The HR Mistakes Killing Your Law Firm Culture (And How to Fix Them) with Dr. Melvin King

Summary

Maximum Lawyer Podcast Summary

Title: The HR Mistakes Killing Your Law Firm Culture (And How to Fix Them)
Host: Tyson Mutrux
Guest: Dr. Melvin King
Release Date: February 11, 2025

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Introduction to HR in Law Firms

The episode kicks off with a deep dive into the multifaceted role of Human Resources (HR) within law firms, regardless of their size. Dr. Melvin King emphasizes the varying definitions and implementations of HR across different firms, noting that in smaller firms, HR might be as informal as the owner checking in with employees, while larger firms may boast full-fledged HR departments.

Quote:
Dr. Melvin King [00:15]: "I'm not really sure people have a real definition of what HR even means because sometimes you're dealing with law firms that are pretty small... and then you're talking about some firms that have like 100 people and actually having an HR department."

Tyson Mutrux expands on this by redefining HR as more than just hiring and firing. He describes HR as the bridge between employer and employee, emphasizing transformational leadership and talent management processes that foster employee growth and organizational success.

Quote:
Tyson Mutrux [00:39]: "HR is more than hiring and firing. It's the bridge between the employer and the employee... focusing on individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation to elevate both the business and the employee."

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Importance of Succession Planning

A significant portion of the discussion centers on succession planning, highlighted by Dr. King’s experience promoting multiple individuals within his firm simultaneously. This approach ensures a seamless transition of roles and maintains organizational continuity.

Quote:
Dr. Melvin King [03:33]: "It was really cool to see... it really is succession planning at its finest."

Mutrux underscores the strategic nature of succession planning, where leaders prepare employees to assume higher roles by shadowing and skill-building, thereby preventing knowledge loss within the organization.

Quote:
Tyson Mutrux [03:40]: "Succession planning is about having a plan for replacing the next person. Individuals are already shadowing and understanding the next leadership role."

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Managing Different Generations in the Workplace

The conversation shifts to the challenges of managing a multigenerational workforce, including Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. Mutrux highlights the unique characteristics and motivations of each generation, stressing the importance of understanding these differences to foster a cohesive work environment.

Quote:
Tyson Mutrux [05:47]: "The only way to balance out different generations is by taking the time to learn about each generation... Millennials prioritize work-life balance over salary increases."

Dr. King and Mutrux discuss strategies to engage each generation effectively, recognizing that younger generations like Millennials and Gen Z have distinct expectations regarding work flexibility and cultural fit.

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Creating a Bridge for Employee Communication in Small Firms

Dr. King raises concerns about fostering open communication in smaller firms where the HR role might not be formally defined. Mutrux suggests that even without a dedicated HR department, leaders must cultivate an open-door policy and create safe spaces for employees to voice concerns.

Quote:
Dr. Melvin King [12:01]: "How do you create a bridge where employees feel comfortable bringing any issues they have, especially in a small firm?"

Quote:
Tyson Mutrux [12:47]: "If you can't afford a full HR department, consider consortiums where multiple firms can collaboratively pay for HR services."

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Giving Constructive Feedback: Do's and Don'ts

Effective feedback is crucial for maintaining a positive work culture. Mutrux outlines tailored approaches based on individual personalities, advocating for personalized feedback methods to ensure that critiques are received constructively.

Quote:
Tyson Mutrux [14:11]: "Understanding their personalities determines how you direct the conversation... For dominant personalities, be direct and goal-oriented."

Dr. King concurs, emphasizing the importance of assessing each individual's preferred communication style to avoid coming across as condescending or combative.

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Identifying Toxic Traits in Employees

The episode delves into recognizing less obvious toxic traits that can undermine firm culture, such as employees who gossip or consistently ignore protocols. Identifying these behaviors early can prevent larger cultural issues.

Quote:
Dr. Melvin King [22:35]: "One less obvious trait is an employee who knows all the office gossip... it's usually negative in nature."

Mutrux advises leaders to maintain confidentiality and address such issues discreetly to preserve trust within the team.

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Handling Conflict and Restorative Action Plans

When conflicts arise, Mutrux advocates for Restorative Action Plans (RAPs) as a constructive alternative to traditional disciplinary measures. These plans focus on coaching and setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reasonable, Time-bound) goals to rectify behavior.

Quote:
Tyson Mutrux [32:46]: "Restorative Action Plans essentially lead to coaching... setting SMART goals to address and improve specific issues."

Dr. King shares his firm's approach to conflict resolution, highlighting the effectiveness of bringing conflicting parties together with an HR intermediary to facilitate constructive dialogue.

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Effective Termination Processes

Termination is one of the most challenging aspects of HR. The discussion covers best practices for handling both in-person and remote employee terminations, emphasizing empathy, clarity, and legal considerations.

Quote:
Tyson Mutrux [47:00]: "Terminate employees on a Friday at 4:00 pm to allow for a clean break and give them their final paycheck immediately."

Mutrux also stresses the importance of having a witness present during terminations to protect against potential legal disputes.

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Using Personality Profiles (DISC) for Team Building

The podcast explores the utility of personality assessments like DISC in building high-performing teams. Mutrux explains how understanding individual DISC profiles can enhance team dynamics by leveraging each member’s strengths.

Quote:
Tyson Mutrux [57:16]: "DISC breaks down personalities, looking at work and personal perspectives, helping leaders understand and utilize each team member's strengths effectively."

Dr. King notes the importance of using these profiles as tools rather than definitive judgments, advocating for their role in augmenting leadership strategies.

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Developing Leadership Within the Firm

Effective leadership development is pivotal for the longevity and success of a law firm. Mutrux advises on creating clear pathways for junior employees to ascend to leadership roles, ensuring that successors are well-prepared to take over.

Quote:
Tyson Mutrux [77:13]: "To develop leadership, understand your employees' goals and create explicit pathways for their advancement within the firm."

Dr. King shares his experience of managing partnerships and the critical need for succession planning, even in firms that initially resist bringing on new partners.

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Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

The episode concludes with a focus on emotional intelligence (EQ) as a cornerstone of effective leadership. Mutrux defines EQ as the ability to understand and empathize with employees, fostering a supportive and inclusive work environment.

Quote:
Tyson Mutrux [82:06]: "Emotional intelligence involves empathy, understanding equity, and being trauma-informed to support and protect employees."

Dr. King emphasizes the balance between acknowledging genuine trauma and recognizing when the term is overused, advocating for authentic emotional intelligence practices.

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Conclusion

Tyson Mutrux and Dr. Melvin King provide comprehensive insights into the critical HR practices that shape and sustain law firm cultures. From succession planning and generational management to constructive feedback and emotional intelligence, the episode serves as a valuable guide for law firm owners aiming to cultivate a thriving and resilient organizational environment.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Dr. Melvin King [00:15]: "I'm not really sure people have a real definition of what HR even means..."
• Tyson Mutrux [00:39]: "HR is more than hiring and firing. It's the bridge between the employer and the employee..."
• Dr. Melvin King [03:33]: "It was really cool to see... it really is succession planning at its finest."
• Tyson Mutrux [05:47]: "The only way to balance out different generations is by taking the time to learn about each generation..."
• Dr. Melvin King [12:01]: "How do you create a bridge where employees feel comfortable bringing any issues they have..."
• Tyson Mutrux [14:11]: "Understanding their personalities determines how you direct the conversation..."
• Dr. Melvin King [22:35]: "One less obvious trait is an employee who knows all the office gossip..."
• Tyson Mutrux [32:46]: "Restorative Action Plans essentially lead to coaching..."
• Tyson Mutrux [47:00]: "Terminate employees on a Friday at 4:00 pm to allow for a clean break..."
• Tyson Mutrux [57:16]: "DISC breaks down personalities, looking at work and personal perspectives..."
• Tyson Mutrux [77:13]: "To develop leadership, understand your employees' goals and create explicit pathways..."
• Tyson Mutrux [82:06]: "Emotional intelligence involves empathy, understanding equity..."

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This summary encapsulates the key themes and actionable insights discussed in the episode, providing law firm owners and HR professionals with valuable strategies to enhance their firm’s culture and operational effectiveness.

Transcript

[Tyson Mutrix]

This is Maximum Lawyer with your host, Tyson Mutrix.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Dr. Melvin, welcome to the show.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Thank you for having me here, Tyson.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So we were chatting a little bit about HR and I, I'm, I'm not really sure people have a, a real definition of what that even means because sometimes you're dealing with law firms that are pretty small and HR could be like the owner just occasionally checking in with an employee. And then you're talking about some firms that you know like 100 people and like, so you're actually having an HR department. So like what, like what is HR?

[Tyson Mutrix]

It's a very good question. I think HR, a lot of times people think HR is just hiring and firing, right? Real general concepts, real general ideas on what HR is. But HR is more than that. Hr. I like to look at HR as the bridge between the employer and the employee, right. And more specifically, especially with my, my business and my company, InspireWorks HR Solutions, we, we look at it through a transformational leadership lens where on individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation and all these other aspects and concepts of elevating and supporting not only the business itself, but also the employee. More specifically, when you think about hiring and firing, there's a whole talent acquisition process that goes into that whole process. You're looking at finally identifying the individuals that are most beneficial to the organization, right? The fit for the organization. And then when you look at the fit and then you look at their skill set and oftentimes people are looking at the skill set and they're like, oh, they don't meet what I'm looking for, what I like to tell people is that skills can be taught. It's the character of the person, their ability to be learned, to be flexible, to be able to adapt to challenges. All those nuanced characteristics that people oftentimes don't take into consideration I think are more pivotal and impactful in the space of HR. But on a macro level, 30,000 foot view, HR is going to be your support in ethical compliance, your support in workforce compliance, OSHA compliance, the whole legalities of running a business and then training, leadership development, and creating what I like to call a talent management process where you can take somebody from say a front desk person, secretary, whatever you want, administrative assistant, and they transition into, say, a paralegal. Then they say, you know what, I love law, I'm going to go to law school. And then the organization supports the individual as they progress in their career so that now you're not having that knowledge loss of, of an individual within the organization because you've created a pipeline for them to go from a front level personnel all the way up to senior leadership.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah. One of my favorite things to do as a law firm owner is actually promote individuals within the firm.

