How to Manage a Team

Welcome to Accountants LawPod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge, hosted by Lynda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Stephen Libhardt.

So this week our topic is how to manage your team. And I think this is a good topic because it's not, I don't think it's cut and dry. I think it's something that we might all struggle with. And I think that also, You might be one, a one-person show. I remember when I only had one staff person. You maybe have a family member working with you that might make it a little easier to work with your team, or maybe not. Or maybe you work with an outsourcing team. And I think this is gonna be a great topic that the three of us will cover. So I guess we'll get started and we'll start with Steve because he's all by himself. I've got Sarah with me today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like I was jealous last time with you with Sarah, so. Well, you, Steve, want to kick it off? Because I know you have a staff and a team, and how do you manage them?

Well, we have several things that we do daily. We meet every single day at 8:30 in the morning, and we try to limit it to, you know, 45 minutes to an hour and discuss what problems the team is having from their work yesterday and saving their questions up so that I have a chance to actually work on the accounts that I'm working on during the day. I have them save those questions up for the next day, and then we all brainstorm on those questions together and resolve them together. And we share our screens and, and we go through that. And we're currently in our company in the process of really documenting the SOPs. So we take those live problems that we have from the day before and we SOP them so that we're not doing the same thing over and over and over again. I'll give you an example with undeposited funds as our subject this week.— and how you—

Great phrase.

Yeah. And how you fix those. And because you really do learn about all of the transactions involved that caused the mess in undeposited funds. And so we, you know, we SOP those by client and then we reach out to the clients afterwards. And that's, that's a big thing that we're doing right now and sharing the SOPs with them because a lot of times they'll just go in and post a deposit and not let Cleo bring it over or Leanlaw bring it over or what have you. So we, every day we meet, the team knows, as an example, right now I'm with my dad in a campground and, but they know we met this morning and they know that they can catch me any time today and I'll answer the question for them. So I have an open door there. Also, something that works really well in our company is having an open book with the numbers. As an example, we have a client, um, in North Carolina right now that we're spending more every month than we're earning from him. But it's also a great training tool. And the lady that we assigned to that account is really learning a lot by handling that account. And so it's worth the money, but I have an open book policy that I share with them every month. And I'm like, okay, on this particular account, we spent this much money to get the work done this month, but this is what we earned. Not to make that team member look bad, but to share with them the importance of, of the dollars and being aware of what we're doing. And also it tells me then maybe we're not charging enough to that client or we can throttle them back. This particular client, I told him upfront, we're only going to charge you this much per month, but you're not going to get the results from us for several months. And he was cool with that.

Mm-hmm.

So it's a long, slow process in getting his work done. But we're getting it cleaned up and we're getting it cleaned up efficiently and it gives us the time to work with him. Number 2 or number 3, wherever I'm at here, is empowering the team, trusting them, letting them know that anything that they touch can be fixed if it's broken. You know, if they do some entries wrong, it's okay. Just save that question for the next day when we meet and we'll get through it, we'll fix it, we'll figure it out, we can undo it. So don't worry, you're not in trouble or stuck or— Go ahead, Lynda.

When you do that, when you're showing them the actual, you know, really showing somebody they're upside down and then do you collectively as a team try to figure out why? Was the employee giving them more than what was sold? So you're giving them that information when you sign on a client, this is what you're supposed to be doing. And then you look and see, I mean, I had that happen before with my daughter working with me when, she was working in the background. I wasn't really paying attention, which is really bad as a business owner. And then when she wasn't doing the work and I hopped in, I'm like, why is she doing this? Like, she was taking every check image and out of Hubdoc and making a nice little PDF for each individual. The client had sent it in one big pile and then putting on each individual payment. And I, when she came back, I'm like, why don't you just drop the whole thing in the deposit? Like, what were you doing this for?

Mm-hmm.

What was the reason behind doing it? Well, when we have a problem, I wanna be able to go onto the payment and see that it actually went through. We have a, an issue. And I said, well, how often does the issue come up? And why can't you just stick the whole document right there in the deposit? You still have the details, but you don't have to do all this. I mean, it had to be taking hours what she was doing that I was paying her for. And I'm like, you have to, but sometimes having that conversation gives you that opportunity to let them see it through our, our lens because they just work and don't think about it. Thank you. Good point.

