Unlock the power of the nurturer voice in this Revenue Roadmap episode

Embracing the Nurturer Voice in Your Law Firm

Law firms face challenges in fostering a cohesive and productive environment.

This often stems from a misunderstanding of diverse communication styles within the team.

One crucial, yet often underheard, aspect in any team setting is the Nurturer voice.

By understanding and leveraging the Nurturer voice, law firm leaders can cultivate a thriving culture, improve communication, and ultimately drive greater success.

This Revenue Roadmap episode dives deeper into the importance of implementing the 5 Voices model into your law firm by providing actionable strategies to empower invaluable team members in the nurturer role.

Understanding the Nurturer Voice in Your Organization

The Nurturer voice represents a significant portion of the general population, making up approximately 43%.

These individuals are primarily focused on the “people” aspect of an organization, prioritizing relational harmony and cultural values.

Their natural tendency is to champion the well-being of their colleagues and foster a supportive environment.

Nurturers deeply care for everyone on their team, which makes them essential for building strong internal relationships and a positive workplace atmosphere.

The Caretaker Role: Intuition and Empathy

Nurturers possess a unique intuition regarding how an organization will react to new ideas or changes.

They act as pragmatic realists, ensuring that potential impacts on the team are thoroughly considered. This caretaker role allows them to foresee potential challenges that other voices might overlook.

Anticipate Team Reactions: When a new concept arises, a nurturer will naturally consider how the team will receive it. This foresight is crucial for smooth transitions and buy-in.
Prioritize Relational Harmony: Their deep care for people means they prioritize the emotional impact of decisions on the team. They strive to maintain a harmonious environment.
Act as the “Reins” for Change: Nurturers can help slow down rapid changes, ensuring all angles are considered, especially the human element.

Example:

If a new case management system is being introduced, a nurturer might ask, “Have we considered how this will affect the paralegals who are accustomed to the old system? Will they have enough training and support to adapt?”

This kind of empathic approach ensures a smoother implementation.

The Supportive Style: Celebrating the Collective Team

The supportive style of a nurturer is evident in their genuine delight in celebrating the achievements of others. They are natural team players who thrive on collective success. However, this strength can also lead to a tendency to deflect credit for their own contributions.

Boost Team Morale: By celebrating their colleagues, nurturers contribute significantly to positive team morale and a sense of shared accomplishment.
Discredit Personal Value: Nurturers sometimes struggle to acknowledge their own value, often pushing credit to others to preserve relational harmony. This means leaders must actively affirm their competence.
Resistance to Change: They can be overly resistant to change, sometimes demonstrating passive-aggressive tendencies if they feel the change will disrupt harmony or negatively impact people.

Example:

A nurturer might have single-handedly developed a new client intake process that significantly improved efficiency.

However, when praised, they might say, “Oh, it was really a team effort, everyone contributed.”

Leaders should actively acknowledge their specific contribution and its positive impact on others to empower them.

The Listening Champion: Creating Space for the Workforce Unit

Nurturers typically have a low “voice volume,” meaning they are not usually the first to speak up in a meeting. They are listening champions who prefer to observe and process before contributing. It is crucial for leaders to actively create a safe space for their voices to be heard.

Invite Participation: Leaders should intentionally call on nurturers first in meetings to ensure their valuable insights are shared.
Value Their Perspective: Their insights are often super valuable, especially when considering the human element of change. Failing to invite their input can lead to unforeseen issues during implementation.
Beware of Silence: If a nurturer is unusually silent, it could be a red flag that something is amiss or they are holding back valuable concerns.

Example:

During a brainstorming session, if a nurturer remains quiet, a leader might say, “Sarah, you’re usually very insightful about team dynamics. What are your thoughts on how this might impact our staff structure?”

This intentional invitation can encourage them to share their perspective.

Empowering the Nurturer Voice for Personal Growth

Empowering the Nurturer voice requires specific leadership tools and a focus on personal growth. Since nurturers are relational-based rather than logic-based, they care more about the culture of the organization than the profit and loss statement.

Explain Their Impact: Clearly demonstrate the positive impact their actions have had on other people and the team. This resonates deeply with their people-centric nature.
Affirm Their Competence: Consistently affirm their confidence and the genuine value they contribute. They may not readily believe in their own strengths, so ongoing affirmation is key.
Protect Their People: If a nurturer feels their team or “people” are not being treated well, they may withdraw their care and engagement, leading to a toxic environment.