[Tyson Mutrix]

I love that.

[Dr. Melvin King]

And we just had. It was they were all contingent on each other. I think it was like it was four positions that all got promoted and it was, they were all contingent on each of them like accepting that because we had to have like the person at the top had to move up and then the person below that had to move up and the person below that. So it all worked out. It was, it was it really interesting. Interesting. And it was such a rewarding thing to see it go within the same. It was just cool. It was the first time we'd had something that big, like a shift and we'd had, we've promoted several people but in one big shift.

[Tyson Mutrix]

It was cool.

[Dr. Melvin King]

It was really cool to see.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That's beautiful. I mean like really what that is is succession planning in its finest.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

You take each individual and you move them up. But you already had a plan for replacing the next person. Right. So these individuals are already kind of shadowing, understanding what the next leadership role is. Right. And then you just continue to build on those skills.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Well, of. It's because we know that they all have the characteristics of what we're looking for in that person. Because I, I take the same approach where like okay, you give me the person that we want with the right energy and all that. Right. We can put them in any role, you know, and, and obviously if you're, if you're, you got to be a, if you're a lawyer, you got to have a license. But of course other than that, like that I can put any of you in any role and you'll, you're going to fit a fit nicely. So if you are an organization though and you're trying to figure out like what the right culture is before you. So let's say you're like, let's say you're a true solo. You're a law, you're a law firm owner. Like you're the only person. But you're going to start to grow and add people. How do you figure out what the culture needs to look like? Because that's not the easiest thing to do.

[Tyson Mutrix]

I often say that culture is dictated by your values. Your values are your foundation and what you value as a leader. What you value within your organization or what you're trying to establish within your organization will then dictate your culture building. A culture is essentially how the individual will perceive the business itself. Right. Because the culture is the determining factor for a lot. Especially when you're looking at millennials and younger and age group wise, Millennials will take a pay cut. Gen Zs will take a pay cut. Well, they won't even take. They'll just leave to go to another organization that has a better cultural fit for them. So establishing core values that are flexible, adaptable, equitable, looking at, like you said, you know, leadership development, those key values can then dictate the culture moving forward.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Sure. How do we, how do we manage the different generations? Like Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z. You know what I mean? Like, how do we. Because you want to be able to be consistent, but the generations are different. So how do you balance that out?

[Tyson Mutrix]

You know, quite honestly, the only way to balance it out is by taking the time to learn about each generation. You know, the boomer generation is very like, I'm going to grind until I'm ready to retire. I don't take vacations, I don't take sick days. You know, they are the last, I would say, workhorse generation.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Gen Xers sort of adopted that kind of personality. Very hard workers, very diligent. And they also understand that, you know, I don't want to be stuck in a certain position for my entire career. Boomers were okay with that. They were okay with, hey, you know what? I'm middle management and that's what I am. And I will do this for 30 years and retire. Gen Xers are like, you know, I would like to see elevation. I would like to be able to take it to the next level. Millennials oftentimes their parents are maybe old Gen Xers or boomers. They are the first generation to understand the concept of, yeah, I'm gonna work hard, but I need work life balance. And that prioritizes anything else in front of, you know, salary increases, et cetera. If I don't have a healthy work life balance, if I don't get to take my 2 weeks vacation a year or whatever it may be, this place is not for me and I have no issues. Transitioning. Millennials are the first generation to start seeing. It was considered a faux pas if you worked more than five jobs in your career leading up to the millennial generation completely. Absolutely.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right? You remember, right? So now millennials, oftentimes you start seeing transition every two to three years in careers, most often because organizations are promoting from within or they're not creating opportunities to promote from within, and they're not Also effectively compensating the millennials as they continue to grow their skill sets and develop themselves and become more educated. Millennials are the most educated generation in 120 years.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Very true. Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

You know, and so then we have the new ones coming into the space, the Gen Z who. You got to love them. They are very.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I love the grin on your face when you say that.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah. Yes. They're so unique because they, they're growing up in an economy and a society where just they feel hopeless. They, they don't see an upside to anything.

[Dr. Melvin King]

They're born in like the 911 age. Right. So like they're born after 9 11. They are. So they see the war on terror and so like it, it is an interesting generation to be in. Is there any other generation that you can think of that like in like recent history that is anything like that?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Anything like the Gen Z? Honestly the only generation that has experience with war would be the boomers.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

You know, their parents came from World War II.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Completely different wars though, you know. Completely different wars.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right. And the impacts of those wars were different than they are here. You know, Iraqi freedom was a 20 year war.

[Dr. Melvin King]

You still look at the death toll. I mean, look at the death toll. Like you can relate to World War II. Like it's. We don't even know what that means. You know what I mean? It's not even, not even equivalent.

[Tyson Mutrix]

It's not even equivalent. But the implications and impact on their freedoms because of that war has been detrimental to them too. You know, before 911 you could walk through an airport and have to go through tsa. Oftentimes right now you have to take your shoes off, you got to take your belt off and everything else just to travel. That's the world they were birth. So oftentimes they don't stay. They become hopeless with the current status quo. So they began creating their own path, started going into streaming and creating their own content where they're like, okay, at least I can control this aspect, this small little granular aspect of my life. I can control this. And so in the workplace that looks like I didn't like the way my director looked at me today. I'm going to quit.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Oh yeah?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

How do. Well how, if you're managing a firm, like how do you, I guess, how do you address things like that so they don't get to that point?

[Tyson Mutrix]

With Gen Z, it really helps understanding how they receive compliments, how they receive constructive criticism.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

How they receive direction and guidance. Because if you don't take the time to sit and speak with your employee, to learn how they receive those things, you're going to come off as condescending. You're going to come off as argumentative or combative to them. Right. So sitting down and sitting and speaking with them and say, hey, listen, you know, you're a new hire. Congratulations. Welcome to the team. I would love to take a few minutes just to learn about who you are. How do you best receive direction and guidance? How best do you receive correction? How best do you receive praise? Because oftentimes, because they're a generation who was brought up on technology, they lack the more social skills that millennial generation and older have. You know, I'm a millennial. I didn't. I was birthed into technology. Well, rather, I was birthed outside of technology, and then I grew with technology.

[Dr. Melvin King]

That's what, like. So I'm on the. I'm on the older end of millennials. So I feel like we are one of the greatest advantages of all the generations right now because we're in both worlds.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So we. We can. We can see the old world. We know the new world.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

And so we can dominate the older people, and we can dominate because we know both of those.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly. And to your point, honestly, I think the millennial generation actually should be the ones leading the charge and how this country moves forward. But that's. I do agree, you know, we understand both sides. We are the bridge between the old and the new, as you said.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Well, speaking of bridge, so that's. That reminds me, I want to go back to something you were talking about, because having that bridge between employees and owners or managers is easy when you're bigger, but when you're smaller, it's not as easy. So how do you develop some sort of bridge where the employee is comfortable enough coming to someone in the firm? So let's say a lot of small firms, let's say it's like five people or something like that. Yeah. So you got maybe a couple paralegals, a receptionist, you got the attorney and an associate. So you have roughly five people. Like, how would you create some sort of bridge where people are comfortable to bring any issues that they have? Because that can be a really. It's a cozy environment. So it could be. If you've got an issue with somebody, it could be uncomfortable.

[Tyson Mutrix]

It could be. It really could be. So it depends on the organization itself. Right. If they actually invest in hr, which my personal opinion, every business needs to look at HR just as important as they would look at their finance Their, their accountant, something of that nature. Because the HR is that intermediary, that objective bridge between the employee and the employer. However, if an organization doesn't really have the opportunity to afford or outsource an HR or bring HR in, it's expensive. It is, it can be. And there are ways that organizations and businesses are able to work around that concept. For example, our business is open to consortiums where multiple law firms or multiple businesses can collaboratively pay for the service.

[Dr. Melvin King]

That's a cool idea.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, right. And it's innovative. And that's what we base our business on, is innovation and leadership through the lens of hr. Right. And that consortium gives you the ability to have access to HR for a certain amount of hours a month and then they can help you navigate, navigate those interesting challenges. But if you can't do that as a leader, you have to create the precedence. The organization begins and ends with you as the leader. And so you have to create the culture where people can feel comfortable coming to you having that, you know, that old open door policy ideology. Right. Where the employer has the space and opportunity for any employee to come to them and express any issues or concerns. And as a leader, you have to be open and willing to take the constructive criticism that comes from your employees as well.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So. And I know that there's not a like one size fits all, but there's probably like some, some do's and don'ts of like whenever you're giving constructive criticism on something where like maybe you've got an employee that's, they're, they're performing well in most areas, but there's a couple that they're just, they're struggling with. So how do you, how do you generally. What are some do's and don'ts on like what you should do? And I know that each person might have a better way of receiving the feedback, but are there any like general do's and don'ts of things you should do when you're trying to give people some feedback?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, absolutely. And actually kind of goes back to understanding their personalities, doing like a personality assessment. Understanding how a person can receive information because based on their personality will determine how you direct the conversation. For example, if a person is a dominant personality, a person who is very much driven, very much goal oriented, those people, you can kind of sit down. Hey, hey, listen, you're doing a great job, fantastic work. Here are the areas that we can fix to improve and make you even better than what you are. Are you open to receive what I'm about to say? Yeah, sure, absolutely.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

If the person is more of a conscientious person, they. You have to be very mindful on how you approach the conversation. You have to approach it in a way that is very, again, detailed, oriented. Right. You did a fantastic job. Your metrics are outstanding. Amazing. You've gotten 35% above your standard of metrics in this area. However, we're lacking here in this area. How can we improve your metrics for the next quarter? Yeah, right. And again, even for going a step further back to the generational concept, boomers, they struggle with things that are emotional based.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Sure, yeah, right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

They're the ones who need to just.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Give it to millennials. I think it's like we're definitely not as easy to deal with that as the Gen Z ers.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly. Again, millennials, we're kind of in that space where we can take the direct. But also watch how you speak to me.