Good point, yeah. And that's why I like to share with all the team members. We have not done that. Why we share the problems. And because you know what, we get really tunnel vision focused as owners of these firms on the processes and the clients and all the things that, you know, we have. But do the people that work with us know what's in here? You know, is that fair to them? Do they have the tools to do their job? And when a problem like that comes up, I go back to the SOP. This is how we wanna do it. And my way isn't always the right way. And so I like to have that open door and we all share what's going on. And you know what, when we do that, everybody learns from everybody. Yep. And we make those decisions.

Really empowers them though. So now that's—

Oh yeah.

So it does empower them. Okay, that's a really good point.

So on this topic— I like that.

Yeah, I like the idea.

On LinkedIn, Dan Luthi, a dear friend of Lynda and I's, He posted something that I felt was like, just actually, Steve, as you were talking, I was like, oh, this is perfect. And the title, it says, Encourage Your Team to Speak Up.

Yeah.

And then inside of it, it says, express to your employees why each of their contributions are needed and how speaking up benefits each of them individually as well as the organization as a whole. Be specific. You might emphasize how attracting new customers is dependent upon each team member's bold ideas. And different perspectives and how honest, rigorous self-assessments will help the team build a better product, which is what you're saying.

And how often have you— and directly to you two— how often have you had somebody call you from your team and they're, they're like, oh my God, I'm so sorry to bother you, I'm sorry to interrupt you, you're so busy? What does that tell you?

It hurts. It pains me.

It pains me as well.

Knowing that we are, yes, But you are precedent. You are priority in my lineup. Just like my kid walks in the door, they're priority in my lineup.

However, we have had to—

Yes.

Because it became, okay, you're our priority, but then it became like, not stop.

Well, that was the next thing I was gonna bring up.

And then we can't do our work.

That's a question.

Right.

And so how do you respond to them You know, what tools do you put in place? And one of the answers that I came up with for us so that they felt important and because they're more important than I am to this company in my mind.

Mm-hmm.

I'll go to battle for them. I'll go against the wall. And I tell 'em every day, if an attorney is beating you up, if they're giving you a hard time, you get me involved and I'll back 'em off. I'm here for you. I also want you to know that you can make the decisions that you need to do your job every day. And that I'm here. But when they, when that sentence comes out where they say, I'm sorry to bother you, I know you're so busy, I know that I have to stop and go, okay, okay. So maybe I'll set up an appointment with them to go through their problem. Or I'll say, is this something that can wait until our team meeting tomorrow? What did I, and I'll take ownership, where did I fail in not giving you what you need to get your job done? And boy, does that— is that powerful.

I do feel though the sense of ownership, like Lynda kind of alluded to, and I might have a different touch on it, but I love what you are saying. Maybe the touch is, what is the priority? I need you to list the priority as what is important. And then if we have to reassess that priority, that gives them an opportunity to see it through our lens. This opportunity for you to understand, well, actually Like Lynda brought this up, reports really, if the deadline's gonna go past, that is a complete red flag to her and I because reports mean something in what we've engaged in. So we're starting to realize we're saying things a little differently and it's not because you are wrong and not doing this correctly. What prevented that moment? So we can understand. And if you gotta stamp preliminary, for God's sake, stamp preliminary, send it out the door. Well, we had to implement that.

In our team. So we said, what's holding? Why is this not done? Why didn't you send this to the clients the 28th of the month or whatever? Well, I'm waiting on this and that from them. And then Sarah just said flat out, send it to them the way it is. Highlight what's missing. Like, this is preliminary. It's not complete because you did not give me answers on X, Y, and Z.

Yeah.

Put the ownership back on them because they are, they will jump all over you. Go, well, I bought this in the contract and I'm not getting my statements. And they have a valid complaint, right? They have a valid complaint. They didn't get their financials. Because in our minds as accountants, we obsess over perfection, right?

Perfection.

