How much do you weigh? (And other ways your numbers lie)
If I ask you how much you weigh, you might “know” that answer based on the scale in your bathroom at home. But if you weigh yourself at home, and then later in the day visit your doctor, the doctor’s number will inevitably be different. And if your home happens to be in Florida, at sea level, you’ll be heavier at home than you would be using the same scale in Denver, Colorado. That’s because although we think of weight as an absolute attribute of a person or object, it’s really a measure of how hard gravity is pulling – and altitude makes gravity less effective. So, how much do you weigh? It depends. And depending on why someone’s asking, that might not be the right question at all.
In the context of fitness and health, measuring weight is just a proxy for an outcome we desire, and often not a great one.
The same is true for many of the metrics we see law firm owners track. Billable hours, billed revenue, number of intake calls – there’s a long list of metrics that are telling half-truths, and not doing a great job of helping us understand the health of our firms. In many cases, they are distracting us from the actions we really need to be taking to achieve the results we desire.
What if you took this approach instead?
- Start by identifying the results you really want from a particular function within your firm
- Look at the chain of events / processes in that functional area, and determine the one key action that is within your control, that drives your desired result
- Track your desired result and the key action consistently over time, to be sure your hypothesis about whether the action drives that result is correct, and tweak as needed
- Double down on that key action, and watch your desired results start rolling in
I’d love to hear your challenges with law firm metrics – and how you’re getting it right, too! Drop me a DM on LinkedIn or a comment to this post, or click here to set up a quick chat.
To your #PROmance!
Whitney
P.S. – Our Accelerator members recently participated in a live workshop on Measuring What Matters, and had the opportunity (as a group, and with our team’s live guidance) to work through the process of identifying their key actions and desired results in the various functional areas of their firms. Interested in knowing when we open up new seats for the Accelerator? Click here to get on the list!