[Dr. Melvin King]

You don't talk to me that way. I get it. I'll do what you're saying.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, exactly. And you know, and Jen's ears is.

[Dr. Melvin King]

They'll cry.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Honestly, if we're being honest, you know, they will definitely get in their feels, you know, be. Be emotional about how you approached it. And I can't believe he said that to me. I can't believe he spoke to me like that. So just being aware of their generation and also being aware of who their personality, how their personality guides them and then ultimately, you know, the emotional intelligence of the individual.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So it's interesting, like when I'm thinking about the things you're talking about, when I talk about each person, I feel like. And we do have this in. It's called Zoho people. So we do have like a. It's our. Somewhat like an HR system, but like it's like a database of your employees where you're like tracking the things that we should be doing and not doing, like how they receive information. All that is. That's essentially what. Whether it's a spreadsheet or something, people need to sort of keep a database on their people to, to, to know what to do, what not to do with each individual. Is that kind of what you're saying?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Oh, yeah. That's advantageous. Especially if you're a person who likes to data like that. You know, if you're more of a people person, it'll kind of come naturally to you. Right. It'll. It'll kind of flow. You'll be like, oh, I know, I can't speak well, as you grow, though.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I mean, it's hard to kind of keep track of every. Because you can't.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Melvin King]

You can only give so many people so much of your time each week. And as like you, once you get like into the teens and the 20s and 30s, it's. It's hard to kind of really interact with each person, to get to really know each person.

[Tyson Mutrix]

100. And that's why HR is so important. That's their job.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah, that's.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That's what we do.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah, we. We are lucky we've got someone. Her name, her titles as office administrator. It's not hr, but her role. It really is. It's that bridge between the two. It's really nice because, like, she's on our leadership team. Her name's Kristen. She's nice, but she's. She interacts directly with the employees, but she also. She'll be on the leadership team. So she's. She gets to see both sides. And, And I think people are more open to talk to her about things than they probably would to me because, you know, I'm the boss. And then, you know, you don't always until everything to the boss. But yeah, maybe if they tell Delta Kristen, she can kind of soften the blow a little bit.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Oh, yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So I do think that that helps. It just. It's harder when you're at smaller level levels to have someone like that because there, there's got to be that trust factor where like, if there's five people, they may not want to tell Kristen things because they, you know, Kristen might be go telling the boss everything. That's not really what you want.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right, Exactly. Right. And so that's. And I'm assuming Kristen does this, but she creates a safe space.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Sure.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right. Letting them know that, hey, listen, what we discuss here is between us. Right. However, if it impacts the business, if it impacts the company in any negative way, I have my duty to inform the leadership team. Right. But any, any issues that you may have with leadership, you know, can be expressed directly to me. And then what's most important is the anonymity of the individual who's speaking it. Their. Their thoughts, their feelings, their ideas. Because if they don't have that anonymity feeling, they're going to feel like they're going to be targeted by leadership. Right. So that's why it's so important for hr. And when we have these conversations, like anytime we engage with an employer or an employee, like we have an NDA in place, like anything we discuss how interesting is. It's completely and utterly private. It is secure. Safe and secure. The only thing is, is that if it impacts the company in any way, we have to tell.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So are you hiring for your company? Like, are you hiring, like, HR kind of reps? I guess. What would you. What do you call them?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah. So right now, we actually are just started. We started in March of this year.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Wow. Congrats.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's been a really exciting ride. We've really been able to find our niche, and that's supporting the community at large. We partner with UNLV and Nevada Partners, Workforce Connections, and a plethora of other businesses. And as of right now, myself and my business partner, Tiffany Ward, who's an amazing individual, top 40 under 40 herself, and she and I are the ones who manage the hr. As we continue to grow, we are actually working on our team becoming SHRM certified as well.

[Dr. Melvin King]

What is that?

[Tyson Mutrix]

So SHRM is Society of Human Resource Management. And that certification gives you the ability to run it effectively, run an HR organization or business or being able to be the individual point of contact for a business for hr.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So the reason why I asked you about if you're hiring reps or whatever is. Is like, what are you looking for when you. As you start to scale your business and let's say you represent several companies, you're. You're not gonna do it all by yourself. You're Stephanie, right? So, like, what kind of people are you looking for when it comes like an HR rep?

[Tyson Mutrix]

You know, I'm looking for a person who has the ability to be taught. He's flexible and adaptable. And beyond that, they have a. They have empathy and they understand equity. Those are the things that I typically look for because everything else in the HR space, I can teach you. Tiffany can teach you. You have to have a certain. You have to be coachable at the end of the day. Right? If I can't coach you, there's nothing that I can do for you or with you to help you grow in your pursuit of HR knowledge and skill sets and et cetera. So you have to be coachable. You have to understand that every person and every individual is literally a unique individual. Now you'll start identifying patterns, but even those patterns have sub patterns, and those sub patterns have sub patterns. Right? And so that individual in and of themselves and even the organization in and of itself is unique because of the culture that's created. And our business wants to help you, as the potential HR employee, grow and become a successful HR rep.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I like It. I want to ask you more on the negative side. And this is. This isn't about HR type employees. This is like employees in general.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Like, there's some traits like we've identified that are a really toxic. Like, they're toxic traits. Like, so you've got someone that likes to tell you how much. How hard they work. They tell you how many hours they work, of course, how good they are at their job. They. They tend to not be rule followers, but insist on other people, follow rules, things like that. Like which. So once we start to kind of see these things pop up, we start to kind of pay more attention.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Are there any other traits that as an owner of a business, you should really be looking out for? Like, oh, that's a red flag. I mean, there's obvious things, like if they're talking a certain way or treating clients badly. Yeah, but are there things that are a little bit less obvious?

[Tyson Mutrix]

I would say one thing that's a little less obvious is one person knowing all the office gossip.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah. Well, we have no gossip policy for sure, so that's interesting. Expand on that a little bit more.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That one person who knows all the office gossip is the person who is somehow some way involved in all the gossip, whether. Whether they're the, the, the mouthpiece that spreads the information or they're the individual actually involved in the gossip itself.

[Dr. Melvin King]

This is interesting. So, and because sometimes it may not seem like gossip. Right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

But it. They, they seem to know a little bit of everything, I guess. Like, how would you. Like, this is something that's tricky too. Like, what is gossip? Like, what would you consider that to.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Be, man, you know, gossip is so broad. Right. And everybody's like, oh, it's just like, oh, so and so did this.

[Dr. Melvin King]

It's not just information. It's usually like the negative type almost.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, it really is. It's the negative information. It's. Oh, I heard that, you know, we didn't do so well last quarter. And so they're. They're looking at restructuring the finances for the next quarter. That's gossip.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right. There's a difference between disseminating information in a meeting.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

And just talking about the negative amongst each other to sort of essentially bash leadership.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Is what it ultimately boils down.

[Dr. Melvin King]

How do you discern between, like, valuable information that maybe they're bringing to management because it's an actual issue and then like in gossip.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That's a very good point. And it's a very fine line. Sometimes it's gray. And so as A leader, we kind of have to be able to dive deeper into the context of what's being expressed. When an individual comes to say and say, hey, so and so is having issues and problems really? What issues and problems are they facing? Oh, well, you know, their dog died last week and then, you know, their husband is thinking about leaving them and. Okay, that's wonderful. Thank you for so much for coming back and telling me this. Not to say that's wonderful, but it's wonderful knowing that you're so open and willing to come to me and speak to me about this particular issue. My question to you is, as you work so closely with them, have you seen it impact their work? Oh, well, not really, but you know, I just want you to be aware just in case something else transpires. Okay, well, thank you. I appreciate you informing me. Moving forward, I would love if you just kept those personal dealings and information to yourself and bring it to me when you actually notice it impacting the way they work. What I'm going to do is I'm going to be sure that that person feels supported and elevated in their position and I'm going to touch base because as a leader, I should be touching base with my employees to begin with. So whenever I'm doing one on one with them or if I have my director doing a one on one thing, I'm going to ask my director, hey, thank you for meeting with this individual more directly. Have you noticed any issues or challenges in their work? And then the director who has a more direct pathway to them because they're that bridge between me and the employee. No, I haven't seen any impact. Now I'm keeping an eye on the person who came to me initially because now you're stirring the pot.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So I want you to assess how we've handled it sometimes because we try to what we not try, we do encourage people like, listen, I even tell them, like, I have really thick skin. So even if you have something wrong with something I am doing, I want you to bring it to me. So if you have, if you have something that you've got with another co worker, like we want to have this open environment where like you can, you can talk about things that are frustrating you, things that are making you unhappy about someone else, like if that comes up, like we want you to bring it up to that person, like, yeah, is that a bad idea? A good idea? And I was specifically talking about, like having them go directly to the person they're having an issue with.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That can be challenging. The reason why it can be challenging is because that person may not be able to receive what's being said by somebody who they consider is their equal.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right. So what I would do in that position is if I know that two individuals are having a challenge. Me as a leader, I'm going to each individual to understand each side of the story. And if I see that there is a challenge that needs to be addressed now I'm bringing you two together. Now, if I have an hr, it's me, hr, those two individuals. Because HR is the intermediary, basically the ombudsman of the conversation. Right. The non partial. You as a leader, you're just learning to understand. So then you also have an ability to navigate future issues or challenges. Right. HR is going to be the one who's going to help you mitigate those challenges that they can face. And then also now you'll have the opportunity to create an action plan, restorative action plan. A wrap. Right. With those two individuals saying, hey, listen, I know you've had these challenges in the past. How can we fix it moving forward? How do you. How are you going to be able to receive this? And how are you going to be able to receive this? And how are you both going to be able to work together so then that these challenges don't arise again or try to mitigate those challenges as best as possible.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I'm glad you said the part about bringing them together, because we do now. There are times where things do come up where like they don't feel comfortable approaching the other person. So that does happen. We just encourage it. But we do have the separate meeting and then we do bring them together if we can't resolve it. My worry was that maybe us bringing them together was not a good idea. But we especially found that it solves any gossip issues. Because if you're in the same room with someone and you kind of told you into the supervisor or the manager or the owner and you told them one thing and maybe you went a little too far with what you said. Maybe you've. Maybe you massaged the truth a little bit. You're not going to say that in the front, in front of the person that you were talking about.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Of course not.

