Recently, I was reading The Good Egg by Jory John and Pete Oswald to my daughters before bed for what had to be the 100th time. Usually, if I’m being completely transparent, I am flying through these bedtime books. We’ve brushed teeth, found the right pajamas, gotten water, watched Bluey, answered 47 questions, and I am ready for bedtime. You know the drill. But this time, something in The Good Egg made me slow down. As I was reading, I realized there was actually a pretty decent message tucked inside this children’s book for the professional world, especially for business owners and leaders.
If you haven’t read it, The Good Egg is exactly what his name suggests. He wants to do the right thing. He wants to be responsible. He wants everyone else to do the right thing, too. The problem is, the other eggs in his carton don’t always behave the way he thinks they should. And it stresses him out. Sound familiar?
I think a lot of law firm owners are Good Eggs. You built the firm. You care deeply about it. You know how you want to treat your clients. You know how you want things done. You know what has worked in the past, and you probably have a pretty good gut instinct for when something isn’t right. Those qualities are likely a huge part of the reason your firm has been successful.
But they can also make it really hard to let go.
Someone sends an email, and you think, “I would have worded that differently.” Someone handles a problem, and you think, “That’s not how I would have done it.” Someone makes a decision without you, and your first instinct is to jump in and change it. Before you know it, you’re involved in every little thing. And that is exhausting. There’s a big difference between being accountable for your business and feeling like you have to carry your entire business. (News Flash: You don't, and you can't. Not for the long run.)
This is probably the part of The Good Egg that hit me the hardest. You cannot control all the other eggs in the carton. And in business, you shouldn’t want to. Not everyone on your team is going to do things exactly the way you do them. In fact, if you’ve hired well, I would argue that they shouldn’t. Someone may organize their day completely differently than you. They may approach a client conversation differently. They may write an email differently. They may solve a problem in a way that would have never crossed your mind.
Before jumping in, ask yourself, “Is this actually wrong, or is it just not how I would do it?” That question can save you a whole lot of unnecessary stress. If the outcome meets the standards of the firm, the client is being taken care of, and the decision aligns with your values, it’s very likely okay that they took a different road to get there.
Honestly...brace yourself...maybe their way is even better.
We talk a lot at Vista about having the right people in the right seats. But I think there’s an important second half to that conversation: Once you have the right people in the right seats, you have to let them do their jobs.
You can hire the best COO, intake director, marketing leader, case manager, or department head in the world, but if every decision still has to come through you, what have you really accomplished? You’ve delegated the work, but you haven’t delegated the ownership. That’s a problem for your team, but it’s also a huge problem if you want to scale your law firm.
At some point, your firm cannot continue to grow based solely on your individual capacity. There are only so many hours in the day and only so many decisions one person can make. You have to build people you trust to make decisions without you.
That means having clear expectations. It means having systems and processes. It means defining what success looks like. And, yes, it means accountability when expectations aren’t met. If you are familiar with Vista at all, you know we talk a lot about giving your team members the tools to do their jobs, the training to do their jobs well, and then setting those expectations. We call it TTE: Tools, Training, and Expectations.
Once those things are in place, you must give people some room to run. That’s not losing control of your firm. That’s building a firm that can grow.
There’s another piece of The Good Egg that I think we all need to hear every now and then: take care of yourself.
Whatever a break looks like for you, take one before your body or your brain forces you to.
I think business owners sometimes convince themselves that being needed every second of every day is evidence of how valuable they are to the business. But I’d challenge that thinking. If your law firm cannot function for a week without you, that might not be a sign of how important you are. It might be a sign that you still have some work to do on the business.
If you have built the right team and given them the tools and authority they need, the answer should eventually be yes. And that should feel freeing, not threatening.
Great leaders don't fix everything
Great leaders don't know everything.
And great leaders don't create a team that does everything exactly the way they would.
Build the right team. Set clear expectations. Hold people accountable. Then give them the freedom to actually do what you hired them to do. They will occasionally make mistakes. So will you. They will sometimes make decisions differently than you would. That’s okay. They may even come up with a better way to do something. Let them. And while they’re doing that, give yourself permission to step away every now and then.
So, take the vacation. Start a passion project. Close the laptop early. Read the bedtime story a little slower. You may come back and realize the problems were solved, the clients were taken care of, and the firm kept moving without you. That means you’re building the kind of business you were supposed to be building all along.
But what if you’re reading this and thinking, “That sounds great, Caroline, but there is NO way I can do that”?
Simple: Call Vista.
If stepping away from your firm feels impossible, there’s probably a reason. Maybe the right systems and processes aren’t in place yet. Maybe you don’t have clear accountability. Maybe your team still depends on you for too many decisions. Or maybe you know something isn’t working, but you aren’t quite sure where to start. That’s where we can help.
We’ve built Vista around one simple idea: law firm owners should not have to be the glue holding everything together. We work alongside you to put the right systems, processes, people, and accountability structures in place so your firm can operate strongly whether you are in the office, out of the office, or taking the break you have earned.