So we're sitting here going, we need this to be perfect to give it back to you, which I totally want for my team. But I also want to give them that ability to go, okay, wait a minute. Nope, here it is. Give it back to them. Don't be insulting because, I mean, they're busy too. But say, we've been asking for this for the entire month and you did not give it to us. And make sure it's in writing, writing, writing, writing. Because if, you know, we have to go back into Lysio and look up the message, we wanna be able to do that.

Well, you know, the three of us have talked about different tools for efficiency and things like that. And, and we've talked about this behind the scenes, but I think Clockify is a huge, huge beneficial tool to use in the business because if you've got the SOPs done and like in our scenario, we're working with Notion and getting all the notes and all those things in there and you tie it to Clockify and you color code everything and It gets you involved in the process of how long does it take to do a particular task. And if you see in Clockify that it's taking a long time for somebody to get something done, the first question is, did they forget to clock out? Or number two, are they stuck? And so you can reach out and be proactive and they know that you're involved and you're helping them from behind the scenes.

Mm-hmm.

Now, but I still struggle with every day trying to get to the work that I need to do. On behalf of the clients that I have in my folder, it doesn't matter what I do. It seems like that's always last and I'm on the weekend doing it or whatever. And as the company grows though and moves forward, we're putting more procedures in place to help give me the time so that I can get this other work done. Because I take on— I keep the most difficult wonky clients in my folder.

But you don't want to be working on the weekend. We don't want to be working on the weekend anymore.

Right.

So that's the goal, right? But a lot of times we default to it because A, it gives us time to be together, unlike being together now, which is amazing. Being together in quiet where nobody's asking us questions, that's what interrupts our day and makes it harder to keep going. So you do have to make a plan, but sometimes we try to do like we had a project list and that wasn't working. We had like a sheet.

We've tried.

We've tried a lot of different methods.

Right now, and you know, I took a moment to think about this too after the meeting I just was at where one person said we have 3 different project management places that we practice, areas that we really project management in, because there are 3 different types of things. And that's— that is true of us in the field. We start out as generalists, maybe, or maybe we hit the ground running with a niche. But, you know, you're starving, you gotta start somewhere. Um, you do have those kind of one-offs or your OGs, and, and so you really— It It's just approaching it, I feel like, like it's one size fit all isn't the approach. It is customizing something to the best of your ability, whether it's off the shelf or not. And I feel like it's your own personal approach to how you want to engage with these.

Well, and block time, block time out on your calendar and let your team see it.

You know, this is when—

We've tried that.

We've tried it.

It's not as sacrilegious as it looks. It's not as like protected as we'd like it to be. It doesn't seem to work. It's like they look at it as an opportunity to— if you write a block as opposed to a client call, it's like, oh, they're just doing their own thing. I can still interrupt.

Well, and I do feel— and I like going back to Chris's idea, Chris from Lynda Artesani, Chris Farrell. There is the constant interruption, the evaluation of constant interruption. So if you can hold your questions or prioritize them. And that's why I'm kind of going back to this priority thing. If you can do that in some fashion to encourage— not everyone's an entrepreneur. We're not going to get that out of everybody. But learning to self-assess critical things, you know, in your own life, if you've got children and a dog, what's your priority? You're going to figure that out quick, right? You're going to figure out what needs to happen in the morning to what needs to happen before bed. If you are your own self and you don't care for yourself, you feel it, you know it.

Right.

So it's the same. You don't care for your car. So it's the same mentality. It's just how do we— I think this question is, Steve, that you brought up is how do we do this effectively so we're not sacrificing ourselves on the stake at every corner and every moment of time for their benefit? There needs to be a buy-in. But I think what the article is here that really kind of resonated with me is Encouraging to speak up, but also what are those parameters maybe inside of that to make that a successful team? Every— you're going to have failures. I mean, it's just true of anything. You just— that's okay. We can't be afraid of them. It's not always perfect.

So—

Well, and I think, I think what works in our team too is that I communicate with our team members what I'm doing every day. So that they can hear from me what I'm doing with the difficult clients. Like we have a client now that the law firm split up. And so I'm working 3 sets of books between 2 firms now. And so I have the do-to, do-from, all this stuff going on between all the sets of books.

Sure.

I have the emotions, it's a divorce. So I have the emotions of the partners not wanting to talk to each other.

Yeah.

So I've had to figure out how to reach out to the surviving He's the law firm.