[Dr. Melvin King]

You're not. So that's why we've done that is. And it kind of got to the point it was because we were having a couple issues with a couple employees. We did notice it solved the gossip problem.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Oh, absolutely.

[Dr. Melvin King]

But my worry is, is that maybe it cuts the communication pipeline off, which I don't want to do either.

[Tyson Mutrix]

No, absolutely not. No. A matter of fact, when you bring people together, it actually opens up the communication pipeline. Especially when you have somebody in there who is being objective. Right. Your hr, your office, administration person, she can help you navigate that space and, you know, create that pipeline. And then when you're done, it's always gratitude. Thank you so much. I truly appreciate you both coming here and spending this time with us for us to better help navigate these challenges and issues. Do not hesitate to reach out and contact us. We are here to support you. We're here to elevate you so that you are able to effectively do your job. That's my job as your leader.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I noticed that. But every time you talk like you're in the HR role, your voice lowers and you say thank you, you are showing gratitude. So is that like a technique? It's almost like you're intentionally lowering your voice. Right? You are, you're speaking a little bit more calmly. You're slowing the tone of your voice. Are you doing that on purpose or is that just out of habit at this point?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, you know, honestly, it's out of habit now, but when I first started working in HR and doing leadership development and HR support, I learned that people are more receptive to tone when you are in a lower. A lower speech. Very direct and deliberate in your speech because it gives people the ability to process and understand what they're saying. Right. So it's very interesting that you caught that. Not many people actually are aware whenever I do that because my speaking voice is different than my HR voice. And that is intentional. Absolutely.

[Dr. Melvin King]

What are some. What are some mistakes you see? Either business owners or HR reps, so. And specifically when it comes to HRs, so what are some mistakes you see them make? Because I, I've been in positions where management gets involved. So years ago I worked for State Farm Insurance. I remember there was an internship we had and there was 12 of us and we got along just so well and they kind of got involved and they did like these like it was like they tried to make them like team building exercises, but they just did not execute it well. And it clearly created a division. Like it created like sex of people that did like. So like these three people were kind of in a group now. Yeah, these. Click over here. It was really interesting to see how it divided people. It was near the end of the internship. It was just an interesting thing. So like we're obviously that was a. That was in the execution. They probably. They clearly made some mistakes there.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Melvin King]

But Are there some other things that you see where you're like, okay, don't do that. That may have worked, or people thought that worked decades ago, but we've learned that that's not the case. Anything like that?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah. I would say that using HR is an intimidating factor.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Oh, that's a good one.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That is probably one of the biggest challenges that we face as an HR support company is that we don't want people to see us and be like, oh, gosh, HR is here. We're in trouble now. When people see us, they're smiling, they're like, oh, hey, it's so good to see you all. Why? Because we created a culture of understanding. We created a culture of acceptance. We created a culture of equity. We created a culture of inclusion. And because of that, people aren't afraid when we walk through the door. Matter of fact, they come running to us. Hey, we got a question for you. Hey, we need help with this. What do you think about this? People will come to us for life issues because they feel so comfortable in knowing that we're not here to punish them. We're here to help them grow. We're here to help them feel safe. We are to help protect them. And so leaders who lean into that aspect of leadership development, HR support, are going to be more effective in managing and leading their organizations.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So how do you. And I'm going to use the word discipline. I know it's not the right word, but, like, if you had to discipline an employee other than like, termination. And I know I. I'm. I'm intentionally using discipline, knowing it's not the right word. So how do you take corrective actions? There's a word you used, and it sounded like it was almost like a pip. Pip. Like a. Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Restorative Action Plan.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So is that. Yeah. What was the term used?

[Tyson Mutrix]

A wrap.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Wrap. Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay. Restorative Action. Action plan. I'd never heard that before. Yes. Okay. So. So it's kind of like a pipe then. Right, Right. So I. I generally don't. I've not seen those work well, and I'm sure there's probably a way that. That you could do it that works really, really well.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yes.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Like, what's the right way of doing it?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yes.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Like. Like, what's the sequence? What's that look like?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Absolutely. So typically, you know, Restorative Action Plan essentially leads. It's just coaching.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That's what.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I love that. I love the way that you put that. Okay. Coaching.

[Tyson Mutrix]

All right, good. So first and foremost, as a leader, you have to be able to identify, is this person coachable? That's the very first step. Can I coach this person? If I can't coach this person, how do you know how receptive they are to correction, how receptive they are to changes in their job?

[Dr. Melvin King]

What if they're not?

[Tyson Mutrix]

What if they're not? Then you as a leader. I often like to say, hire slow fire, fast.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay, so maybe a bad culture fit.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, it may not be a culture fit. Right. And that's understandable. But through transformational leadership, I believe that even if it's not a good fit, maybe they might be a fit for somewhere else. So instead of just firing that person, reach out to your contact who you know and say, hey, this person isn't necessarily a good fit for my organization. They aren't able to receive direction and guidance. However, I know that I don't have the time to train them. I don't have the time to teach them. I don't have HR support. But you have HR support and you have the time to be able to help this person. So maybe, maybe you might want to look at their resume. Maybe they might be a fit. Right? So that's that warm handoff that transformational leadership typically likes to lean into. But if that's something that's not of your ilk, something that you're like, hey, I don't want to give more competition. Essentially a potentially good employee, you look at the individual, you give them an opportunity and say, listen, in this current instance, right now that we're facing, we're facing a challenge where you're not performing to the best of your ability. I believe that you have the capability to do this role. What can I do to help support you in being more effective? Then we break out this restorative action plan where you go straight into it.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So do you let me make up scenario. Okay, so employee is. They are kind of. They're move. Let's say that they are reassigning their tasks.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Okay?

[Dr. Melvin King]

So they get their tasks, they come in, they do a little bit with them. They say, you know what? This is better. They. This person over here. Person. Let's say Tom. Tom's gonna have. I'm gonna assign this to Tom.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Okay?

[Dr. Melvin King]

It keeps coming up. So the. The first issue you say, hey, that's more of your task. Let's you keep that. But the. The employee keeps doing it. Right? So at what point do you do the rap? Do you go after you've given, like one warning on it or, like, give me a little more details about, like, how many chances you should give them on it, like all that.

[Tyson Mutrix]

So it really is contingent on you as a leader.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

When you're looking at it and I can't, I don't want to give some magical numbers. Like, oh, I gave them three chances.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Sure.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Because, you know, maybe that person is trying to do better and maybe you were actually progressively seeing, okay. You know, they ponded off on Tom every week. Now they're only pawning off of Tom every three weeks. Right. So but you're still pawning off on Tom. So why are you pawning it off on Tom even though you've done a lot better in, you know, the timeframe in which you pawn it off on him? Why? What's the deeper challenge that we're facing on why you're not. Maybe they're like, I don't have that skill set. Tom actually is better at this than me. Okay, so how do I elevate you and give you the tools that you need to be effective in completing this?

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah. So let's say Bill is the employee that is. We're saying it's not a great employee. I'm making updates. So Bill and the Tom's. Bill's assigned them to Tom. So maybe it's. Maybe it actually wasn't something that Bill was doing wrong. Maybe there's a reason because of that. So you're getting that information because maybe Bill just didn't have the tools he needed to complete that task. He was required to send to do that. So you want to get that information first.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So you don't want to jump into that rap first.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly. Okay, so once I understand that. Okay, well, let's just say Bill's like, I just didn't want to do it. Okay. Now Bill, I've told you multiple times now, this is the third time I've had to have this conversation with you now, this, this coachable moment, now we're going to take it to a restorative action plan where we're going to take what we've discussed in our coaching sessions before and we're going to make it more tangible by putting pen to paper. Right. Where do you see yourself being able to improve and passing it off the time? Oh, well, actually I need more time to be able to do it. Ok then, matter of fact, let's adjust your schedule so then you're able to fit this task in your schedule. That's part of your rap, your restorative action plan.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

So now you are not only giving him the ability to identify where his challenges are. But now he's taking ownership of that challenge because this is his restorative action plan. It's not your restorative action plan. This is Bill's restorative action plan. Exactly. Ownership and accountability, what are the key.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Elements of that rap? So the ownership's one thing, right? That the action plan, the thing. Things that they need to do to fix it. Like what are the other. Are there other elements that we have to make sure are in that thing? Time bound and all that.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly. Yeah. So you kind of want to align it kind of like how a smart. The smart goal.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay. Essentially specific.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Measurable, attainable.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Are. And then time bound.

[Tyson Mutrix]

There you go.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I can't remember what R is, but yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Reasonable.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Reasonable. Reasonable. And in time bound. Yeah. So you essentially want to build your wrap around a smart goal.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

And then if there's multiple ones and they're going to have multiple goals they have to achieve, and then ultimately, at the end of the day, you do want to make sure that you're assessing and checking in periodically with that individual. Because if you're trying to be an effective leader, you have to be sure that you're doing your role in supporting them in achieving that goal. So if you have a smart goal. Time bound, a quarter.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Okay. Guess what? I'm checking in with you every two weeks, every month to see where you are with this goal. Now we have that built into our rep also with the understanding that if I do not achieve this goal, we have to take it to the next step.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay. So that's. That was. I want to get to like. So what happens if you don't like. Do you set a consequence in that.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Initial rap or the consequences is understood and established when you're speaking with that person. Listen, this is this. This is essentially. I wouldn't call it a written warning.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Because that's kind of antiquated to the extent. But this is essentially your written warning where now we're having this conversation where I have to be more diligent in ensuring that you're completing your job and your task at the end of the quarter, if I see there has not been progress made, we're going to have to have a different conversation. Do you feel like you're a fit for this organization? Do you feel yourself growing with this organization?

