The fact is that most of us are in our own way, especially those who settle for second best because they don’t have the courage like us business owners to go out into the world and build a business while handling all the responsibilities that come with such a demanding mission.

For this reason, many end up in an employed position, preferring a regular salary and settling for a limited earning potential. There’s nothing wrong with this. We all choose a path that matches our levels of courage.

Many employees are eager to have an opportunity to grow, prove themselves and increase their earning potential, but most will only do so if it feels safe enough.

With this in mind, to increase their participation, these eager employees (team members) need help navigating their subconscious blocks. Once they move past what holds them back, they often find new levels of motivation to challenge themselves and take on heavier levels of responsibility, which can cause them to become very lucrative team members.

Once we understand this, we no longer need to ‘hype up’ or ‘inspire’ most team members to take action; rather, we simply need to work with them and mentor them to navigate what is holding them back.

Often, the things that hold associates and team members back are:

• Fearing being scolded for making a mistake.
• Fearing they’ll be judged if they give their opinion.
• Being micromanaged by being interrupted with constant ‘check-ins.’
• Having their work constantly finished by the partners.
• Not being told clearly what targets they are to meet and by when.

All this keeps many team members playing small, hiding and pretending to be busy to get their next salary payment.

As a result, as a law firm owner or partner, you have to keep picking up the pieces, feeling like you have to do everything yourself and doing a lot of the billable work, which is not only exhausting but continually limits your firm’s and your profitability.

So, what’s the solution to increasing your team’s performance, making them want to stay and, in turn, be more profitable to you?

Use more of your time to challenge them. This is the key.

The way to do this is by initially stopping the points I mentioned above.

• When your team members make a mistake, don’t express your frustration or get heavy-handed with them. Instead, acknowledge them for giving things a go and work with them to correct their mistakes and stop them from repeating.

• Welcome your associates to speak their minds and give you their opinions. This will encourage them to openly share their challenges so you can continually see where resources are needed next to increase their performance and profitability.
• Stop micromanaging them. Let them find a way of doing what is asked of them and leave them to it until an agreed deadline.
• Rather than finishing work off for your associates, co-review their work and complete it together so that they can deliver better and more complete work in the future.
• Above all, set and communicate clear targets with deadlines. Once associates know this, they know how to prove themselves to you, but more to the point, you’ll see who’s got what it takes and who hasn’t, so you’ll stop investing your time in people who’ll continually let you and your firm down.

The solution to elevating performance while keeping your best team members is never about ‘being soft’, though being compassionate is a key component to creating great working relationships.

It’s about properly challenging them while ensuring they have everything they need to succeed.

When associates feel challenged yet in a supportive way, they often go through extraordinary breakthroughs in their own abilities that go on to surprise everyone around them and themselves.

I've seen this often with my clients when they see a few key team members start showing up and driving their firm forward without requiring motivation.

When this started to happen, they got their precious time back, which is a law firm owner’s most profitable commodity.

They could then use this time to focus on business development and further recruiting, enabling them to keep building a truly rewarding and highly profitable law firm.

As Charles van der Lande, the director at Roxburgh Milkins (providers of corporate law) said. "Since working with Dan, performance has improved across the board and the profitability of the whole firm has increased. Over the 6 months I worked with Dan, the number of chargeable hours recorded by the firm increased by over 25% and in the first few months of our new financial year our turnover is up by over 40%."

One key factor that made this possible was that Charles implemented the strategies I cover in this article.

Today, start properly challenging your team members to be part of something big while ensuring they have everything they need to succeed and watch what happens.

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