You're the monkey in the middle, by the way.

I'm the monkey in the middle. And I've had to figure out how to reach out to the surviving law firm administrator who broke off and went with one of the partners to still— And so we have, we've kind of created this backdoor communication system between the two of us. And she'll tell me so-and-so is upset about this and I'll tell her so-and-so is upset about that. And we figure out what we need to get from them.

Oh my goodness.

To get the job done.

That doesn't sound like fun, man.

It's not. But so I'll communicate that with like in this morning's meeting that we had with the team. I always start out with who's got what for today? What do you wanna share? What problems do you have? What can we fix? We go through that exercise and then I'm the last one and I say, okay, this is— Who's on first base? What's that?

Who's on first base?

Yep, yep. And so I'll share what I'm doing at the very end just so that they know that I'm over here doing this today. They know, they know that we're, that I've got this podcast on the schedule today. They knew that we had the Law Lab this morning, you know, all those sorts of things. And so they know what I'm doing because I don't want them to think I'm just sitting back here waiting for them to do all the work. So, you know, we have a very, we have a very strong bond and we have a very strong system set up that seems to be working for us.

Yeah.

I was surprised to hear that the calendar idea didn't work for you guys. But I, I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna try it. And, and yeah, cuz as an example, you know, our team members know that if they have to go to a doctor's appointment or they just need breathing space or whatever, I'm gonna respect that. And so I'll, I'll tell 'em, you know, go get a facial, go get a massage, go do whatever you need to do. Take the day off, clear your brain. Don't worry about it. The sun's gonna come up tomorrow. And I get that from them. They're like, okay, I know Steve's working on this project.

Yeah.

You know, I'll save this question till tomorrow morning's meeting. I guess the whole thing is trying to minimize the interruptions all day long so you can focus on the project you're working on.

I have a question for you. I know that's one that Lynda and I are, we're just trying to understand what's the best approach. We have some styles within our firm where they save their questions and they prioritize them, but they make sure to basically pepper us if we can't get to those questions. They keep on it. Where we have others that may not understand, just because you dropped it in something—

Doesn't mean that you're all done.

You washed your hands. And it's conveying that level of importance. And I guess it's more, and the more I think about it, it might be more indicative of It's similar to a client. You want information from the client. We do have what we do internally sometimes as an external exponent of what we're trying to create for a client experience, or what we're doing with a client. And, and so I'm trying to figure out that balance of just because you put it out there, and I was in the middle of a meeting, doesn't negate the responsibility to make sure you're following up to ensure that that topic gets addressed.

Yeah, because, and they'll say, well, I asked you that a week ago. And then we have to go find that message that you asked. And it was usually during a meeting or maybe we're meeting with a client or something like that. And then we're sitting there going, okay, we see that you asked this, but we can't really, like, we didn't, we briefly may have seen it come by on the screen. And that's the other thing is like, do you shut off all your, do you go into in-focus mode where that, which is something Chris from Lysio also mentioned, like he would just shut off his inbox, shut off his notifications. Notifications and they had addressed them. All emails get addressed in the beginning of the day and at the end of the day and they don't follow up on things. And I can't even imagine doing that.

I know some lawyers that does that very well.

Because it's like, well, how do you do that with attorneys? Because they expect their answer like within seconds. We just had one while we were in the lab meeting that they had a problem with Clio, you know?

Yeah, but I think that we have to realize, we have to realize too that You know, we can't automatically give that answer right away. And if we train our attorneys that way, I mean, they know they can find me.

Yeah.

And they know that I'll answer them and I'll be honest with them. Like one of them in this divorce of the law firm that I was talking about, she decided the other day that she really wanted to look at the numbers, which is a great thing. But we're at month end. I need to do the reconciliations and then I'll be ready to talk to her. And so I was just brutally honest with her. I said, I can't do this for you until next week. Please hold all your questions. Don't send me these lengthy emails. Please hold your questions until next week.

Right.

And we'll answer them. And that seems to work really well. I had something in my mind I was gonna suggest and it went, oh, I know what it was. The 3 of us this morning met with the gentleman that's helping us with Notion.

Yes.