[Dr. Melvin King]

So do you have that conversation at that rap?

[Tyson Mutrix]

I would have the conversation at the end of the rap letting them know that's how this conversation will move moving forward.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So. So you're meeting with the, at the end of that conversation. So you're establishing the rap and then you're saying, listen, if you, if. Yeah. So then you get into the whole, you know, to figure out this, make sure you're a good fit for this organization kind of a thing. And then, so if you get to the end of that rap and they've not met that goal. Right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Are you sort of. Because sometimes I see people, they will kind of make these warnings and then not execute on it.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So if, let's say they don't meet Bill doesn't. You get the rap. He doesn't meet the expectations. What's. I mean, are you, should you take action. Termination. Right. Then. Or are like, what is the best course of action? Because what you don't want to show is we have these raps and they don't mean anything. Right. But you also have the balance of that with like, I like Bill, maybe he should go in another role. You know what I mean? Like, so should you start to look for other places in the firm for him or. I mean that. So yeah, what is the best course of action once you get into the end of the rap and Bill's not done what he's supposed to.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Absolutely. As a leader, you can go two different ways. Right. You can say, okay, I see that Bill is not capable of this skill set. Do I transition him into another position and give him an opportunity to be more effective, but letting him know, hey, listen, this transition, you're going to have to go back on a 90 day probation.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay. Because my word would be affecting other employees. And I'll be honest with you. My, my action I would take, I would terminate bills. What I would do. And like, I'm trying to be open to other options.

[Tyson Mutrix]

You know what I mean?

[Dr. Melvin King]

Absolutely. And I think that, I think many attorneys that we deal with are more of the take action.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yes.

[Dr. Melvin King]

You terminate the employee. They're not, it's not going to be a good fit kind of a thing. And so I mean, I want to be, I do want to be open if there are other alternatives.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Dr. Melvin King]

What effect does that have on other employees? If they, if they know that Bill's may. Actually, would they know that he's on a wrap?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly. And, and that's, that's the key. If, if Bill is on a wrap, your HR is responsible for ensuring that that information is kept in house as best as possible within the confines of the space that you had that conversation. It does not leak out into that space. Now if people find out that Bill is on a wrap. It's not HR who's talking about it, it's Bill. It's Bill. Okay, now that's a different conversation. Bill, why are you going around telling people you are having. You're on a rap that that's confidential information and matter of fact, you agree to keep it confidential in the conversation. Because anytime we step into this space, there is an explicit understanding, especially in your employee handbook, that when you meet with hr, all conversation is confidential.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

In nature. So if you're, if those parameters are established at the point of hire, then Bill is responsible and has to take accountability for his actions. Now, if you decide to make that transition and allow Bill to transition, which is often, oftentimes I do see organizations say, you know, I don't want to get rid of them because they are a good worker. They just didn't have the skill set. And they actually may be better over here. That's understandable. Other lawyers, other organizations who are more about the action. D W Y S S W I D Do what you say, say what you do.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Could do that one more time. Say it again.

[Tyson Mutrix]

D W Y S S W Y.

[Dr. Melvin King]

D. Because I've never heard that before. And what's it say for?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Do what you say, say what you do.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Gotcha. Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

As in a leader, we can only lead as effectively as our words are.

[Dr. Melvin King]

True, true.

[Tyson Mutrix]

They have to ring true no matter what we say. Now, granted, we are not perfect. We make errors. And our error should only be with regard to misstepping in a business acquisition or misstepping in, you know, something that doesn't directly impact the employees. If it's something directly impact employees. If we say we're going to do this, then we have to do that. Because if we break the trust of our employees, we lose their allegiance, we lose the ability to coach them, we lose the ability to lead them.

[Dr. Melvin King]

You know, I think one of my, my resistances to a rap is that you hear the old adage, slow to hire, quick to fire.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yes.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I think you may have even started said slow to hire.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right. Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So it, it doesn't necessarily. It, it flies in the face with that a little bit because a rap is going to be probably at least 30 days. You know, I mean, so it's, it doesn't really have that quick to fire part. And.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So how do you, I guess, how do you reconcile those two?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yes. So that slow to hire, quick to fire is typically, what I like to look at it is through the lens of that probationary period where we're trying to see if this person is a good fit for the organization, if they're a good cultural fit, if they are a good skill set fit. If they lack the skill sets, we can train them on those skill sets. That's low to hire quick to fire, whether it be the 30 day, 90 day, 120 day. Some organizations even go to a year in probation that slow to hire. Quick to fire is when I'm implementing that concept. If they're outside of their probationary period, we've already determined they're a good fit for the organization. They already have the skills that they need to be successful in their role. However, they're facing challenges. So then that's when as a leader, if you're more on the soft hearted side, if you want to see your organization grow and you want to see that longevity of employees in your organization which prevents that knowledge loss totally.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Which is a big. That's a big deal.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly. It really is. You might want to look into creating a restorative action, but you could make it more finite. You can give them 15 days, you know, you don't have to give them an entire quarter. The time frame is up to you as a leader and HR and how you establish those parameters.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah, I want to get into hiring in a second. I want to pivot in a moment. But I want to talk about firing in just a second, for a second. Is other than like the legal part of firing, is there a, a right way or a wrong way? And be as specific as possible because we, and we have like we're hybrid. So we have, we have remote people all over the country and we have in, in seat people. So like actually in the office and we have multiple offices. So I sometimes struggle with the idea of if a person, if we, if we have to terminate an employee. And I'm. I mean it sound like we terminate people all the time. We don't. But I'm just. If you have to, as an employee or as a law firm owner, sometimes I struggle with the idea of calling an employee into the office to terminate them. You know what I mean? Like that seems so cruel. You know what I mean? If you know you're going to do it, it seems like such a cruel thing. So be specific. Like how do you handle like remote employees that are all over the country? How would you handle like an in person employee, like time of day time, like time of week, like all that, like what is, what are the. Some of the do's and don'ts when it comes to that?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Absolutely. When it comes to time of day, time of week, obviously the safest bet is Friday at 4:00pm, you know, @ the end of the day, at the end of the week, possibly even at the end of a pay period. So then you give that person their last check.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

And then clean break, clean break.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Y.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right. When it comes to the process itself, online versus in person, either process, you should always, always make sure that it's not just you by yourself.

[Dr. Melvin King]

That's great advice. Yes.

[Tyson Mutrix]

You also, you need to make sure that either your office admin, your hr, another, maybe another co founder or a director, their direct report. Right. Their supervisor, somebody who is in the space to not only who understands the situation and the challenges, but also can be a second set of eyes if a person ever decides to bring some sort of EEOC challenge against you or file a lawsuit saying that you discriminated against them or sexually harassed them, and that's why you let them go. Right. So having somebody who can cya. Right. Essentially. So with the in person, it's never easy. It's never easy.

[Dr. Melvin King]

It's one of the hardest things to you'll ever.

[Tyson Mutrix]

It is.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I was talking to somebody yesterday about it like the, it's the minute right before you do it. Yeah, absolutely. The hardest.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Oh, it is.

[Dr. Melvin King]

You're like, okay, maybe should I do that? Yeah, like you start to like, okay, exactly. No, I'm doing it. And then you're like walking over. It's just that all that minute right before is the worst. Exactly. Right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

You know, you're sitting there, you're stewing, you're like, man, I'm about to devastatingly impact this person's life. They're about to have no income, maybe they have a family and now they have got to look for a job. Like all these things are running through your mind, like, can I give them another chance? Like that often pops in your mind, like, can I give him one more chance? But as leaders, we have to remember and understand that this person is an individual who has showed you time and time again that they're incapable of performing the jobs and duties of their role completely. And so because of that, you have to do what's best for the company at this point. And that's to protect it and to allow it to continue to grow. So you have longevity. Right, Right. We have to remember that it's not personal, it's business. And if we're con, if we're able to frame that in our mind, saying that, you know, I, I, I want this business to grow. I want it successful. And for me to be able to do that, I have to find somebody who is more effective in this role. That's how I continue to remind myself, yeah, it sucks. I'm sorry. But this is how we're going to move forward.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Right. And I, I struggle with the, the idea that, like, it's business, not personal. Not because. It's not because I disagree with that. It's that because. And not that I, like, I'm too sappy about it, is that the, your lives are so intertwined, you know, as like you from a personal standpoint, you know, as a. I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm a law firm owner. So like. And this is, this is. Comes from a buddy of mine, J. Ruane. He's. He's a lawyer in Connecticut. And he talks about how, like, look at a picture of your family before you go do it because, like, it helps you make that decision. Right? Like, because that is impacting the family. You know what I mean? So you. So yeah, there's the business, but there's also the personal part of it too.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're human, right? We spend 40 plus hours a week at our job, right. Quite oftentimes we spend more time with our work family than we do with our own family. Right. Especially if you're a person who's working a 9 to 5. Right. If you don't own a business and you know, you're, you're working in somebody else's business or working in somebody else's government or private sector or public sector, whatever it may be to that point, we also have to remember this individual is not a good fit, period.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Right? Doesn't fit the culture.