Example:

After a successful client presentation, a leader could tell a nurturer, “Because of your meticulous organization of the client files, John felt completely prepared, and the client expressed how smoothly everything went. Your work directly contributed to his success and the client’s positive experience.”

This links their effort to a positive outcome for others.

Final Tips to Nurture the Nurturer Voice

To maximize the potential of the Nurturer voice in your law firm:

Prioritize creating a safe space for their input.
Actively invite their feedback, especially during times of change.
Consistently affirm their value and highlight their positive impact on others.
Remember that their focus is on people and cultural harmony, not just the bottom line.
Be mindful of their tendency to be conflict-averse and resistant to change if the human element isn’t considered.

By implementing these strategies, law firms can unlock the full potential of their nurturers, fostering a stronger, more harmonious, and ultimately more successful organizational group.

Ready to significantly grow your family law firm by applying these employee engagement strategies directly into your operations?

Connect with Rocket Clicks today for a FREE personalized, no-obligation roadmap that will show you what’s working in your business—and what’s not.

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Want to read instead? Check out the transcript below!

Interview Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:12:08
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
A nurture is going to care more about the culture of your organization than what they’re going to care about the PNL. And it’s not that they don’t care about the PNL. That’s not it. It’s just their natural tendencies to push them to care more about the.

00:00:12:08 – 00:00:25:23
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
People they know something that they should say, but like, everything’s going well. They might not say it if you didn’t create space for them. Most of the time what they have to say is super valuable in the context of how we’re thinking about the change.

00:00:25:25 – 00:00:59:07
SPEAKER 3 (Tyler Dolph)
Welcome back to the Revenue Roadmap, the podcast designed to help law firm leaders take their practice to the next level and build the firm of their dreams. My name is Tyler Dolph. I am the CEO of our hyper focused agency called Rocket Clicks that works exclusively with family law firms across the country. We built Rocket Clicks out of the fact that we own and operate our own family law firm called Sterling Lawyers, that we’ve grown over 30 attorneys across two different states and 25 offices.

00:00:59:10 – 00:01:29:07
SPEAKER 3 (Tyler Dolph)
Today, we’re going to continue down our our giant people series. We’re going to dive into the nurturer voice, which is the largest communication style amongst many organizations. Today we have Toni Carls, who is the co-founder of our law firm, as well as the president of our agency, along with Matt Hawker. And Matt leads our people organization, leads the team, and helps them realize their voices, helps them become better leaders.

00:01:29:10 – 00:01:42:06
SPEAKER 3 (Tyler Dolph)
This is a great episode on better understanding who your team members are, what voice they use, and their communication style to really dive in and unpack what makes them tick. I think you’re going to love it.

00:01:42:09 – 00:02:03:13
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
Welcome. Welcome everyone. This is revenue roadmap where we talk about driving revenue and increasing profits in local businesses. I’m your host, Anthony Carls, president of Rocket Clicks. Today I’m joined by Mr. Matt Hawker. He is. What’s up product owners here. These are BDC national team. He also leads, our joint implementation.

00:02:03:16 – 00:02:04:18
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
Yes, sir.

00:02:04:21 – 00:02:27:15
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
So today we are continuing our talk on leadership. Last week we kind of give an overview of our voices lesson. We talked give an overview of our voices. We’re going to start diving deeper into these voices in our giant program. Talk a little bit about the nurturer today. And we’ll have more information for you about that in a second.

00:02:27:15 – 00:02:29:03
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
But before we do that.

00:02:29:05 – 00:02:30:02
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
Oh boy.

00:02:30:04 – 00:02:43:09
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
I give you to give me the question of of the day. All right. Matt, what is the most interesting place you’ve ever traveled and why did you enjoy it?

00:02:43:11 – 00:03:06:23
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
I love these unscripted questions. The most interesting place I’ve ever traveled. I, I think I would have to say so. I’ve been. So music is a very big part of my life, especially singing. A lot of people don’t. They’re like, you don’t look like a singer. It’s like, it’s okay, I know, but I’ve. I’ve sang a lot of sang all over the world.

And probably one of the coolest places that I’ve ever been was Ireland. And, when we were there, we actually got instead of just staying in, like, a regular hotel. We got to stay in a hotel that used to be a castle that sat on top of a big hill in, like, the middle of nowhere in Ireland.

00:03:06:26 – 00:03:29:04
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
And it was beautiful. And like there were the big lions out front. There was the, the cavern underneath where, like they used to, used to be the jail. It was, it was amazing. The library was like a three story library, which just still had all the original books, like on the walls. They turned it into a bar area to sit and mingle with people.

