How many times have you bitten your tongue recently and then afterwards beaten yourself up for not saying what you thought? Or maybe you said what you thought, only you wished you hadn’t. Delivering a message assertively takes confidence and practice. And the more practice you get, the more your confidence grows, helping you develop the skill of assertiveness. So here are the top ten tips to help you deliver an assertive message:
If you want to build or improve skills for yourself generally and for your career development in particular, here is an exercise sometimes known as the “shoe-stepping exercise” which is well worth using. By tapping into your own experience and observations you can select behaviours and strengths which you admire in others and learn to cultivate them yourself. Step into the shoes of a role model of yours; this could even be a colleague or a friend.
This technique is a powerful technique to calm the emotional subconscious brain and to build positive expectations, especially for 'one-off' situations like potentially difficult meetings or presentations. You can use this technique at any time when you are relaxed – first thing in the morning before you get up is often a good time. You don’t need to go into very deep relaxation, although you can.
For Legal Secretaries and PAs, it is important to know the vast array of abbreviations currently used in the legal world, and I seek to shed some light on the meaning of some of the most widely used legal abbreviations. Getting to grips with lawyers’ abbreviations will spring you forward in the right direction professionally. Secretaries are expected to research or look up commonly used legal abbreviations and, in particular, case references.
I worked for a Family Division Senior Partner who often recorded his dictation almost entirely in abbreviations. He would, for example, say, ‘at the FPC the judge in the case of Re: M (a minor) referred to [2004] 1 FLR 837 and FPR 4.2 when deciding with the CG whether to place the child in the care of the LA...’ Such phrases are common and probably even more complex now than ever before.
Speaking in meetings and making mini-presentations in meetings can be nerve wracking at the best of times. Even experienced speakers can feel nervous and anxious when speaking at meetings. So here are the top 10 tips to make sure your presentation is enjoyed and remembered by everyone:
How do you rate as a listener? Do you, for example, “tune out” because you find the speaker long winded? Or unwittingly, perhaps, display signs of impatience or irritation? Or maybe you turn a deaf ear to certain topics or subjects? If you do these (and more) regularly, you are losing vital cues to help you understand another’s behaviours and real meanings. Instead, you are simply picking up sound waves.
Here are the top 10 tips to help you listen actively:
There is a great deal we can do to cope well in situations which we find (or expect to find) difficult.
To see how the brain works in this context, it is useful to have a close look at the cycle of emotional arousal. This shows how negative emotional arousal can generate unhelpful thoughts, which themselves fuel further negative emotions. Knowing how the cycle works then informs us as to how best to make changes in that situation and so improves the way we cope.
The Human Givens School of Psychology uses the APET model. This is what APET stands for:
A: Activating stimulus (e.g. being part of a meeting or even just imagining being in a meeting).
We all have a sense of our own comfort zones: areas of our life and experience where we feel comfortable and at ease. Whilst we undoubtedly need a level of stability and consistency, we also have a basic need to be stretched and challenged, not least to give us the opportunity to learn and experience new things, to promote a sense of competence and achievement, and overall to give a sense of meaning in our lives.
Even in the best of times it is a good idea to keep the courts on your side. At the moment it is more important than ever given the increased pressure that judges are under. In a busy litigation department, fee earners can find it difficult to be as organised as they should be, but this is a role which you as a legal secretary are in a position to help with.
The president of the Association of District Judges, Monty Trent, recently identified a number of tips that can help fee earners to get on with their judges.
Corresponding with the court
The following tips may seem obvious, but if they are being raised by an eminent judge then you can be sure that these are common points of irritation for members of the judiciary.
‘Seek first to understand, then to be understood.’ This is just one of the habits of highly effective people taken from Stephen R Covey’s book. We primarily ask questions to get information, but questions are also a powerful communication tool to show that we are interested in the other person; that we care about what’s important to them; and that we are trying to understand their situation. So here are the top 10 types of questions and how to use them.