Time is more Precious than Billing by the Hour

12/03/2012

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I’ve recently been reading Simon Sinek’s book “Start with Why” and the theme running through it is that nowadays, in 2012, in business it doesn’t matter what you do, it matters why you do it.

So let me ask you a question?

Why do you go to work?

When I ask this question…and I’ve been asking lots of people in the last month including a seminar of 56 small business owners four days ago….most people think the answer is simple. You go to work to earn money to pay bills and provide for your family.

Simple answer, but not true.

You go to work because that’s what’s expected of you.

Everyone you know expects you to go to work. Society expects it. Your family expect it.  Everyone knows that you get a job and go to work.  Which, in theory sounds great?  You work hard at school to get into University.  You work hard to get a degree, then a diploma place then a traineeship.  You land a good job, keep your head down, get promotion, climb the ladder to partnership and live happily ever after.

Well, that used to be the theory.

The reality in 2012 means working longer and longer hours just to make ends meet, there’s too much month left at the end of the money;  not only could you begin to get blighted financially, but your mind and spirit have started to go as well and you exist to work.

The unfortunate thing is that this is so ingrained in us as a way to exist, that if things start to go wrong – as it’s starting to for many people working in law firms – we start to blame ourselves.  We blame ourselves for our inadequacies and try to make amends by working longer, harder and faster.  And people would rather suffer a heart attack, sleepless nights and unnecessary stress than stop working, because work is what we do.

Others I know are running up massive debts so that they can maintain a standard of living that their salaries cannot sustain.

Is this the way it should be?  If this way of living is not delivering the goods financially and spiritually then it could be time to consider an alternative way of living. 

Rather than simply “earning a living” why not “create a life of quality”?

If society pushes you into “going to work” as the only game in town; why play a game with rules where you cannot win?


One of the things that I think modern lawyers should abandon with immediate effect is hourly billing.  Customers hate it, legal employees spend too much time working out who to charge for what and senior partners have their egos boosted by declaring how much per hour they charge.

But imagine for a moment that you could buy time rather than charge for it?  How much would you be willing to pay?

Let’s imagine you are on your death bed about to breathe your last and an angel gives you a chance to buy some extra time.

How much would you pay to turn the clock back to when your children were young so that you could spend a few extra hours playing with them?

How much would you pay to go back in time so that you could tell your mother, father, partner, brother, sister or friends just how much you loved them, at times in their lives when they needed to hear you say those words the most.

How much would you be willing to pay to be ten years old again playing in the late evening warmth of a summers day?

And what would you pay to have your time over again to pursue that dream that has eluded you your entire life?

No, time is not money because you can’t put a value on time and those who try to value their time only in terms of money will always undersell it.

My time, your time, everyone’s time is precious and priceless.  Once that hour or day has gone it’s gone forever and all the money in the world can’t change that.

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The Only Measurement Your Firm Will Ever Need - By Ron Baker

09/07/2010

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There is a famous saying, often referred to as the McKinsey Maxim, named after the famed consulting firm: “What you can measure you can manage.”

This has become such a cliché in the business world that it is now either hollow or meaningless.

Companies have been counting and measuring things ever since accounting was invented but this has now become meaningless because it does not tell us what ought to be measured.

Besides, has the effectiveness of management itself ever been measured? How about the performance of measurement?

Measurement for measurement sake’s is senseless, as quality pioneer Philip Crosby understood when he uttered, “Building a better scale doesn’t change your weight.”

The Triple Crown Criteria

In his book, From Worst to First, Gordon Bethune details how he was able to turn around the failed US airline Continental, which had filed for  bankruptcy twice in the preceding decade, between February 1994 and 1997, turning it into one of the best and most profitable airlines in the sky today.

It is a remarkable story, and it illustrates the importance of utilising leading key predictive indicators (KPIs) to focus the entire organisation on its purpose and mission. Not key performance Indicators.

Bethune basically tracked three leading Key Predictive Indicators (KPIs), known as the “Triple Crown Criteria” in the airline industry:

  1. On-time arrival
  2. Lost Luggage
  3. Customer complaints
What makes these three KPIs leading is that they measure success the same way that the customer does. And that is critical because, ultimately, the success of any business is a result of loyal customers who return.

