Maximum Lawyer

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Are you looking for a tool to help support your staff and your business? In this episode of The Maximum Lawyer Podcast, host Tyson Mutrux shares his personal journey with the Kolbe assessment. Tyson discusses the differences between his initial and later Kolbe results and how understanding instinctive energy can improve leadership and team dynamics. 

Tyson shares some insights on using the Kolbe assessment and his lessons learned. Kolbe measures how you instinctively take action when you are faced with an issue. Instincts are deep rooted and can change over time, which can lead to different scores for those that take the assessment. For law firm owners, many issues are people driven.

This can range from someone not doing a good enough job or just causing problems for your firm. This is ultimately an alignment issue and the assessment can be used to decide how to restructure your firm to ensure people are working in ways that benefit themselves and the business.

Depending on the assessment results, you might need to re-align roles with strengths. This can be challenging because you don’t want to change the way your firm runs. But, you can figure out how to align roles and strengths as much as possible to improve productivity. Look at how your firm operates, where people might need more support and find ways to shift your structure. This will improve happiness and uphold retention for your firm.

Listen in to learn more!


  • 5:56 Understanding What Kolbe Measures 
  • 11:25 Energy Placement vs. Preference
  • 17:53 Aligning Roles with Strengths 
  • 22:35 Reducing Friction and Improving Culture 
  • 28:41 Letting People Work Their Way


Tune in to today’s episode and checkout the full show notes here. 

Resources:


Creators and Guests

Host
Tyson Mutrux
Tyson is the founder of Mutrux Firm Injury Lawyers and the co-founder of Maximum Lawyer.

What is Maximum Lawyer?

Maximum Lawyer is the podcast for law firm owners who want to scale with intention and build a business that works for their life.

Hosted by Tyson Mutrux, each weekly episode features candid conversations with law firm owners, business experts, and industry leaders sharing real strategies and lessons learned in the trenches.

If you're ready to grow your firm with less stress and more support, this is your next must listen. Subscribe today.

Tyson Mutrux 00:00:00 Welcome back to another wonderful episode of the Maximum Lawyer podcast. As always, I'm Tyson Matrix. This is a little bit of a different mix because we had skipped a week because of the holidays, and so I'm, I'm basically making up a week so we can give you all as much value as possible. And I think this one's going to be a really good one. I'll be talking about Colby because we had we had some some people from Colby come in and do a training with the firm, and I guess she probably considered a consultant, I guess, is what you would consider her. But she was fantastic. It was really, really good, a really good training. So I want to talk about some of the things that I learned. some of my takeaways, some, you know, bitter pill to swallow, I guess is, another way of putting it, but, really excited. So, the team, if you if you've noticed, if you're watching on YouTube, the background is a little bit different.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:01 It's funny. Yesterday my team said, well, you're not coming in tomorrow. And I said, what? They're like, well, you're, you know, you're taking off. I said, well I got, I've got, I got some recordings I got to do. Like, well you can do things for Maxwell if you want. But I'm like, you're not working. So either I did something I was telling people in circle today because we had, our Friday 1130 call and, in the association, and I, was talking about it and I said either I did something really, really right or really, really wrong. I think I was more on the right side. They just wanted to give me a day off, which was kind of cool. And so I just said, you know what? I'm not going to go in the office. I'll just record from home. where I'd set up the studio at home is actually full of some stuff because we're doing a bathroom, a master bathroom renovation, which is almost done.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:50 But the area where I record is is occupied at the moment. So which is not in the bathroom, by the way, if you want to make those jokes. No, it's a different, different area of my house. so we're in, Amy's, set up. We actually set up an office for her, which is. It's kind of a cool. So you see the the background, the wallpaper and all that. That is lots of gold in this, this office where I am currently. So, that's why the back room is a little bit different. Her, her her room looks a lot better than what? What my studio looks like. But anyways, so let's get back to Colby. And so it's kind of interesting. Here's my history with Colby. I first took the Colby in 2020, so February 2020, and my score was five three, six six. And that always bothered me. It really bothered me. I didn't it didn't feel like as a five, three, six, six, I, you know, I wanted to be something different.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:46 It wasn't that because it seemed like everyone else had these scores where they were really on one end or on the other end, and I it really bothered me. I actually didn't feel like it fit me. Okay. So that is that's what I. The first test I took. I took another one in March of 2023. All right. So the timing kind of matters in my opinion this was February was of 2020 was right before Covid started. But we knew Covid was coming. All right I this is something I remember talking to Sandy van at the Zappa thon out in Scottsdale. She knew about it in like December of that year. And so we were we knew it was coming. So and the reason why I bring that up is because the the consultant, she Christine I'll just call her Christine from now on. Christine was great, Christine. But she talked about how sometimes when you're in a transition, sometimes it can throw the scores off. That doesn't mean I was in a transition. It doesn't mean I wasn't.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:46 Maura 2023. That was also significant because we were having some changes in the firm. Okay. So in March of 2023, my score was 3485. Okay. What was interesting is she told us that usually, only only 10% or less of people that take the test. The test is wrong. Okay? Usually the test is spot on. And even when it's wrong, she says there's only a variation of of one. It's very rare to have it changed by two. So remember my score was five, three, six, six and then it changed to three, four, eight, five. So the five changed to a three. The four change to a yes. So the five change the three. The three change to a four. The. And I'm not going to get into all what all the different categories mean by the way. I'm just not going to they, they do mean different things. I can and I can I guess I can get into that in another episode, because there is going to be probably a follow up to this, but so the five change of three, three change to a four, the six change to an eight, and then the six change to a five.