[Tyson Mutrix]

It doesn't fit the culture. They don't fit the, you know, the, the job description, which is your guiding star for that individual. They're not doing this. They're not doing this, they're not doing that. As you go look at their job description and you're checking off the things they're not doing. You're like, wow, out of 15 roles and responsibilities they have, they're not doing nine of them.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah, well, I think the problem there is a lot of people don't have that stuff. They don't have the job. Like we use a job scorecard and so it tells what the job, like, the purpose of the job, what the, like what qualities we're looking at, like, what skills we need. It also has, like, these are the outcomes that we need from you. And also the KPIs so you have all those things and you. We talk about that early in the interview process too. So people know. But big problem is like people don't know what that is.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

They, so they don't, they don't create a job description. Yeah. They have a job ad that they've used for 20 years.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yes.

[Dr. Melvin King]

And it hasn't really changed much. And so they, they can't really go, look at that.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah. Yeah. And that's actually scary because if you're using the same job description from 20 years ago.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah. And I'm exaggerating a bit, but probably not too much for a lot of people.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, probably not too much. Even if it's five years, that position has changed.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So it's funny because we've noticed that we, we were using. And listen, I'm just as guilty of a lot of the stuff as many other people. We had been using the same job ad for a couple years and what we noticed was we, we had a huge fall off in number of people that were applying. We're like, what is going on? So we tweaked it. There was something about the other one that was not effective and we tweaked it, we changed it and it, they came back up. So it is interesting how like you. There's something, how society changes. Like someone saw something in the other or they saw something that job had just wasn't resonating like.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Used to.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, absolutely. And that's what it is. It's the culture shift. It's the understanding of work through the workforce. Right. The workforce changes and so their understanding of how work is supposed to be changes. And it changes every, what, five to seven years? Give or take?

[Dr. Melvin King]

Easily. Yeah, maybe more than that.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah. I mean nowadays it's, it's changing even quicker. Right. But on average it's usually, you know, around five years, you know, some say three. You know, but if you're being effective in ensuring that your job description or your job posting is up to date with the actual role, like you to your point, you're going to continue to see applicants apply.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

And it's just something as minor as changing, you know, the title. Right. Still doing the same job. But the title change is something that may be a, an attention grabber for a potential.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Which is why it's like, it's like that clickbaity stuff, you know.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly.

[Dr. Melvin King]

You are almost like marketing to talent. That's what you're doing.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly, yes. And that's even more important today than it was 20 years ago.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Completely.

[Tyson Mutrix]

You have to market to the talent because the talent are not proactive in understanding what the job itself is. They have to. Something has to get their attention first. It's like, oh, I like that. Okay, so what does this have to do? Okay. Oh, I can do that. I can do that. I can do that.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

So that, that's very important is, is making sure that when you're doing your job, posting, update it every single time, even if it was a year updated, because you never know.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah. So I want to, I want to shift gears to. It's, it's like the main reason why we wanted to have you on here. But we've had all these other great con. Absolutely. I want to talk about like, disc and like personality profiles and all that kind of stuff because we, we use, we use personality profiles in our firm and it is helpful in some aspects. I, I think that sometimes they're not. They're not used properly by many people.

[Tyson Mutrix]

They're.

[Dr. Melvin King]

They don't. Not all of them are the best. I. It sounds like. Do you prefer disc or do you prefer. Okay, what is it. What is it that. These personality profiles and is that what you'd call them as personality profiles?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, personality profiles or personality assessments.

[Dr. Melvin King]

What are some. Before I get into what really you can use them for, what are some of the good ones?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, so everybody's really familiar with Myers Briggs. People are familiar with colors. Those are the ones that are typically the most popular.

[Dr. Melvin King]

They're like more basic.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, more basic people. I'm an fntj. Yeah, those are those.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I think I might actually be an fntj. Go back and look. I, I can't remember, but maybe I'm an entj. I can't. It's. It's been a decade and a half. Prices. I've done that. But I, I think there's a. I think that's very close to what mine is.

[Tyson Mutrix]

But you said that it's just the work. Tangentially to that 10 years ago, you is different than you now.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

So that's why it's so important to be consistent in doing your, Your profile assessments. Because who you are, not just your personal life, but who you. What your role is within your organization.

[Dr. Melvin King]

All right, so I agree with that. But there is a. There is an assessment out there that disagrees with that. Interesting that they say that the first time you take it, you're. It's. That if you, if you retake it, it doesn't matter. It's because you are, you know, kind of rethinking things, whatever. Like, you're that. But the first time you take it, it's no way. Ah, So I agree more with you.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, I disagree with that. Because you took the lsat, right?

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yep.

[Tyson Mutrix]

If you took the LSAT the first time, you're like, crap, I didn't do so good. But you take the LSAT the second time. Why? You're a different person now because you've had this experience before.

[Dr. Melvin King]

See, when I took it. So now you don't get penalized for taking it multiple times when I took it. If you took it more than one time, you get penalized for it. So I took it one time. I took it once. It was one shot and got. But I get the point. Yes, absolutely. Yes.

[Tyson Mutrix]

You know, I took the mcat. I was gonna go to medical school at one point in time, and I did better my second time taking it than I did my first time. And to your point, it's because I had this experience, the lived experience, that shaped my perception of the test and shaped the way I focused and studied, and I did better the second time. So I disagree with that person. Because your lived experiences dictate how you perceive the world and how you lead. Who I am as a leader today is way different than who I was 10 years ago. And so that's why I think it's so important that you do. We use the disc assessment simply because we find it to be the most effective tool because it's so intricate and detailed. It looks at your work perspective and then your personal perspective, your work personality versus your personal personality, or your natural versus adapted space.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

And so with that disc profile, it can help you determine. Okay, like, for example, I'm a di, which means I'm really high. And so what does mean, like.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Like, yeah, tell me what the letters mean, because.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, absolutely. So when you look at disc, it's a PI, right? Broken into four quadrants. D is dominant. I is influence.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

S is steady. C is conscientious. And so those four quadrants of personality look at how a person is perceived being open or guarded and how a person is open or receptive to coaching, etc. Right. So for me, for example, I'm a DI. I have a dominant and an influencing personality. So I'm very goal oriented, strategic. I'm also very personable. That's who I am in my adapted state.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So are you. I mean, so those are kind of competing with each other in a way, like the different. No, no, no.

[Tyson Mutrix]

They're. They're both in the same spectrum.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Because they're both individuals who are guarded to the extent where when somebody comes and approaches them, they. They are willing to sit and listen to what has to be said. However, they're also assessing and analyzing what a person is doing. Right. For me, I actually lean more, a little bit more on the influence side than the dominant side.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Because of my role of being hr, my role of being a leader in the community, et cetera, et cetera. So I have to be open and adaptive and engaging with the community when I'm at home. My S is low when I'm out and about.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So it can evolve from day to day or hour to hour.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yes. And that's what people, a lot of people don't understand. It's situational. Who you are is situational based on circumstances that you're facing.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

So when you're, for example, when you're at home, I'm an S. My S is a little bit higher than it is when I'm out and about. Why? Steady. I like stability in my house. I want to make sure that everybody's happy, everybody's safe, everybody feels secure. That's what an S personality is. A C personality is an individual who is very analytical, very. They can work very well in constructs. So like, like a finance person or, you know, somebody who had. Or a data and analyst. They're typically going to be your high Cs. Why? Because they were working in constructs and confines. A person who's an S is a person who's very steady, who, who understands. They don't like the boat being rocked too much. Right. They're also a really great people. Please. They want to make sure everybody's included. They're like, we can do this team. Let's do it together. Right. Because they want everybody to feel included.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

And then as I mentioned before, your eye is that politician who's out there talking to everybody, who can connect with everybody.

[Dr. Melvin King]

What about a receptionist? Like, what would you want when it comes like a receptionist? Yes.

[Tyson Mutrix]

You want your receptionist to ideally be an I because you want them to be engaged. And then also depending on what they do from their day to day, probably an S or a C. S, typically, because you want your receptionist to be able to keep an even queue, keep the day to day, very standard, not causing too much deviation here and there. Or C, possibly both, because they work well within the constructs of the organization. Listen, this is how you're going to do it. You have the step by step process on how you answer the phone, how you Take notes from a potential client. Right. So ideally you want them to be I, engaging with the community because they want to be personal. You want to get that potential client's business. Right. And then either an S or C.

[Dr. Melvin King]

What are some ways that that law firm owners and I guess business owners in general, like how, how should they be using DISC profiles? And I'm gonna get into the next, my follow up is going to be like what are some ways to avoid using that people are using them incorrectly.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

And I, I, I'm pulling up other assessments. That's what I'm doing here to see if, are there any others that you would recommend if you're not using disc. As you were talking, I was kind of pulling up just there are so many.

[Tyson Mutrix]

There are.

[Dr. Melvin King]

And so I'm so suspicious of so many of them that I know that some people will listen to this and know I need to use some sort of personality profile. Right. But then they might go out and pick one. Garbage one. And so are there any others that you, I don't, I wouldn't say recommend. You could say are like legitimate.

[Tyson Mutrix]

I would say that were legitimate. You know, you have like I said before, disc. So if we exclude disc, like the other one I mentioned, colors is more of a surface level kind of disc. And then also the Myers Briggs is pretty popular as well. Those three are the ones that I've seen most often used.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So what about there's like the strength finder is one.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Strength finder is a good one. Okay. Strength finder is more so about like motivators. Like how, how what, what that individual's strength is and then how they effectively use those strengths so that maybe a motivators is a good one too. Okay. Which would be a great asset for an employer to use. And then also emotional intelligence, the EQ assessment.