None of the three indicators would ever show up on a financial statement, but, as the airlines have learned over the years—by testing the theory—they have a predictive correlation with profits.

Is there a Triple Crown Criteria for Law Firms?

Now that there are well over a thousand firms that have trashed timesheets, VeraSage Institute is proud to announce, based upon empirical evidence, the Triple Crown Criteria for Professional Knowledge Firms (PKF's) such as Law Firms.

We are emphatically declaring that the following three KPIs are all your firm ever needs to track to predict future customer loyalty and buying behaviour.

Think about it: If an airline can run on three KPIs, why can’t a Law Firm?

An airline is far more complicated than any Law Firm, which is what makes KPIs so powerful: they are measurements (or judgments) guided by a theory.

But the theory is the senior partner. It’s not just measurement for the sake of measurement. It’s measuring—and judging—what actually matters, to customers.
It’s defining the success of your firm the same way the customer does, just like with the airline KPIs.

The Three KPIs

Turnaround Time

Michael Dell likes to refer to the time lag between a customer placing an order and the company assembling and shipping the finished product as "velocity".

We believe professional firms should also be diligent about tracking when each project comes in, establishing a desired completion date, and measuring the percentage of on-time delivery.

As Ed Kless senior fellow at the VeraSage Institute always points out, a firm can measure “time spent” or “duration.” The latter is the only thing that matters to the customer, hence that’s what needs to be tracked.

This prevents procrastination, missed deadlines, and projects lingering in the firm while the customer is kept in the dark.

Imagine installing 360-degree webcams everywhere in a Law Firm. Also imagine customers being able to log onto a secure Web site, type in their names and passwords, and the appropriate web camera would find their project and give them a real-time picture of it, probably laying on a lawyer or manager’s floor awaiting review.

Would this change the way work moved through a firm? Would this hold the firm accountable for results, not merely efforts?

Customers don’t want to hear about the labour pains—they want to see the baby.

FedEx and UPS do exactly this; and in fact some US law firms utilise intranets that provide their customers with real-time access to the work being performed on their behalf.

This one metric would go a long way towards mitigating most of the reasons customers defect from firms (not kept informed, feel ignored, and so on).

Value Gap

This measurement attempts to expose the gap between how much the firm could be yielding from its customers compared to how much it actually is.

It is an excellent way to reward cross-selling additional services, increase the lifetime value of the firm to the customer, and gain a larger percentage of the customer’s wallet.

Marriott International uses predictive analytics through its Hotel Optimisation program. Marriott has developed a revenue opportunity model, comparing actual revenues as a percentage of optimal prices that could have been charged. It attributes the narrowing of this gap, from 83 to 91 percent, to this metric.

One accountancy firm made this calculation part of its partner compensation model. What actions can your firm take to close the value gap?

High Satisfaction Day™

I am indebted to John Heymann, CEO, and his Team at NewLevel Group, a consulting firm located in Napa, California, for this KPI.

When John’s firm held a retreat for the purpose of developing their KPIs, the suggestion of High Satisfaction Day (HSD) was made.

An HSD is one of those days that convinces you, beyond doubt, why you do what you do. It could mean landing a new customer, achieving a breakthrough on an existing project, receiving a heartfelt thank-you from a customer, or any other emotion of exhilaration that makes you happy you got out of bed in the morning.

Sound touchy-feely? John admits it is; but he also says the number of HSDs logged into the firm’s calendar is a leading indicator—and a barometer—of his firm’s morale, culture, and profitability.

Is this too Simplistic?

No.

Compare the above KPIs to what most Law Firms are measuring now—billable hours, utilisation rates, realisation rates, write-downs, write-offs, and other internally-focused metrics that have nothing to do with how the customer defines the success of their firm.

These metrics have zero predictive ability when it comes to future customer behaviour. They are lagging indicators, not leading.

Stop measuring things that don’t matter, and focus on what does matter. The above three KPIs will work in any Law Firm that chooses to adopt them.

The VeraSage Institute stands by this Triple Crown hypothesis for all PKFs.

Prove them wrong.

We’ll all enjoy losing the argument, because it means we’ll learn something new. 

Copyright Ron Baker 2010 VeraSage Institute
This article first appeared on http://www.verasage.com/index.php/community/ 
on 8th July 2010
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