And he had a brilliant idea. Or you did, Sarah, I think it was you. And I've been, my head's just been spinning. Yeah, maybe it was you, Lynda.

I don't know. It wasn't me.

My head, my head has been spinning in the last couple meetings we've been in, in that I want to create within each client portal in Notion that we've set up a place where they can ask questions.

That's what I, yeah.

By client. I love that. By client.

Yeah.

You like, yeah. Because that is like—

What's that gonna do to our exploding email boxes? You know?

Right.

And then we know who they're talking about. 'Cause how many times have you gotten a message and you're like, well, which client are you talking about? Mm-hmm.

Well, and there you go. And so if they put it into, let's say the Smith Law Firm, and so if there's a portal within the Smith Law Firm for all the questions to come in, and then those questions get assigned as urgent, not urgent, whatever, because we can do that in Notion, you're gonna get an email, you're gonna be working Notion instead of working, just trying to get through 100 emails every day.

Your email box. So that, that's a, I see there's the tool part.

That's the part that goes—

Right, exactly.

That tool. And I appreciate that. And that's something that's a beautiful balance to just behind the scenes, like you said, what we're doing, the 3 of us.

But— Task management through that tool.

It is also an indication of—

SOPs.

Where you might be going or where you might be driving. You might be a solo firm right now and it may not make sense. I do remember I, coming from event planning, which is very meticulous in communication and balancing—

Bingo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had to use a series of ways to ensure, and one of my things was like a sheet, and inside the sheet was a high level of notes inside a file. Well, that was a paper document. Sometimes, sometimes some of the operational managers would pick up my catering file and go, holy hell, Sarah, how do you keep track? Because my notes are on the outside of the file, they're written on the file, they're sticky notes inside in order. Of management. And so it's like having that digital moment because when you're traveling, I mean, sure, I have a few files with me that are paper-centric because at this point I have to be paper-centric on just a small amount, but I'm not going to travel with a file box like a Rolodex.

No. So when I worked for Westin Hotels there, at one point in time we were owned by United Airlines.

Yeah.

And Edward Carlson was the CEO of United Airlines during their major growth phase in the '70s and '80s. And he would come into the hotels. Part of his job was to visit every domicile for the airline in every hotel in every city at least once a year. And one of the meetings that he came to, he gave us all a little black notebook And he said, we're going to name this the Ready Eddie because his first name is Edward. And he said, I want to see every one of you managers have a Ready Eddie in your pocket, in your suit coat pocket when I see you next time. And it's— we use those the same way you're talking about the file, Sarah. We carried our Ready Eddie around with us. So if I was in the lobby of the hotel, even though I was in the accounting department, if I was in the lobby of the hotel and I saw that a guest had spilled something on the carpet and it was a big mess, it went into my Ready Eddy. And then at the end of the day, I had to report it to the housekeeping department if I already hadn't and so on. And if you find these tools like we're working with on Notion and you really make them work for you, I think we can really reduce the number of what we perceive as interruptions in our email boxes. Because a lot of times we do, we're like, oh crap, I've got 200 emails I've gotta clean out today. And I'm resenting that.

Your email list.

I'm resenting that. Yeah, you know, and so I think—

It kills you.

I think what we're building in Notion is going to be a huge tool. And what I say to the team sometimes when they bring the same problem up again, I'm like, okay, this time— in fact, I did it this morning with, with undeposited funds. I said, this time I want you to write down everything you do to fix this entry and we're going to SOP it by tomorrow morning. Bring the SOP, bring the SOP Monday morning because today's Friday. Bring that SOP Monday morning and I want to see it. And we're going to make it work for us so that you don't get stuck in this problem again.

I love that. Last night, I'll be honest with you, we're training someone new and I was doing a little segment with my mom and the new person and Lynda was right there and I was describing it. And what did my mother do? Do you see this? I'm writing my notes down. And I thought, well, that's funny. She was so, you know, she would just, and I thought, oh no, I know her style. I mean, I learned it from her, right? So, so it was her to drive the point home.

To the employee.

