Difficult personalities and the Practice of Law

This month we have a guest blogger, Emily Morrow. Some of you will know of Emily and the great work she does around consulting to law firms and coaching legal professionals. Emily has a very wise and experienced perspective on many aspects of a legal career and in particular her approach to relationships we encounter every day.  Emily holds a BA (Hons) and JD (Hons, Juris Doctor). In her former life she was a lawyer and senior partner with a large firm in Vermont, where she built a premier trusts, estates and tax practice. Having lived and worked in Sydney and Vermont, Emily now resides in Auckland and provides tailored consulting services for lawyers, barristers, in-house counsel, law firms and barristers’ chambers focusing on non-technical skills that correlate with professional success; business development, communication, delegation, self-presentation, leadership, team building/management and the like.

 When initially meeting with a client, I will frequently say “Tell me about the people with whom you work”. The client will often say: “I work in a practice group of five people. I get along well with four of them, but have problems with one person who is really difficult”. Usually I say, “Tell me more about that difficult individual. What is it about that person and the way you two interact that causes you to say s/he is a difficult personality?” The client then usually describes the individual in minute detail, focusing on behaviours that s/he perceives to be unpleasant or difficult.

 I expect you have experienced “difficult personalities” in your law practice.  How can you handle those relationships to minimise, if not eliminate the problem?  Clearly, getting along with all kinds of people, including “difficult personalities”, is a critical skill for lawyers. As a lawyer, you must interact with professional colleagues in and outside of your office, your existing and prospective clients, referral sources and other community members. If you can manage your professional relationships optimally, you will be a better lawyer, have more work, improve your chances for advancement and so forth.  How do you achieve this?

The “Truisms”

When I listen to a client describing a “difficult person” in painful detail, here’s what I think to myself:

 1. No one wakes up in the morning, gets out of bed and says to him/herself “Today I am going to work with the intention of being a difficult personality”. If someone is difficult, it’s likely to be done unknowingly and unintentionally.

 2.  If someone does something that doesn’t make sense to you, it’s because you don’t know enough about that person and how s/he perceives the world and his/her place in it.

 3. How you choose to manage yourself around other people can minimise problems, even with difficult personalities.

 4. You typically can’t change someone else’s behaviour, but you can change how you manage yourself around other people. This will predictably impact how other people interact with you.

 With this in mind, I will often enquire:

 –   “To what extent do you think your colleague intends to be a difficult person with whom to work?”

–    “What might you ask your colleague about him/herself that would help you better understand his/ her behaviour?”

–   “How might you better manage yourself around your colleague to minimise  friction?”

–    “If you managed yourself better around your colleague, how might your colleague better manage him/herself around you?”

 In essence, I encourage clients to look at themselves and their own behaviour, rather than fixating on the other’s behaviour.  As Jackie Stead, former National HR Director for Russell McVeagh and now HR Consultant, so aptly puts it: “You can’t give someone a ‘personality transplant’. However, by thinking differently about how you interact with a ‘difficult’ person, and managing your own behaviour, you will probably find benefits occur for both parties”.   Although, in the short run, this may be less “satisfying” than vilifying the other, in the long run, it’s a better strategy.

 That said, there are two particular capabilities that can minimise problems with people whom you experience as being difficult. These are the ability to influence effectively and developing a basic understanding of temperament.

 Influencing

 Influencing (as opposed to the exercise of authority) is the ability to lead others outside your control so they make better decisions affecting you and your work. By influencing, you avoid “bumping up” against other people and reduce the likelihood of eliciting “difficult behaviour”. Instead, others will be more inclined to adopt your ideas willingly. Skillful influencing encourages collaborative and cooperative behaviour.

 For example, Jane, a partner in a mid-sized firm, complained to me about Bill,  a “difficult associate”, who failed to complete work in a timely and professional way. When I spoke with Bill, he reported that Jane delegated work “on the fly” without giving sufficient information, and that she never gave him feedback. Later on, I asked Jane how she could enhance her delegation skills and how she might influence Bill to do his best work for her. We discussed optimal delegation techniques, including how she could give Bill constructive criticism so he would learn from his mistakes. Jane started changing her own delegation style and soon found that both the quality of Bill’s work and her relationship with him improved. Jane no longer perceived Bill as being a “difficult personality”.

Temperament

If you understand your own and other people’s temperamental preferences and tailor your behaviour accordingly, you will encounter fewer difficult personalities in your practice. You might think that others should tailor their behaviour to accommodate you. In fact, the most successful (and influential) lawyers tailor their own behaviour to bring out the best in others and reduce the likelihood of difficult professional interactions.  They don’t cater to other people, but they do take into account differences in the way people work, think, communicate and interact, and they do so to great advantage.

For example, let’s assume you work in a focused, industrious, methodical and well organised way and that the solicitor who reports to you is a big picture, conceptual, innovative and digressive thinker. You could perceive your colleague as being a difficult personality. Conversely, if you consider your colleague’s behaviour, how his/her approach might complement yours and tailor your interactions accordingly, the outcome will be predictably better.

Further, the most robust and successful teams are diverse teams. Some members are introverts, others are extroverts, some are analytical, others are more emotive, some focus on the big picture and others on the details, some will enjoy opening options while others will want to bring closure to things, and so forth. To reduce the potential for difficult interactions occurring within a diverse team, try using influence and taking into account your own and other people’s temperamental preferences.

 If you think someone is a difficult person, don’t focus on how you might “fix” or “change” that person.  Instead, focus on understanding the other person, rather than on being understood by the other. If you do so, predictably the number of difficult personalities in your professional life (and perhaps personal life as well), will diminish noticeably.  Try it.  It really works and  it makes life and the practice of law a lot easier and more enjoyable.

EMILY MORROW, BA (Hons), JD (Hons, Juris Doctor),

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