Remember the blog post of two years ago in which I expressed my admiration for the incredible job my team did while I was on the road in North America?
Well, they have done a terrific job once again in running the show while I was gone. Even though I stayed connected to the office throughout the entire trip and was involved here and there, they ran the day-to-day business with great care and diligence.
Our new office manager, Johanna, was pretty much in charge on her own during the entire time, since Katharina was also gone for four weeks, and she had only started to work with us several weeks earlier.
Joseph naturally took over the role of a managing partner, while Florian, Claudio and Felix did a fabulous job in leading on certain cases as they have done before, and all other team members, namely Petrit, Julian, Roman, Malte, Mark and Anna supported them and me in a very responsible and forward thinking manner.
In addition, four new team-members, that is two new trainee advocates, one intern and one new part-time associate were onboarded in July and August and seemed perfectly integrated and on the job upon my return to the office.
I extend my heartfelt thanks to all of them and highly appreciate their professional conduct and team spirit. It proved to me once more, that this team stands out in their ability to form a supportive and dedicated group of people, all at a relatively young age and still in the process of growing together and building this firm, and it confirmed once again that sometimes, stepping back and and leaving responsibility to others proves to be much more helpful than to intervene and coach on every possible occasion.
Quoting from Daniel James Brown’s “The Boys in the Boat”, 2013, p. 259:
“But they soon found out that they had pulled out ahead without meaning to, just pulling soft and steady. Soon, in fact, they had pulled so far ahead that they could not even hear the boys in the other boats. And then, one by one, they realized that they couldn’t hear anything at all except for the gentle murmur of their blades dipping into and out of the water. (…) They were rowing perfectly, fluidly, mindlessly. They were rowing as if on another plane, as if in a black void among the stars, just as Pocock had said they might. And it was beautiful.”
(The featured image shows fishermen on the Lake of Garda practicing for a traditional stand up crew boat race called Palio delle Bisse.)
John Faulk
19 August 2019 at 18:31
Bravo, WagArb! Pulling as one! So cool that you are journeying with the family this way, and so admirable that your team has become a well-oiled machine and tight-knit group that keeps the firm running at the highest level in your absence. Congratulations.