00:03:29:06 – 00:03:47:13
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
And it was super cool. So that’s probably the coolest place that I personally have ever been. I went with the whole bunch of buddies of mine that I that I sang with when I was in college. So, it was a long time ago, but it was a lot of fun. Yeah. And, I would love to, I’d love to go back there and take my family there or something.

00:03:47:13 – 00:04:06:04
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
You know, I would say Johnny’s going to listen to this, like, when are we going? When I when. It’s it’s on the list for.

00:04:06:04 – 00:04:10:14
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
What’s good. Okay. So let’s jump in. So let’s start. We’re going to the next couple episodes that we do together. We’re going to talk about each of the five voices in detail. Give a good deep dive overview. So when we talk about the nurturer voice describe describe the nurturer voice like what is who are they generally.

00:04:10:20 – 00:04:13:02
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
It’s it’s on the list for.

00:04:13:03 – 00:04:36:08
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
What’s good. Okay. So let’s jump in. So let’s start. We’re going to the next couple episodes that we do together. We’re going to talk about each of the five voices in detail. Give a good deep dive overview. So when we talk about the nurturer voice describe describe the nurture voice like what is who are they generally.

And obviously all of these are generalizations. They’re not specific archetypes, but they help they help understand people generally.

00:04:36:08 – 00:04:45:00
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
And obviously all of these are generalizations. They’re not specific archetypes, but they help they help understand people generally.

00:04:45:00 – 00:05:19:17
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
Yeah, absolutely. So nurturer they are they are really like the, the champion of the people, the people part of your organization. Like that’s what they care about the most. They’re all about people. They’re all about relational harmony, and they’re all about like values that relate to culture. And the reason why nurturer is, like, so important. All the voices are important, but especially like understanding a nurturer and what their natural tendencies are is because nurturers make up about 43% of our general population, 43.

So 43 people, you have a hundred people in your org, 43 of them are going to be a nurturer more than likely, or around that number. So it’s a very large majority. Right. They yeah, they’re they’re people focused. That’s kind of the biggest, the biggest piece about them. They care deeply for everybody on their team and they love celebrating the accomplishments of others on their.

00:05:19:17 – 00:05:47:16
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
Yeah, they’re they’re people focused. That’s kind of the biggest, the biggest piece about them. They care deeply for everybody on their team and they love celebrating the accomplishments of others on their.

00:05:47:19 – 00:06:16:17
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
Yeah. And I know one of the things that they sometimes struggle with is taking thinking how thinking about how they bring, bring, bring it themselves sometimes. Yes. I mean, assets on our team can be nurturers and, they, they discredit the value they bring, because they don’t want a way of others and the relational harmony that they might disjoined by taking credit and making people feel, feel a certain way.

00:06:16:19 – 00:06:44:09
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
So if you could, if you kind of jump in, what are when we go through our giant assessment in this first seminar that we do when we’re asking the team, we ask them to, you know, great, great. All these statements that we have here on, green, if it really fits green, yellow if if it’s somewhat yellow, if it’s kind of, yellow red if it’s like, maybe a little bit, but not really in red if it’s like, yeah, that that does sound like me at all.

00:06:44:12 – 00:06:44:27
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
Yep.

00:06:45:00 – 00:06:52:27
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
So we read a couple statements off and that’s kind of what, what this voice typically looks like. So like what are what are some of these things describing for.

00:06:52:29 – 00:07:12:26
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
So for the nurturer, they, they intuitively feel how an organization will react to a new idea. So, you know, you have a new idea and or concept comes up. A nurturer is going to say, I don’t know. Well, I don’t know how our team’s going to take that or I don’t know how we’re I don’t know how everybody’s going to handle.

I don’t know how everyone’s going to handle that. And we have we thought about that. And that’s one of the that’s one of the big things too. Like they’re pragmatic realists that that sit in the moment and they say, has this really been thought through like there’s some different voices. We’re like yep let’s do it. Let’s go.

00:07:12:28 – 00:07:30:09
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
We’re going to get there and they’re like whoa, whoa guys hold up. Like has this, has this really been thought through? Have we’ve really done our due diligence to think through the how this is going to affect the team. And that’s one of the biggest things that they can bring to your team, because it’s kind of like the nurturers are like the, the, the the reins.

If you’re like riding a horse, they kind of like slow you down when you need to slow down to take a look at the view. Well, the view is the rest of the people in your company.

