders get to grow. And then they get addicted to that. So if you get the right growth mindset person and you give them the opportunity with a really great team, they’re going to take that and they’re going to make it tenfold. And any little thing then becomes a. We don’t do that here.

 

Right? We’re solving that right now. Because we’re not going back, right? No, never going back.

 

[00:42:39] Heather: And I would just note when it comes to that person who became a friend, because this happens a lot. In fact, this, this comes up a lot in my coaching as well. And came up recently with someone.

 

You don’t realize how much time you’re really spending trying to plan around all of that. And then how it’s not just about time. The mental exhaustion and strain and stress around that, that once you deal with this, it goes away.

 

And the thing is, is what. What my clients figure out once they get to this point where they’re finally willing to go there and do the thing that they need to do.

 

Wow, there’s resentment that’s building up there. Like, that is not going to be good for your friendship. So the only way to save it is to make the right choice and the right step for your business.

 

[00:43:25] Allison: Yeah, well, that I, I think that that’s Such a true, it’s such a strong point. I mean, it’s one of these things where if people don’t recognize early on the mental drain, they feel the absence of the mental drain and it really gives them like three times the capacity. Yeah, you know, it’s kind of like I had a back problem like a couple of years ago and I, as a result of it, I was seeing a chiropractor and I remember he gave me these exercises to do and there’d be times where he said, I want you to do this every three hours. Well, three hours doesn’t sound like it’s a big ask, but at the time I was very much in the throes of building law firm mentor and I was on screen and I was coaching and I was training and I was doing lives and I was selling and I was literally, there’d be times where I’d have a six hour day with like no bathroom break, right. I would just get up, get on screen and be back to, back to back. And so there’d be a couple times where I would miss those exercises and boy would I feel it.

 

And as a result, I would be able to, if I didn’t move myself in a certain way in order to prevent the pinched nerve that I have at the back of my, in my back from becoming frustrated, I would very much feel pain. So I was constantly adapting myself to move so as to not cause pain. And I ended up going in to see my orthopedist at some point and he said to me, like, I see that you’re, you’re, you’re now walking with a heavy gait to the right and I actually am a little left side gate heavy. So he said that’s, you know, that that’s not uncommon. We see this a lot when people are adapting. But I want you to understand that when you are chronically adapting, you’re causing a different problem. So it’s almost like we’re fixing the one problem and you are now causing another problem. And he said, I’m pretty sure you’re not doing it intentionally. I’m pretty sure you’re just going through your day trying to stay out of pain, right?

 

I said, yeah. He said, I’m pretty sure you’re also not stopping every three hours to do the exercises that were prescribed to you. I said, well, I have this work to do. He said, your body doesn’t care that you have work to do. Your body requires these exercises every three hours and if you don’t do it, you will start maladapting and that maladaption is going to cause another problem. You are making the problem worse by not doing what’s required to solve the problem. And that was the most crystal clear example. And I use it all the time with my coaching clients because we very much see it. When you don’t solve the problem of your underperforming employee, you maladapt around them and then you create another problem. You create resentment in other team members, you create exhaustion for yourself. You create time lag, you create client issues. You create more and more problems that by virtue of not solving this problem, you are now creating a longer road to hoe to try to solve all the consequential problems that resulted from not solving the first one. So it really becomes, then we need to think fast, we need to solve fast. And you have to get into that habit in order to create a scaling company.

 

[00:46:25] Heather: Well, and I would say it’s a lot like. So my, my kids both are into sports, and we see this a lot with sports injuries, where when they get one injury and then they try to come back too early and they don’t do all of the work they’re supposed to do, they almost always end up injured again with something else that’s even worse.

 

[00:46:44] Allison: Yeah.

 

[00:46:45] Heather: And I think it’s not just that you’re causing something else. Usually that what you’re causing is this ripple effect that is way worse than the original thing and taking the time to deal with that.

 

So beware and know that you know there’s a ripple effect to every choice you make and you can’t avoid.

 

Avoidance creates more problems.

 

[00:47:09] Allison: Yeah. And it feels good in the moment because you feel that you’re being kind by not being harsh. But what I always tell people is you don’t want to be hard on a person.

 

So you don’t have to stop caring about the person. You don’t even have to stop loving the person. It might be that you formed your law firm and very much the dysfunction that I say is like the family, the work family. I always say, do not refer to this company as a work family. We can care about each other people. We are not family. Why are we not family? Because family is the dysfunction that you can’t escape. Right. And we’re not bringing this into the workplace, but once you get into that, that place where you care about people, it’s really hard. But I always tell people, be hard on the problem. Like, don’t be hard on the person. Like, the problem is a lack of aptitude. It’s a Lack of follow through, it’s a lack of systems. It’s a whole lot of things that have nothing to do with the moral fiber or the integrity or the soul of the human you’re dealing with. And if you can separate the two and in your language to the person separate the two, they might still take it personally. Right. You have no control over how a person hears your message. But if you separate the two at some point in time, they will also recognize they’re not complying. They will also recognize they’re not a fit for the role. And then when you release them, it’s not going to feel good, but it’s something that they can accept a lot easier because you didn’t treat them with the level of honestly inauthenticity and lack of kindness that was lying to their face over an extended period of time and then all of a sudden saddling them with, sorry, this is not working, you gotta go. Right? That’s worse than if you had been honest on the pathway to ultimately releasing them.

 

[00:48:45] Heather: Yeah, not being honest is not kind.

 

I think there’s a very big misunderstanding these days around what is and is not kind.

 

I think this is a great place to stop before I let you go.

 

Where can people find you if they want to reach out and hear more and know more about you?

 

[00:49:03] Allison: Sure. So you can always find me on our website@lawfrommmentor.net and as I mentioned a little bit earlier, March 10th is the release of Crushing Chaos, the law firm owner’s guide to More money, More Free time and Less stress, which is something I am committed to bringing to all law firm owners. And so the book will be available on all your major platforms. You can find out more about that also also on our website.

 

[00:49:26] Heather: Thank you so much for being here today. This was wonderful.

 

[00:49:28] Allison: Yeah, thank you for having me. It’s always great to talk to you. Heather.