This is something that gets your attention and makes your heart sink and race at the same time.

The idea of “cancer in a business” is somewhat dramatic and I am not even talking about certain people in a business who are “toxic.” I am talking about things in the business that are broken but can be fixed—sometimes easily. Many times these things are small and are not even noticed and they turn into “silent killers.” One leads to another and before you know it they are all over your business. Just think about some of the businesses you have used in the past month. I know that I walk away from at least half of the businesses I encounter wondering how they stay in business. Law firms are no exception.

Just yesterday morning I went into a bagel shop I do not regularly go to. I had an early morning doctor appointment and stopped in after the appointment. The bagel shop is in a small strip mall and parking is limited requiring you to take a ticket on the way in. The bagel was great and the atmosphere was comfortable. I get in my car and leave.

As I got to the parking gate the attendant asked for my ticket. I gave her the ticket and she asked for $3.00. I said, “I was here for 20 minutes, do the businesses here validate?” She said they did. I wondered aloud, “Why didn’t the cashier ask me for my ticket?” The parking attendant said, “They never do, I hear this all day long.” I showed her my receipt and she said, “Sorry, I will get fired without a real validation.” I paid her and went on my way. So what taste does that leave me with? Everything was done right up until the end. This is such an easy thing to fix. Some will say now you know to ask for the ticket to be validated next time. Sure, if I remember. The point is I should not have to remember!

I wonder what the owner thinks about this practice or lack of practice in his company. Does the owner even know? Hopefully, the owner cares.

Where is it in your business that you’re not asking for the ticket? It is all the little things in every business that create the experience the client has each and every time they come in contact with your firm. What taste do they leave with, who and what will they tell others. Make sure everyone in your firm knows what the standard is in your firm for everything. Most importantly, you need to look into it and check up on it. Also, one of the best ways to find out about the client experience is to ask them. Surveys are easy and invaluable!

There is a great book called, Broken Windows Broken Business by Michael Levine. It talks about all the little things in business and how critically important they are to the success of your business. Levine does, however, point out the worst “broken windows” may be people! The wrong employees can become a virus that can spread and infect the company. Focus on the easy things to fix first and get the ball rolling.

I was reading Money magazine recently when I came upon a wonderful resource for busy attorneys. As we all know, running a successful law practice can be stressful and all consuming, but taking time to nourish your brain with first rate material should be up there on the priority list right next to regular physical exercise. The great news is that a number of top tier universities have made their lectures available for free over the web. Whether it’s Civil War history by a Yale professor or interviews with faculty at Wharton, there are lots of sources for lectures, often accompanied by syllabuses and Study Guides.

I love to learn while I workout in the morning…the perfect multitasking activity. Many listen to music on the treadmill or while lifting weights, but my iPhone is loaded with podcasts, lectures and full courses. I’m sure I’ve received enough information for a couple of PhDs over the years. If you’re like me, you’re always looking for new sources. The one place most users are familiar with is iTunes. Right in the iTunes Store, there’s a link to “iTunes U” where lots of universities have placed great material free for downloading. I was particularly impressed with the University of Utah’s selections on Business and Entrepreneurship, but there are classes and courses in every area that might interest you. There was even a Mini Medical School offering from Emory University.

Another treasure trove is at AcademicEarth.org where a buffet of video lectures is available to all. These are the actual lectures from courses at Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Berkeley, to name some of the top schools represented. Courses that caught my eye were the Introduction to Literary Theory by Paul Fry from Yale; The Morality of Murder by Harvard’s Michael Sandel and the Importance of Vision by Stanford’s Jeff Raikes.

Many universities on their own sites are offering classes, so it’s well worth a trip around the web to locate them. I’m reminded of the old ad for Time magazine that said, “reading Time would make everything more interesting, including you.” This unprecedented access to the finest minds in the world can’t help but have the same impact.

Almost as important as Legal Education, marketing your law firm and polishing your public speaking skills ranks way up there in an estate planning law practice! After a brief conversation with our CEO, Sanford Fisch, he raised a point requiring some research! He felt consistency in the way we refer to 2010 was important… and I can’t agree more.

After bidding farewell to “Two Thousand Nine,” it’s likely that you’ll fight the urge this year to say “Two Thousand Ten.” It’s awkward if nothing else, to stammer along deciding how you want this new year to sound. Good debates are made of strong opinions on both sides of an argument! And we all love a good debate, don’t we? You can search and find support for whichever way you want to talk about this year or any year after this but I’m sticking with Twenty-Ten!

According to the National Association of Good Grammar, the Huffington Post and 600 followers on  Facebook, along with countless other groups, the proper way to say 2010 is “Twenty-Ten.” The main reason being sited is that it flows with what we’ve all said for hundreds of years. If the Declaration of Independence had been signed in One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-Six… maybe we could sneak by and say “Two-Thousand and Ten” now! The big debaters point out that because we said 1776, just as we say Columbus sailed in 1492, we should have been saying “Twenty” (-Oh-One, -Oh-Two, etc.) instead of “Two Thousand” for the past 9 years!

Personally I think we should be forgiven for saying Two Thousand – it would have been silly to say, “Twenty Hundred.” Then when the next year rolled around we’d all been trained to say “Two Thousand One” just like 2001: A Space Odyssey told us to do when it was released in 1968. By the time Two Thousand and Two rolled around what were we supposed to do? It’s never too late to correct our course! I’ve said Nineteen-Ten whenever it’s come up in conversation, I’m committed to saying Twenty-Ten… if for no other reason, it’s SHORTER by one syllable!

Whether your estate planning practice is a small, medium or large law firm, there’s one distinctive characteristic that can be found in every successful firm: teamwork. Of course, that teamwork is created with great hiring, training, follow-up direction, motivation and leadership. It’s the law firm owner or department manager’s job to build a group of creative and enthusiastic A-Players that work cohesively as a team.

A-Players are the employees that you can consistently rely on… the ones who take initiative and step up to the plate when something needs to be done. A-Players are also the ones who bring you new ideas and those great “out of the box” solutions. These are the employees that won’t just participate on the team… they’ll help inspire it as well.

So, how can you build a team of A-Players?

Take stock of the people you have on staff in your law firm. Ask yourself, do these people rise to the occasion? Is anyone mysteriously using sick time as they earn it or do you have employees who wrote the book on being dependable? Who are your go-to people? Who are the mediocre performers? What does each person add to your clients’ experience and impression of your practice?

In the book “Good to Great,” Jim Collins talks a great deal about having the right people on the bus, and then making sure that those people are also in the right seats. That means that your mediocre performers might actually have something great to add to your firm — they’re just not in the “seat” that fits who they are. So, before you show that person the door, maybe it’s time to look at what they are doing. Are they in the right position in your firm? Do their responsibilities match their strengths?

One of the best ways to stay on top of your team’s performance is to conduct regular employee evaluations. These evaluations can help you look at your staff with some objectivity and you’ll likely notice a few trends. Of course, this type of “hands-on” leadership isn’t the typical response. Instead, like most business owners, attorneys are much more content to wait until a problem arises before evaluating performance. But by then, something has been sacrificed within your team and you’ll lose productivity as a result — even from your treasured A-Players.

When you proactively approach managing and evaluating the performance and contribution of your team, you take a big step in building a motivated and productive group of peak players. So go ahead, manage you’re A-Players and more importantly, rearrange or replace those B-Players that aren’t producing at the level your team requires. It may take a little more time up front but you’ll find that over the long run, your ship sails a much smoother course!