Business Services

Secretaries / PAs

Assertiveness

Why is being assertive so important for secretaries in a law firm?

Lawyers tend to be very bright, very articulate, quick thinking and often very forceful. Secretaries tend to be helpful, accommodating and pleasant. Put the two together and it can work very well. But sometimes it can lead to the secretary being overwhelmed by the lawyer.

Assertiveness is partly about standing up for ones self. It's important to recognise that in doing this it can lead to better work for the lawyer.

The ITD approach

We take situations presented to us by secretaries very seriously and create an atmosphere in the training room which allows for openness. This we find is half the solution. So often these situations have not been discussed by the secretary either because there is an implied weakness in doing so, or because there is no opportunity.

We discuss a situation, look at how assertion would help and then map the steps to take to be more assertive.

CASE STUDY

We were contacted by a firm in need of assertiveness training for secretaries.

In talking with a sample of the secretaries and with a sample of lawyers, we found a common theme:

1. Secretaries wanted to be more assertive, but didn't feel they could be

2. Lawyers wanted their secretaries to be more assertive!

We developed a half day workshop for secretaries which looked at the challenges and introduced a framework to put these into context for the participants.

We looked at the actual situations and developed possible solutions in discussion with the group.

A review session a few weeks later showed that those secretaries who had put their agreed actions into place had very positive outcomes and were delightfully surprised!

For an initial discussion on finance training at your firm please email us at info@itd.com or call 0870 777 6734

What the clients say:

"Brilliant, practical workshop"

"I put the actions into place in my work and the results have been fantastic"