Through stats and numbers, I also showed the attendees why delegating is the most important skill in building a thriving firm that also enables them to live a truly fulfilling lifestyle.

Afterwards, I led a Q&A session with the attendees, and one of the co-facilitators, an executive coach with a base of law firm owners as clients, reeled off a whole series of problems that law firm owners face when they don’t delegate effectively.

I already knew them well, but hearing her take on the impact that not delegating effectively has on both the firm owners and the team as a whole was shocking.

These were the impacts she pointed out that she’d seen firsthand were caused by law firm owners not delegating effectively:

• Associates don’t get training, so they feel they don’t matter in the firm and often break their employment contracts early, hoping they’ll find the training and career progression they yearn for in a competitor’s firm.
• The associates aren’t effectively utilised to help handle the workload the equity partners face. So the associates feel stuck, only able to watch from the sidelines as the partners burn themselves out. Soon enough, many equity partners blame their team and associates for not doing enough.
• The firm owners remain stuck with overwhelming client workloads, which leaves them feeling consistently burned out. Because they are not free to take new actions or find an alternative, they don’t progress from this exhausting dynamic.
• Because of the sheer workload that leaves them feeling exhausted, many law firm owners are easily irritated by their associates and reply to their questions or suggestions angrily. This causes the associates to no longer feel able to speak openly, which means the law firm owners are left in the dark about issues affecting the firm’s performance and profitability.
• Law firm owners often feel depressed from constantly working such long and heavy hours, often missing out on time with their family or doing what they enjoy, such as playing golf or a bit of travelling. This often causes them to turn to drinking to cope with the depression, which only makes things worse.

After this, I also reminded the attendees that law firm owners who don't delegate effectively greatly limit the profits they can take home because they remain bottlenecks in the number of clients their firm can serve.

I wanted to share these points that arose in this conversation with you and assure you that if you are experiencing any of these things, it doesn’t need to be this way.

There is a solution to all of this.

It may seem like delegating your workload to other team members is even more overwhelming than simply doing the work yourself; however, this is only because you haven’t yet learned the right communication skills or learned how to handle the emotions that arise when agreeing on a deadline or holding a team member to account on a broken promise.

Once you learn the right communication skills and how to navigate awkward interactions with your associates and colleagues, you’ll feel free because you’ll be able to handle difficult conversations much more easily.

As a result, you'll be able to get your team members to support you effectively, reliably, and willingly implement your ideas.

Not only this, but your team will be able to start taking a lot of, if not all, the heavy work you have off your plate and work with you to build a thriving firm, a firm that’s more profitable than ever before and a firm that gives you the space to do the work you enjoy or to spend with your loved ones.

Today, simply be open to what I’m saying: that the skill of delegating will give you a whole new and inspiring future.

‍