Managing Priorities, Performance and Pressure - Training for Law Firm Trainees
A one-day programme
Objectives
The workshop will help you to:
- Organise yourself and your workload in the most effective and efficient way
- Develop practical strategies for handling workload, dealing with the pressures you face and preventing pressure turning into stress
- Understand the causes and the physiology of stress
- Diagnose stress in yourself and recognise the symptoms at an early stage
- Manage other people’s perception of your credibility and reliability
- Understand the causes of – and deal with – other people’s stress
Programme outline
Big picture background – the firm’s policies and approach to performance management, workloads, pressure and to supporting people who feel under stress.
The strategic dimension. The initiatives the firm has put in place to provide that support and to create the best possible working environment.
Analysing the status quo – what makes the environment in which we work so pressured?
Practical tips and strategies for staying in control:
- Circles of influence and control – widening our circle or influence, developing and using our personal power.
- The stimulus/response model. Choosing our reaction to the things that happen at work.
- Get real. Recognising the things that cannot change.
- Personal leadership and empowerment. Knowing what we want and where we are going.
- The Hubble Factor – keeping a sense of perspective.
- Three lenses – today, the week, the long term. Rising above the immediate pressures and seeing a way ahead.
- Being at choice and not in survival – acting from decision not duress.
- Self-organisation. Getting the basics right.
- Energy, health and looking after ourselves. Diet, exercise, downtime and recreation.
- The holistic approach – emotional, cognitive, physical, spiritual.
- Self help – practical tips and coping mechanisms.
- Self-analysis. Understanding the personality traits within ourselves that may contribute to stress – for example, being meticulous and obsessive about the inessential and the inconsequential.
- Dealing with other people – active listening, clarifying tasks, being realistic about existing commitments, assertiveness.
- The ‘Yes’ word. Avoiding the reflex yes. Making our yes willing but conditional.
- Balanced self-assessment. Reminding ourselves of our successes, our achievements and the things that we have accomplished – as well as the things we could do better.
- Fun. Humour. Remembering that these are great days in our life.
- Accentuating the positive – the beneficial impact of pressure.
- The difference between pressure and stress. How and why pressure can turn into stress.
- The physiology and the impact of stress. The effects it can have, physical, mental and emotional. The impact on our productivity and performance.
- Recognising the symptoms of stress in ourselves. Self-awareness and self-knowledge. Early stage diagnosis. Focusing on prevention rather than cure.
- Barriers to talking openly about stress. Fear of being perceived as ‘weak’ and as ‘not coping.’
- Breaking the taboo. Talking openly about our experience at work and about what we are feeling.
- Empathy – understanding why other people may be feeling under pressure and are therefore behaving in a particular way.
- Managing other people’s perception of the kind of professional we are and the kind of professional standards we have committed to. Projecting a confident and reliable persona. Building other people’s trust in you as a professional.
- Action planning - drawing up our own personal action plan.
- Workshop close and summary of key points.