We talk a lot about finding the opportunities to improve your practice. Once you’ve identified an opportunity to make improvements in your practice, it’s really tempting to jump right in and start fixing things. But often, the frustration or the waste you’re experiencing is just a symptom of the real problem…it’s not REALLY your problem. And if you don’t fix the real problem, it’s going to come back again and again.

Want to watch this tip instead?

Welcome to Gimbal’s Tip of the Week, where you get practical, actionable advice you can use right away to start building a more productive and profitable legal practice.

The key to solving your problems once and for all is to identify the root cause of the issue or frustration you’re experiencing, and then target all of your improvement efforts towards eliminating that root cause. We’ve written about how you can do that before. Check out Episodes 59 and 60 from November 2020, where we give you a quick tool to help you find the root causes (and an example of how the work environment itself can be a root cause.

The environment is only one possible root cause. This week and next, we’re going to walk you through the 6 places to look when you’re trying to determine what’s REALLY causing your problem.

In service and knowledge-based businesses like law, root causes tend to fall into these 6 broad categories:

1. Methods
2. Environment
3. Technology
4. Knowledge Management
5. Clients
6.  People

This week, we’re looking at the first three.

First, methods are all the processes, strategies, and techniques you use to achieve your outcome or deliver the work product to your client. The process itself may be broken in any number of ways. For example:

• Too many steps or, on the flip side, a step that’s missing
• Delays, or
• The availability (or lack of availability) of resources

Sometimes the root cause is that you don’t have a process at all. Remember, if your “process” only exists in your head, it’s not a process. Without a clear, written process that people can follow, you and your team will waste time and energy. Even if you’re solo, you need to create written processes. Just the act of creating them will force you to look at what you do. You’ll start to see the inefficiencies! Plus, having a written process will allow you to dictate work when you’re ready, and ensure you don’t miss steps or make mistakes on processes you do regularly but not often.

Second, the environment can a root cause of inefficiency. It may be the physical environment. Think of the layout of your office space. Do you have enough light to work, or too much, as was the case with one of our clients? They had brand-new open plan offices but the sunshine was so bright people couldn’t see their computer screens and needed sunglasses inside…I kid you not. Distance to printers is another big one. Check out Episode 60 for more on that!

Environment also includes your culture. Workplace culture can influence whether people go to training sessions, or feel comfortable asking for help when they need it. It affects how likely they are to collaborate or work in silos. All of these things negatively impact your productivity. Problems that look, on the surface, like they’re caused by people, may actually just be normal reactions to workplace culture.

Finally for this week, the root cause of the problem you’re trying to solve may be technology. Technology is supposed to make work easier, faster, or more accurate. But if your system doesn’t work the way it should (maybe it’s slow or doesn’t meet your need) people will either avoid it or create workarounds. Being able to adapt and overcome a problem is a good thing, but when everyone creates their own workarounds, you end up with a mish-mash of solutions…and you’re not solving the root cause of the issue, you’re just putting a bandaid on it.

So this week’s tip is to always look for the root causes of any inefficiencies you’ve identified in your practice.

Your action item is to identify one issue or frustration you want to eliminate, and find its root cause. Determine whether the root cause lies in the method you’re using, the environment (physical or cultural), or the technology. If it’s none of those things, come on back next week when we look at root causes based in knowledge management, clients, and people.

Legal professionals who can identify and then resolve the root causes of inefficiency in their practices are able to deliver more value for themselves, for their firm and, most importantly, for their clients. Put simply, they’re much more likely to be recognized as true value-driven legal professionals.

If you want to really boost the productivity or the profitability of your practice, join Practice Accelerator. It’s a small-group coaching program that helps you build a stronger practice, and provides a community, accountability, expert advice, and ongoing implementation support.

Join us next week for more on solving root causes of inefficiency! Sign up so you don’t miss it.