I am not going to sit here and revisit this with you. Because I think at one point my mom realized, as I was a little bit lost, like, why am I repeating this? Like, I don't understand. And I knew the knowledge base was there. So then when it— when the light bulb moment came on, and of course you try to get that light bulb moment on so fast, and that light bulb moment came on, I was like, oh my God, thank you, Lord Jesus, right here, right now. And then she said— she got— and then I see my mom got upset. She said, I don't want to waste your time asking that question I know the answer to, which is—

And that hurts.

Mm-hmm. That hurts, right? In that moment. But you, you want— I guess that's what you want. You want that from— now that, yes, I'm fortunate we get to work with my mother, and my mom is a different individual, but also—

She's adorable.

Keeps her going. This, this— she, you know, she's a paid employee, she actively participates, she's part of our, our team. We want that, we want that engaged level.

Everybody loves their mom.

Yeah.

So although they goof off when she's out traveling, we can't— sure.

Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, that brings up another thought and a good point. You always have to be aware of the numbers and when is it worth it to spend money.

Yeah.

To bring somebody in. And as an example, I hope you don't mind that I expose, you know, we have— you guys brought Tiara in and she's sitting in the background of this podcast right now, making sure that we're staying on point, sending us messages, telling us how many minutes are left and all of that. And you guys had to reach that point in time of deciding it was worth it to bring somebody in to help because you can't do everything. And we're guilty as entrepreneurs. We want to do everything.

Yeah.

You know. Yeah. And make it a perfect world.

And you brought up a good point earlier. I mean, in the sense of we're just as busy. Well, we're our clients. Lynda brought this up. We are exactly our clients. So your approach to us is a mirror of what I think I'm seeing on a client-led facing thing, which is what we're looking for is something engaging, collaborative, supportive. We would want that.

When you look at staff, because we're talking about teams, managing your teams, you want them to not— they— we don't want them to look at us as us and them, you know.

Right.

Us is the higher tier, them, it's the lower tier. We want them to think of it as— the word team is important, right? They're not staff, they're our team. And we want them to feel that they're our— they're part of the inner workings of the business. We all have good days and bad days, and I love that you do your meetings every day. I don't know if we'd ever be able to accomplish that because of the time zone.

I started rethinking that a little bit because—

They go very long on the one that we have. Exclusive and inclusive. And I— yeah.

Well, here's the tool that I use in the meetings. I thought about this a while ago and it went away. I found that we were spending a lot of time in the meetings waiting for somebody to log into QuickBooks, to log into Clio, to log in. And so I just made the rule, I said, before you come to the meeting with whatever you want to talk about today, have all, have everything open, be ready to share your screen.

Lucky you.

And if they're not, Yeah. If they're not ready, then I just move on to the next subject in the meeting. I tell them, I'll come back to you when you're ready.

Do you keep the meeting at this specific time? Like, you really— because our meeting already goes way over. We do an hour and ends up being an hour and a half easy. So you're— because you're meeting so often, you keep it— do you keep it like 30 minutes, or—

We try to do around 30 minutes and 45 minutes, but then if there's a specific problem, like the example I gave a while ago where we're all going to share this together and figure it out together. Sometimes those do go up to an hour, hour and a half, you know, that sort of thing. But that is money well spent. Yeah, money, money well spent.

Okay, so I, I have a question because I know that we've chit-chatted so much on so many amazing things. Where in the world are you?

Yes, where in the world is Steve?

Uh, my dad and I are sitting in the Airstream this morning in a campground in Where are we at? What's the name of the city?

Fountain.

We're in Fountain, Colorado. Cool.

Hi, Dad.

Hi, Dad.

Off screen.

How are you?

We love your son. He's adorable.

Oh, thank you. I wouldn't be who I am without him.

Of course. Yeah. Oh, I wouldn't be without my mother. My God.

Well, this was a great topic, I think. Yeah, I really do think it's a great topic. And Hopefully our listeners got some insight. We really want you to—

Subscribe. I know I'm learning. I'm learning. Subscribe, like, share, and please engage with us. Share your thoughts if you want us to explore deeper. If there's something we should think about or talk about, we would love to have some guidance from our audience to help us with this journey of ours because it doesn't have to be our topic. We're just, we're the narrators of what we're seeing and hearing.

So, yes, so it's really been a good one, and we'll have another one up next week. So thank you all for listening. We hope you join us next week.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.