[Dr. Melvin King]

And I want to get into emotional intelligence because that's a big, I think it's, that's an often overlooked thing that people don't talk enough about because I don't want to go yet into that though. Something we use, we use Colby and we use Enneagram. We use kind of a combination of both and figure out like how best to utilize our people. But so thoughts on Colby?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, Colby is a good one and Enneagram is a good one. At the end of the day, it's a tool tool. Right. So how effective you are using a hammer is contingent on your skill set in assessing the tool.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Sure.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right. So learning, so understanding how the tool is effectively assessing your employees and then comparing it to your needs is what's most impactful. And it sounds like you. You're using the tools in a manner that will effectively assess your. Your potential employee or your current employees. So that's good. At the end of the day, it's not an end all be. All right. I personally choose DISC because I like the way it breaks down personalities. I like the. Because it approaches us from a holistic standpoint. It looks at the natural environment, how a person is when they're at home with their family and friends, and then the adapted environment, how that person is in their workspace. That's why I like disc, because then it gives me a better understanding of the holistic approach of the individual.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah. So does. Does disc. Does it give you a score kind of like Colby does? Okay. Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yep. It gives you a score in each of the categories.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah. So I. What was interesting is we. We did a presentation in the Guild, which is our. Like, the paid part of Maximum Lawyer. It's a membership group. And what's interesting is I was looking at. It was about, like, getting the law firm owner out of, like, intake and signing up cases and all that. And part of it, we looked at. I looked at our employees that have been on our intake team that have they. And the ones that they've. Where we hired them, and then they've been promoted to other parts in the firm.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

It was interesting to see, like, there was a common thread as to, like, what their numbers were. Like, some of the numbers, and I don't remember right now, like, what they were. But it was interesting to see, though, that the people that we called our CARES team. So our intake. So the people on our CARES team had a very similar. The. All the numbers were very close, like, within, like, one or two. Like, it was very close. So it was interesting that we could. Could. We could now take those profiles. We can keep pro. Create profiles of people that work well and then use those in hiring. Now, we've not done that. Is that based on what you're telling me? I'm a little worried about doing that.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Using those particular numbers. Those numbers are an indicator of a person's ability to effectively do the job. Right. It's not an indicator of that person being a good fit for that position.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

So that person. Let's just say those particular individuals. So you saw. You're starting to see a pattern. It's like, oh, okay. So they. Every person who scored a 12 in this category, they typically tended to do well on the CARES team. Right. Now, do I want to Take that and say, okay, I'm only going to be looking for people who score 12 or better. Not necessarily true, because a person may score an eight, but they're coachable and they can get to a 12.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah, right. See, that's what. That's why I asked it. Colby's the one that says you can't. It can't change. That's why I didn't want to tell you that before, but there. And I. I think you're right. I mean, I don't have the science to back it up. I mean, like. But, like, I'm glad I've got a professional here that can kind of vouch for. But I, I agree with you. I mean, like, there are, like, certain things you can do you can improve on. Like, there's like, like with Colby, like, the quick start, you know, the fact finder. Like, I do think that you can learn to move a little faster and jump into things a little faster. I think that you can also learn to take your time a little bit and dig a little into the facts a little bit more. So.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah. But that. It is interesting how, like, some people, like, there's the way. Like, this is the way.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yes.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah, absolutely. So, but you do believe that you can. You can learn some of this stuff and you can. You can adapt.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Absolutely. 100. It's like learning a sport. Right.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Some people are more naturally gifted than others. Right. So for example, I'm a martial artist. Right.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Which. Which one?

[Tyson Mutrix]

I did Tang Soo do Shotokan and Brazilian Jiu jitsu.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Oh, I see. I do jiu jitsu now. I had shoulder surgery, so I can't do it currently, so I'm off for two months, but yes. Yeah, yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Nice.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah. So I don't even know what those other ones are. Like. What. What were they?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah. So Tang Soo do is South Korean martial arts. It's been around for, I don't know, 500 plus years.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Or so.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

It's like Taekwondo. Okay. Okay.

[Dr. Melvin King]

My wife is. She's a black belt.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Nice.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Awesome.

[Tyson Mutrix]

In Taekwondo.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Oh, awesome. So, but they're like. I would say they're like half brothers.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay. If so. Okay. They're both Korean.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, both Korean. Exactly. And the forms are very similar, very identical. And then Shotokan is a Japanese style of karate.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So don't mess with you, is what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Let's just say that if I have to protect myself, I can't.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah, Right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

There are typically, women tend to be better martial artists.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Interesting. Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right. They're naturally better at martial arts, they're more flexible, their technique is better. But men can learn that and actually then can surpass women because of their physical strength. Right. I liken that to a person's ability to learn a job.

[Dr. Melvin King]

That's really good. I like that analogy. That's really good. I think it helps people kind of wrap their head around it too. Just because you have an employee that might have a certain kajabi score, disc assessment score than not kajabi, Colby, Colby, not kajabi doesn't mean that you're kind of. They're kind of stuck in that spot. So that is interesting. So how do you think you can use these kinds of profiles to improve a team? So you've got your team, it's set up a certain way. And how can you use these scores to improve work performance?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Absolutely, that's a great question. Because I think that as I want to keep reiterating, these are tools. They are not the end all, be all for any organization. Right. Because you're going to have to take your skill set as a leader to help develop your team. So say, for example, a person comes in and their. Their score is low in being task oriented. You have to coach them on how to become more task oriented, especially if their job requires them to be task oriented, having to achieve a certain amount of metrics within a certain given timeframe. Right. So then you set them up for success by giving them the skills that they need to do so that leadership development, that coaching to help them progress so the tool can help them help you as a leader, identify where their challenges are and you change those challenges into opportunities for development.

[Dr. Melvin King]

What would you say are some of the common elements or qualities of an effective high performing team?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, a high performance work team has hpwt is what they call it is a team that has the ability, a give you case scenario. Leader walks into the room on a Monday morning to meet with his team, meet with her team, meet with their team. They sit down, they say, okay, team, tell me what happened last week. They read off all the successes they faced, all the successes they had and the challenges that they faced. They present that to the leader. The leader says, okay, these challenges can be addressed. We can look to possibly do this. How do you all feel? I like that idea. Or actually, no, I was thinking this. Okay, great. These are our goals for this week. Here you go. The high performance work team has the ability to take any sort of. Any sort of duty or assignment, effectively disseminate the skills based on the Team members effectively work together, communicate when need be, and then be able to go back to the leader with the information that they need. That's a high performance work team. With very little to no guidance from the leader except for checking in and troubleshooting or assisting them with managing challenges they may face.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Can you use the disc profiles and, and the other personally personality profiles to help create that sort of a team or is it unrelated?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, you can actually, because what you do is you use your disc profile to augment the skills that exist within the organization, within your team. So for example, if you are looking to create a high performance work team, you have a dominant personality. So you know that person is going to be driving the team forward. It's like, hey team, we gotta get this done. I know that Sarah over here is great at numbers. So Sarah, you're gonna do the analysis on this particular situation. I know that Charlie, he's really good at bringing people into the business. So Charlie's gonna go out, he's gonna go talk to people. Right. And then you have the person who's a steady person, who's gonna be the person who fills in the ancillary skills and they also support the team. Cause that steady person is the tier, is the team cheerleader. They're like, yes, we can do it, we can do it. And also they're the person who will keep it steady. Hey, Sarah's having challenges. What are you going to do about it? Right. Using your disc profile can help you identify the strengths of your team and then you emphasize and augment, highlight those strengths and use those strengths to support each other to create that high performance work team.

[Dr. Melvin King]

How necessary is. I'm just gonna stick with disc instead of saying, you know, generally personality profiles, but how necessary is disc in, in creating those high performance work teams?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Man, I would say that it's a foundation.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Because when you understand who your team members are, you can then be more effective as a leader.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So. And it's an objective way of assessing it as opposed to like, like. And you can kind of instead of just guessing about people. Yeah, you can. So you could do it without disc.

[Tyson Mutrix]

You could.

[Dr. Melvin King]

It's just more challenging.

[Tyson Mutrix]

It's more challenging. It'll take you more time as a leader, especially if you're not a person. Some leaders aren't intuitive. They're not able to understand a person's characteristics, understand a person's strengths and weaknesses. Right. Some leaders are just really good at being generative and strategic and have the ability to create opportunity, but also don't have the skill set of understanding a person. Right. There are leaders out there today who. You know who. I'll use Elon Musk for an example. Able to create multi billion trillion dollar businesses. Not too good with people.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Sure.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Right. He would be a person who I would say would most benefit from understanding and using a disc profile so he can understand his team. So he can take that multi billion dollar business and turn to multi trillion dollar business.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Let me give you pushback on that. Maybe he has, and I don't, I have zero idea, but maybe he has in that he has hired the right people below him that can do all that for him.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Quite possibly.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Because I do wonder about like a person like Elon Musk. This is. It's funny you say Elon Musk because I often wonder like, like how was he able to do all of this different stuff and have all these. He must have like these amazing people underneath him.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Oh, absolutely.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So I wonder if this is like something where he did figure that part out.

[Tyson Mutrix]

He's just not great at communicating and quite possibly. But being a, a good leader is. You have to be an effective communicator too. Right. And so that may be one of his, his downfalls. His. His were his shortcomings where he can change that challenge into an opportunity.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I often would love, I would, I think about like, like often about wanting to talk to his employees to see like if they love it there or not. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I really, I would love to know. And I'm not talking about Twitter X, because that's a different situation.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly.

[Dr. Melvin King]

But I'm more talking about like the ones like he, he built, you know, from the ground up or almost from the ground up. We're like, what? Because it seems like, I mean, they're really well run companies.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So I do wonder like, do they love it there or they just really high people. I paid people and they're miserable. You know, like there's. Yeah, I would love to know that.

[Tyson Mutrix]

I would love to too. I wonder how much. And for me, I wonder how much impact does his board have with regard to running the company.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Good point. Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

You know what I mean? Because oftentimes, you know, the person who's the CEO may often only be a figurehead. Right.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Very true.

[Tyson Mutrix]

One who actually runs the organization are the SVPs, the board members. And he just kind of comes in and says, oh, I want to do this. And they're like, oh, okay, we'll find a way to make that work. Yeah, right.

[Dr. Melvin King]

That's Kind of like. So my wife Amy, you met her, she's our coo and like, she's like, yeah, she's the one, like getting things done. Like, she makes sure that the trains are running on time and all this, so.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly.

