A New Key Performance Indicator: “Lombardi Time”
Marc Rosenberg, CPA
This past July, The Green Bay Packers installed a giant clock at the main entrance to Lambeau Field, where the Pack plays their home games. The new clock was deliberately set 15 minutes ahead of the correct time. Huh?
Well, one of many infamous management tactics of legendary Packers’ coach Vince Lombardi was to expect his players and coaches to be 15 minutes early to meetings and practices. Not on time — 15 minutes early. If they weren’t, he considered them “late.”
This came to be called Lombardi time.
In a cool PR move, team officials decided not to publicize the tribute, which wasn’t reported in the media until five months later during a Monday Night Football game in December.
If I’m reading correctly into what may appear on the surface as a somewhat loony Lombardi idiosyncrasy, the coach was sending this message to his players and coaches: “I am passionate about winning.” (Lombardi famously said “Winning isn’t everything – it’s the only thing.”) “I hope you are too, because without that passion, we can’t win. This meeting or practice is crucial to winning. So, if winning is truly as important to you as it is to me, prove it to me by making absolutely sure you are on time. And the only way to be sure you’ll be on time is to build in cushion for possible delays that are beyond your control.”
The applications to CPA firms are blindingly obvious. Deliver client reports earlier than you promise. Conduct staff performance evaluations a couple of days before the firm’s deadline. Show up at partner meetings 15 minutes early rather than 15 minutes late, as is all too common. Arrive at a client meeting 15 minutes before the scheduled starting time. Stay in touch with your clients by calling them before they call you. The list is endless.
The common denominator is: exceed expectations.
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Great post, Marc. As a long-time Lombardi fan, I’m familiar with his “if you’re not early, you’re late” mantra.
Of course, many can find it daunting to stay on top of all those activities as you suggest. One approach is any of the many individual productivity tools and apps available now, most of which easily log a task or event, set a reminder, and prompt an action. The problem with these, of course, is the time involved in establishing all of these. Detached from the flow of the firm’s business, each event has to be identified and its appropriate follow-up individually logged, be it the due-date to deliver a tax return or the ideal time for a client touch-base. Imagine the time needed to punch all of that into an iPhone!
Better is an approach already tightly tied into the firm’s activity. CPA firms should look to their practice management systems to help catalog key events, set reminders (even on “Lombardi time,”) trigger alerts, and prompt appropriate activities. Modern practice-management approaches connect the entire firm on a single system, so they even have advanced ways to identify cause-&-effect relationships, helping drive “if-this/then-that” kinds of follow-up.
Thanks again for the great post, and for your continued advocacy of better CPA practice management.