00:07:30:09 – 00:07:47:17
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
Yeah. It’s good. It’s what?

00:07:47:17 – 00:07:55:01
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
It’s absolutely right. Like it’s so easy for so many of us to think in the future. But a nurturer is voice like. They live in the present, right?

00:07:55:08 – 00:07:59:04
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
Yeah. It’s good. It’s what?

00:07:59:06 – 00:08:30:25
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
So they, I talked about, like, they take genuine delight in celebrating the achievements of other people. Their natural team players. And one of the things I would, I don’t I don’t like to call it a downside, but we all have we all have downsides and it’s just part of life. Nobody’s perfect. But one of theirs is like you talked about, they don’t ever like to kind of, take credit for any of the things that they do.

They’ll they’ll push it off to other people. And I think part of that is because they’re really they’re really resistant to change. They’re they’re kind of overly resistant to change. Might you say, and because of that, sometimes they can they can demonstrate some passive aggressive tendencies. Anybody have passive aggressive tendencies. Anybody on their team. But it’s okay because every team needs our nurturer.

But these are some of the things that we kind of have people go through. It’s like, does this is the sound like you? Yes. No, maybe a little bit. And then we have them. We have them color, color these red green and yellow like you said.

00:08:30:25 – 00:09:00:03
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
I talked about, like, they take genuine delight in celebrating the achievements of other people. Their natural team players. And one of the things I would, I don’t I don’t like to call it a downside, but we all have we all have downsides and it’s just part of life. Nobody’s perfect. But one of theirs is like you talked about, they don’t ever like to kind of, take credit for any of the things that they do.

00:09:00:06 – 00:09:11:29
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
Yeah. And they’re they’re they’re unbelievably helpful when you’re doing super large changes, getting their buy in and feedback first, and then having them help deliver the message and really get out all of the things, all the details beforehand is a really good idea because they’re going to they’re going to think about all the things that, like a pioneer voice won’t think about who’s more likely to initiate change.

00:09:11:29 – 00:09:28:14
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
And they’re gonna be like, yep, this is step one, two, three process and the nurturer is going to come along and be like, what about all this? This is actually 30 steps. And what about all the 27 that you missed. And how is that going to make the team feel when they’re lost and confused frustrated and like they’re not going to want to do this.

Everyone’s going to be resistant and they’re going to say, all of that stuff for you if they feel safe and if they feel confident, or it’s really up to you to create a space for their voice, is there. That’s like we talked about in the first session. We talked about these a little bit. What is their voice volume?

00:09:28:16 – 00:10:09:10
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
It’s absolutely right. Like it’s so easy for so many of us to think in the future. But a nurturer is voice like. They live in the present, right? And they live and, you know, all of the stuff that we’ve talked through too, it’s no surprise, like they’re very relational based instead of logic based. Right. So, your nurturer is going to care more about the culture of your organization than what they’re going to care about the PNL.

And it’s not that they don’t care about the PNL. That’s not it. It’s just their natural tendencies push them to care more about the people and that that’s that relates more to the culture. And it’s not, what are the people gonna do in the future? It’s how are we going to think about this and feel about this?

00:10:09:10 – 00:10:28:10
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
Yeah. It’s good that they’re going to care more about how the teams responding to it. And they’re going to say, oh, I don’t know how so-and-so is going to react. And if you don’t proactively address that, they’re going to block. The changes. So you can use that to your advantage by letting them jump in early in the planning so you can get a read on how the rest of the team will respond.

00:10:28:11 – 00:10:41:24
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
What if this doesn’t work? Let’s not do it. Let’s take a step back. And so part of your job is to while you’re while you’re giving them the space to speak into it, you also have to help them think through how we can move forward while we also respect the people currently in our organization.

00:10:41:27 – 00:11:18:09
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
It’s unbelievably helpful when you’ve got them first. If you can get your nurturer on board with the change and also do all that thinking for you, you’re far more likely to have success executing the change among the broader team. Because that 43% stat that you gave said, hey, most most of your team is likely to be in that range or close to that range of being highly relational thinkers in the present, that might be resistant to big, large changes that come from a pioneer or come from a connector that’s all excited about the future.

00:11:18:11 – 00:11:43:16
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
The biggest things if you want them on board is if you say you value people, you have to back it up. You can’t pretend to value people. You can’t pretend to have a good culture because they can see right through that. So it’s going to be do as I do, not do as I say if you actually want their buy in.

