we’re all in the same (stressed) boat

May 7, 2024|Kim's Blog, Marketing|

For once, delegates from accountancy practices outnumbered those from law, consultancy, property and actuarial firms at the PM Forum’s training workshop on “Impact, Assertiveness and Effectiveness”. As well as English, Scottish and Irish delegates, we welcomed a delegate from Brussels. One delegate was a former lawyer and another joined us while on maternity leave. This post supplements the learning resources from the session. Delegates find it helpful to have a reminder of the key points discussed and to compare their responses to their peers in the poll results. Assertiveness, confidence and impact – we’re all in the same (stressed) boat.

We’re all in the same (stressed) boat!

One of the reassuring insights that delegates learned is that everyone is in the same boat. Many reported a frequent lack of confidence. Several mentioned they experienced Imposter Syndrome – they doubted their ability despite knowing their skills, expertise and track record. One delegate reported: “We do know what we are doing, we just want to be allowed to do it better”. Questions on confidence at work (kimtasso.com)

Many reported capacity issues – they had too much to do in the limited time available. And they faced multiple, conflicting priorities. 46% reported their goals were constantly changing. We considered a variety of time management tools 35 tips to improve Time Management for busy professionals (kimtasso.com). Obviously, talking to your line manager is required if the problem is persistent.

Be visible

Research indicates (Harvey J Coleman “Empowering yourself: The Organisational Game Revealed”) that performance is only 10% of the consideration for promotion, image accounts for 30% and exposure for 60%. So being visible in your role helps considerably – we considered personal brands and how to be seen contributing in meetings. Flexible working can make it more difficult to be visible – so extra effort may be required to spend face time with fee-earners.

Build trust and relationships

We accepted that we need to invest time in building trust and relationships with people before we could easily assert our needs and views or say “No” with confidence. We spent time exploring our boundaries – over 70% said they felt they were passive.

Following an exercise, most reported that they found it tricky giving and receiving feedback to peers who they had just met. So they imagined it would be even more difficult managing feedback with fee-earners. The art of giving feedback – top tips (kimtasso.com).

Ask questions and listen

To build empathy with fee-earners and to engage in a way that is non-confrontational we considered that our best tool is asking questions.

We can ask questions to understand aims and scope. It is then sometimes possible to make alternative suggestions to achieve the same goals.

We can ask about their goals, priorities, markets and clients to learn more about their perspective. And we can use questions to help them see discrepancies and consequences in their requests Why are questions so important? (Questioning skills) (kimtasso.com).

Represent the client

We also considered the role of marketing as the client’s representative. We can remind fee-earners to consider client needs and how clients might react to receiving multiple communications. This way we can introduce the concept of planned programmes of communications so as not to overwhelm recipients.

Learn to say “No”

Some requests for support are simply unrealistic. This may be deliberate – where fee-earners haven’t alerted the marketing and business development team in time. But often it is unintentional as fee-earners do not understand what is involved.

Several delegates mentioned that fee-earners were not aware of how much work was required behind the scenes for what appeared to be simple requests. This touched on marketer’s role as educators. Similarly, we also considered the need to be strategic – to remind fee-earners of the bigger picture. Move them away from short-term operational ad-hoc activities towards longer term, planned approaches. You might help them consider the marketing and business development plans and activities of others in their team and the firm so that their action was aligned and integrated (rather than piecemeal).

Partners are our clients. We spent some time considering how we might adapt to different personalities dog, cat and bear personalities – Better business relationships (kimtasso.com). It’s worth remembering that they too have to deal with unreasonable or unrealistic demands from their clients sometimes.

Learn not to take things personally. Their frustration may be at the system, processes or situation – not with you. We also looked at reframing techniques – so as to see their behaviour in a more positive light. Two big guns of communication – face-time and reframing (kimtasso.com)

During the role plays in groups where we practiced saying No – a few delegates experienced the sort of stress they felt in real situations. We looked at various ways to reduce stress – such as pausing for a moment to take a deep breath and allowing yourself time to think rather than responding with your immediate emotional reaction. Assertiveness skills – getting what you want and saying “No” (kimtasso.com)

Manage your stress response

Levels of stress amongst the marketing and business development assistants, executives and managers at the workshop were alarming: 25% reported feeling stressed all the time, 50% quite often and 17% regularly. Several delegates said they wanted to feel more confident when talking to senior people, Many felt intimidated by their fee-earners and 75% reported that they had to deal with arrogant people often or all the time.

Building Resilience – Regulation, Reframing, Relationships (kimtasso.com)

Crazy busy – Book review – Dealing with stress (kimtasso.com)

Dealing with “difficult” people – Nine strategies for dealing with arrogance (kimtasso.com)

Delegate takeaways

Ignore the guilt of saying “No”
Eat the frog – do the worst tasks first
Use reframe
Go to the balcony during difficult interactions
Create healthy limits and boundaries
Adapt to cat, dog and bear personalities
View challenging personalities in a different light
Use rocks, stones and pebbles for time management
Consider the importance of digital body language Book review: Digital Body Language – How to build trust by Erica Dhawan (kimtasso.com)
Remember that people are 34 times more likely to agree when face-to-face
Use empathy – view things from a different point of view
Don’t take things personally
Ask more questions
Use the ‘to do list’ frameworks – they will be super helpful in prioritising and managing workload
Explore perception – think about how I come across
Develop my personal brand