CLIENT: A client's law firm was dealing with conflict between the office manager and the rest of the staff. The attorneys had “no problem” with the office manager, but the paralegals hated her condescending attitude. The legal secretaries were less affected because their primary concern was with their 'own' attorneys.

BUSINESS NEED: The firm's staff needed to work together more effectively. In addition, the firm needed to lower turnover among paralegal staff — two of whom were threatening to quit — without losing the office manager.

SOLUTION: The managing partners said the office manager worked well with the attorneys. She ran a tight ship and was very respectful to each of the attorneys, be they partners or associates. Her relationship with the legal secretaries was acceptable, but she didn't work well with the paralegals; they did not like taking direction from her and felt she was condescending. The members of the firm were offered 360-degree feedback for the office manager before facilitating the DiSC Classic with the entire firm.

DELIVERY METHOD: During the 360-degree review of the office manager, her perceptions were validated and acknowledged specific concerns. It was learned that individuals' perspective of the office manager depended on their position in the firm. When people wrote specific examples on their 360-feedback form, it became apparent that her behavior and perceptions of her behavior were different for the various people in the firm. When group analyses were done, the differences broke along role and title parameters. This helped open the office manager's mind to new attitudes, as she previously said, "I treat everyone the same."

The DiSC Classic was facilitated to the entire law firm and interpreted the results to the group as a whole, thus everyone heard the DiSC interpretation together. This was done in a retreat atmosphere off-site. There was a quick realization that there were a good number of high D’s among the paralegals who did not appreciate the loss of control that they were experiencing with the office manager. A majority of the legal secretaries had high S and C tendencies and wanted to avoid conflict and do their jobs without confrontation. The legal secretaries were, however, still negatively impacted by the 'feud' between the office manager and the paralegals.

At a later time, there was a meeting with the office manager and the paralegals. The office manager was an IC (Appraiser) pattern and accessed her high I tendencies with the attorneys. She used more C behaviors with the paralegals and the secretaries. That was fine for the secretaries, but the high D paralegals were resentful. They felt the office manager was constantly checking up on them. Because of the profile information, however, they began to realize that the checking in was a need of the office manager, and her purpose was to gain information, not to control them. The paralegals were willing to try again. Once these differences were aired in a safe environment, things started to improve, and we spent time going over roles, responsibilities, and  authority limits.

RESULTS: After checking back about six weeks later and again in three months, the situation was “improving daily.” The organization ran much more smoothly and there were fewer turnovers of the paralegals. Only one had left and it was not because of her relationship with the office manager.

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