00:11:43:17 – 00:12:05:21
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
So you have to create space for them, check in with them, let them know you hear them and say, do you have any feedback. Because you probably do. I mean, if they’re quiet, they’re they’re thinking all the time. It’s not like they’re not. It’s not like they’re not paying attention. So you have to create space for them, invite them. If you wait for them, wait for them to come to you with their feedback.

You’re never going to get you’re going to get it, but it may be after the change is, like, too far gone. And they’re like, oh, shoot, I wish we would’ve known that.

00:12:05:21 – 00:12:26:14
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
You can come to the team and you’re going to try to implement and you’re going to get the big old break stop sign, because you didn’t do a good job including all the people that you needed to.

00:12:26:16 – 00:12:29:10
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
It’s absolutely right, like it’s so easy for so many of us…

00:12:29:12 – 00:12:50:25
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
It’s absolutely right. It’s absolutely right. So a nurturer is going to care more about the culture of your organization than the numbers. Not that they don’t care about the numbers, but that’s where their natural tendencies lie.

00:12:50:27 – 00:13:08:00
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
It’s not that they don’t care about the PNL. It’s that they push more into the people. They want to know how the team feels about it first.

00:13:08:03 – 00:13:34:22
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
Yeah, awesome. So, just to recap on the nurture their champion of voice, relational harmony values, watch out for nurturers kind of your conflict, often won’t speak out if something is not right. Alarm bells, red light. If they’re really silent, they’re. Beware of silence. Invite them in if you’re experiencing that.

00:13:34:22 – 00:13:41:15
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
And how to empower them? Let them speak first, affirm their competence, affirm their confidence in their genuine value that they contribute to the team.

00:13:41:17 – 00:13:43:02
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
The biggest things that you can do to empower and nurture…

00:13:43:05 – 00:14:15:00
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
Yeah. When we were going through the giant certification process, one of the things they say in there is, you can complement and nurture every single day for the rest of their life, and they still probably won’t believe that they’re really good at what they’re really good at. That’s just how they’re wired. Like, that’s compliment. I’m over the moon and like, they’re still going to say, I don’t know if I’m good enough. So keep going on their confidence. Invite them in because they’ll help you.

00:14:15:01 – 00:14:16:22
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
So you got to empower them.

00:14:16:24 – 00:14:41:24
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
The biggest things that you can do to empower a nurturer is to explain to them and show them, like the impact that they had on other people, like because of what you did person, this person was able to grow in this way. That’s going to make them feel amazing because they’re all about the people. They’re all about bringing value, and they’re not going to call it out on themselves.

Like, hey, guess what I did? So you have to call that out for them. You have to be their champion to say, you know what this is because of because of you, our company was able to do this or this person was able to.

00:14:41:27 – 00:14:54:03
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
Yeah, when we were going through that training, they mentioned how it can be easy to miss a nurturer’s contribution because they’re so understated about it.

00:14:54:05 – 00:15:09:21
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
So next time we meet, we’re going to dive into the creative voice and we’ll continue on our journey here.

00:15:09:21 – 00:15:28:04
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
One thing I do want to bring up also with, with our nurturer is if you don’t treat them well or if you don’t treat the people that they care about well, they will start to remove that care from people. They’ll start to remove that, that, that wants to, to help people.

00:15:28:06 – 00:15:51:05
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
So that that’s when things can get super toxic. So I think in a in the later podcast that we’re going to do down the way, we’re going to talk about weapon systems and the nurturer’s is the removal of care. So, a little preview for what we’ll talk about later on down the road. But, it’s a really important thing to make sure that they know how valued they are and to not mess with their people.

00:15:51:05 – 00:16:09:06
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
And then that’s when things can get super toxic if you cross a nurturer or you cross their people.

00:16:09:06 – 00:16:09:25
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
Yep.

00:16:09:27 – 00:16:11:26
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
So appreciate it, Matt.

00:16:11:29 – 00:16:12:18
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
Absolutely.

00:16:12:18 – 00:16:13:27
SPEAKER 2 (Anthony Karls)
Look forward next time.

00:16:13:29 – 00:16:15:03
SPEAKER 1 (Matt Hacker)
Yep. See you later.

00:16:15:05 – 00:16:34:02
SPEAKER 3 (Tyler Dolph)
Thank you so much for joining us. We hope that you now see the power of embracing the different voices on your team to help foster stronger connections and a healthier culture in your practice. Don’t miss our other videos for more practical strategies on how to grow your firm and lead your team more effectively.