[Dr. Melvin King]

It is important to have like that strong leadership team.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Which is what I want to get into next, actually. So I'm glad you were talking about leadership because developing that is really, really important. So how, how can law firm owners make sure that they're developing leadership within the firm so that they do have that sort of succession so that it can keep going so that they've got the, the high, high performance work team?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, absolutely. So as. As a leader in the law firm, you, you again, touching on the disc, Understanding who your, your employee is as an individual. Right. Both.

[Dr. Melvin King]

It's like your baseline. You gotta have that.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Your baseline of understanding who that employee is, also understanding what their goals are within the organization. Right. Like, do you only want to be a junior partner? Do you have an aspiration to be a full partner? Right. Okay. So you do have aspirations to be a full partner. Okay, so then let's create a pathway for you to become a full partner. And being explicit about that. I know, and let me not assume, but from TV shows and things of that nature, it seems that junior partners kind of don't know how they become a partner. Just all of a sudden they're, or they do something amazing and outstanding and then the senior partners are like, okay, you can be a cm, Very calm.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah. Yeah. I do think generally there's not a lot of thought. There are some firms that are specific, like, I will say, like some insurance defense firms, it seems like they sort of have their tracks, that they've got it figured out. But for generally, I'd say, I'd say you're spot on.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah. So to your point, if you want to create a culture of success and longevity, if I were a senior partner, I would want to ensure that my junior partners, who I see have the potential to be a senior partner, know how I became one and then know the pathway to become one.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Sure.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That is so important because you have to create a succession plan as the leader. If you're not creating a succession plan, your organization is potentially could fail.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

As a leader, that's one of your goals. You have to be looking at the future and the present at the same time.

[Dr. Melvin King]

No, that's, that's, that's a really good point. You had me thinking a little bit, because I, I've always taken the position Because I, I had a, A partnership that lasted like 18 months. Right. So, like, it was funny, it was just interesting because I had, we had before that we had a successful firm together. He and I had a successful firm. We split. We both had successful firm separately. So it's like just an interesting thing. But like, there is. I guess at some point I'm going to have to have some sort of succession. And I, it is interesting for me that I, I've kind of taken the approach that I don't, I, I don't want anybody to have a partner. But I, you know, it's funny, I had not really thought about that part and I know that successions is, is important, which I've, I've thought about that a lot. But like, more of like maybe selling the firm as opposed to like keeping the firm forward. Going forward.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

When it comes to developing leaders that could actually potentially then take over the firm. So I'm not even saying I'm open to partnering with anyone, but you're even taking on a Drew and a partner. But I guess what, what does that then look like? And I want you to kind of think about. Because the majority of the people that are probably going to listen to this are people that are similar to me where they're the sole owner or there's only a couple of them, and at some point they might hand it off to someone that's below them, but they may not take on partners. So how do you develop those leaders below you that you hope will take over the firm sometime, but maybe not for several years?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah. So to your point, the several years is exactly what you'll need. You'll need that space and opportunity to train them on how you effectively ran the organization, how you created the organization. Right. They need to understand the genesis of the organization first and foremost. Right. And then from there, I'm a leader because I do this. I'm a leader because I do that. I'm a leader because I've effectively done this. For you to continue this moving forward, you're going to have to adapt these skills and then some because you're going to have to drive the organization forward. And the skill sets that you'll need 25 years from now are going to look different than the skill sets that you have now. So being effective in staying on top of your leadership development, going to conferences, connecting with other lawyers who have larger businesses, larger firms rather, and knowing how they became successful gives you a better, well rounded knowledge base. Knowledge of how to effectively run the business. Once I'm the firm. Once I move on, I like that.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I'm going to make a hard pivot because we are. Because we are starting to run out of time. Which the idea is that we won't run to this in the future because we're trying to. Of we're, we're fairly new into doing the long form and so yeah, the. We have another one in a few minutes. So I make a hard pivot. Okay. Unfortunately into emotional intelligence. I want to talk about that. And I've often been the believer that that is like when I, when like I look at judges, the most important part of a judge is the emotional intelligence. It's not the intelligence. You can be a dumb judge.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yep.

[Dr. Melvin King]

But have the emotional intelligence and do an amazing job.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So talk about emotional intelligence. Like what is. Like what does that even mean? How do you gauge it?

[Tyson Mutrix]

How do you gauge emotional intelligence? Well, they do have tools that help you gauge emotion.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Really?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah. Yeah. There's a matter of fact I took an. I just took on emotional intelligence cuz I assess myself about every six months to a year just to see where I stand. And I took an emotional intelligence test and I scored a 99% on my emotional intelligence. So I'm very emotionally intelligent. Emotionally intelligent is understanding and being empathetic, having empathy, understanding what equity is, understanding what inclusion is, understanding that everybody's lived experiences are different. And I would like to even couple being a trauma. A trauma informed supervisor is also another piece to being emotionally intelligent. Because if we're being honest, every single person has some sort of trauma they lived or experienced and understanding it and looking it through the lens of being trauma informed, knowing that this person may be acting or responding like this because of some sort of personal trauma they've experienced in their past. For example, a person who is very keen on titles may have been a person who didn't know receive acknowledgment and recognition for their successes when they were younger. And because of that they see titles as a means of establishing their approval amongst their peers. So that like aspect of that is being trauma informed. Like that's a trauma for an individual. Right. A person who, you know, may have challenges in effectively communicating. Right. Maybe they had an overbearing parent who, who didn't allow them to get a word in edgewise. And so now they don't have the ability to effectively communicate because they didn't have the opportunity to communicate when they were younger.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Sure.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Trauma informed. Right.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So I, the way I kind of look at it is, and I'm gonna come back to the trauma in a second too. But the, hey, it's like I'm oversimplified. Like, kind of like being able to read the room.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

I mean, like, being able to, like, assess what's going on in the room and like, okay, there's someone that's upset over in that corner, so let's not maybe not celebrate over here. Kind of like, you know.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Just understand, like, what's going on in the situation. Absolutely. Let me ask a fairly blunt question about trauma. Do you feel that it's kind of overused these days, though, with trauma? Because I feel like everyone talks about being trauma and triggered and all that. I do think that there's a big negative to that.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yes. I definitely feel that. To your point, people, I would say that people are more aware of what trauma is.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Sure.

[Tyson Mutrix]

And so now they have the verbiage and language to express that. And so now we're seeing people saying, oh, I have trauma, and this is my trauma. Because 30 years ago, it was taboo to talk about your challenges, to talk about the issues that you've experienced growing up, because why you need to suck it up and get your job done because you need to work this 9 to 5 to pay your bills and take care of your family. Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

And I, and I think that there is definitely legitimate trauma. So I want to make sure I'm very clear about that. There definitely is. And there are things that, like, you're talking like the title and all. Like, like, like that. Yeah, you're right. The, the, my concern is that, and I, I think I'm kind of seeing this more lately, especially with social media, is like, I see that they were, they were traumatized.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yes.

[Dr. Melvin King]

What's my trauma so that I can get the same attention that they're getting. You know what I mean? That's my concern. I feel like I'm see sometimes what, like that, that traumatized you. Like, sometimes I'll see something like that. What? Wait. Like, it makes me kind of stiff. Like, wait a second.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

So I do worry about that a little bit.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah.

[Dr. Melvin King]

You know what I mean?

[Tyson Mutrix]

I, I, I have a hypothesis that people say they're experiencing more trauma because they, first and foremost, they have the new language to understand it. Secondly, people are becoming more dissociated.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

And because they're becoming more dissociated, they don't develop the social skills to understand when a person is being, you know, sarcastic or understand when they're being, you know, condescending on the negative aspect. Right.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

And because of that, they've become less socially aware. And because they're less socially aware now, they're pivoting that into trauma.

[Dr. Melvin King]

And then their emotional intelligence is plummeting.

[Tyson Mutrix]

And their emotional intelligence is plummeting because they don't have the social.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[Tyson Mutrix]

When you, when you watch Gen Z sitting at a table, and I hate to use this to Gen Z. I'm sorry.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Yeah, we're picking on them a lot.

[Tyson Mutrix]

We're picking on them a lot today. But, you know, they're the softest generation right now, if I'm being honest. And the only why I call them soft is because they lack the social skills that millennials and older generations were able to develop. We, we didn't have phones, the text friends. Right. We went to our friend's house, we had to call their parents.

[Dr. Melvin King]

We had a phone on the wall.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That you go, yes, exactly. Exactly. When you wanted to call, you know, a girl or a boy at the house, and you had to talk to the parents for two to five minutes before you talk to the friends.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Who are you calling for? Oh, what's your name again?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly right.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Where do you live?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Exactly right. So they don't have those particular skill sets. And because they don't have it, it is unfortunately made them softer. And that softness now makes them feel like they're being victimized or being attacked and which creates this level of trauma.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Okay, we'll end on this where what's your advice to law firm owners to help them develop those hard skills to kind of adjust?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, I would say focusing on your emotional intelligence, that is probably the most paramount, the most successful leaders, and studies have shown the most successful leaders are the ones who have the highest and most. So knowing how to read the room, how to be an effective communicator, and then also learning to lead by example. You know, D Y D W I S S W I D I'm still.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Not gonna try to say that.

[Tyson Mutrix]

And, and on top of that, always being an active learner, always looking to learn about the new skills that are in leadership development. And last but not least, think about the future and the present at the same time. Succession planning is so important because you want to see your law firm continue to grow and be robust and thrive or success planning also looks like, hey, in 20 years, I'm going to sell it. So what I'm going to do to ensure that whenever I get to that point, my business is as successful as it can be, so I can maximize on the profit fit of the sale.

[Dr. Melvin King]

It's great advice. Dr. Melvin King, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Thank you, Tyson.

[Dr. Melvin King]

Appreciate it. Yep. Absolutely.