Tyson Mutrux 00:04:53 Okay. So that's the and you can see in there when the five, two, three. That's a variation of two. And then when the six change to an eight, that's a variation of two. All right. Which is outside of the norm. So I actually have a follow up meeting with her this following week where because she's very interested in this and we're going to have have a more more detailed one on one conversation, which is kind of a cool thing. And I'll be able to report back on that because I think this will be important. But Thabo said before the score always bothered me because I didn't I didn't feel right to me. and so I was like, okay, does this mean I change? Does it? What does it mean that the score changed? Or is the second score more accurate and more accurate reflection of who I am really, really bothered me? Okay. So I that's one of the things where it's always been on my mind since 2023. So, you know, almost three years, you know, it's it's been on my mind and it's really, when she started to get into what Colby measures.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:56 Okay. This one, I'm not going to go into each individual category because I think this next lesson is more important. Okay. This next lesson is maybe the most important thing. So it Colby doesn't measure it doesn't measure personality. It's not a personality test. I think we call it a personality test. A lot of times it's not. I wouldn't even call it an A, an assessment because you're you're not testing intelligence. You're not testing skill. You're not measuring experience, things like that. What Colby measures is how you instinctively take action whenever you're faced with an issue. Okay. So it's about instincts, which is really more deeply rooted. And that's why I'd asked her a question during this. Is this something that it it changes over time. And because the reason I was asking that is like I wanted to figure out if it made sense for us to have our kids tested because I said, can you actually test this in kids on kids? And she said. Absolutely. What happened? the Colby all started where they were doing testing on kids.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:01 This all started with with, whenever they were measuring instincts and all that in children. And I thought that was kind of an interesting thing. So if you've if you've ever had that question, then then yes, you absolutely can. And it's funny because I've always thought of, you know, assessments or tests, things like this, where again, I don't think it's an assessment, but I don't know a better word for it at this point. I always thought like, viewed them is like snapshots, but, it's not really a snapshot. It what it really is. And this is something I had to it was a realization of mine is that Colby's more of like an energy map. And I'll explain this more. Trust me. I'll explain this more in a little bit. But it's think of Colby as an energy map. Okay. That in and I'll explain it. Like I said, explain a little bit. But it's funny because in the association, when we have these conversations formally the guild, we always have these situations come up where the owner or the managers are running into some sort of an issue with a person, okay? And sometimes they think it's effort.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:13 Sometimes it could be personality issues, so many different things. Right. And the reality of it is it's really it has to do with alignment okay. It has to do with alignment. Doesn't have to do with usually doesn't usually doesn't usually have to do with effort. Doesn't have to use doesn't usually deal with skill level it it really has to do with the alignment in where are they putting their energy and and how are what are your what are your expectations of, where they're putting their energy and at what times and all that. It really has to do with that. And so I mean that that that distinction really matters. And that's part of the reason why it explains why my my score felt a little bit wrong. It my first score, it felt a little bit wrong. But after after having this training I think that I my, my realization is that the, the my score was actually correct, I think at first and I'll explain why in a little bit, but because Christine was she was not convinced that my my instincts had changed.

Tyson Mutrux 00:09:25 Okay. She just wasn't it. She's very curious. That's why she wanted to have this meeting. I'm basing it a free, consulting out of this, which is kind of cool. But what she said was some profiles, they're naturally adaptable. So when you see that the scores are somewhat in the middle five, three, six, six, that's pretty. The only one where I had a strong one was the three. Okay. That's. So they break them into threes basically. So. and so 123456789. That's that's how they usually break them down. And so I thought that I found that really interesting because I'm in the five, three, six, six. And what she, what she meant was, is that the people that have those middle scores, they can typically move up and down the scale. Okay. So their instincts don't move, but they're more adaptable. So the adaptability is the instinct. And I'm sure she'll probably should probably put this way better than I'm putting it. But this is my interpretation of it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:30 But the adaptability of the people, like my first score is the instinct. And it it allowed me to shift my, my dissatisfaction with that initial score into saying, you know what? That's a that's actually a superpower. It was like this, this thing that clicked. And so I think that I could probably take that test today, and it might, even if it was a different number, I would actually if it was a different number, I would still think that that was probably the right number. And the reason why is because it depends on where I am right now when it comes to my energy levels and what the situation is, and I adapt to it. So whenever I saw that three, four, eight, five, that was me adapting in that situation. And so to me, it naturally fit. It's because I can move up and down that scale. I found that really, really interesting. It also made it easier for me to digest the five three, six, six number.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:25 And I don't know why I didn't like the five three, six six so much. but I didn't like it. I just didn't like it. I wanted to, I wanted to be on one end or the other, and I just wasn't. And so that that context does matter. It really does matter. So if you are similar to me, don't let that number bother you, because it can actually mean that you actually have. It's a big strength for you. But so let me get back to the energy and the energy placement and what I meant by all that too. And that these instincts are about energy and not they're not really about preference or skill level, all that kind of stuff. because like, preference is like what you like. Okay. Like that's different. Instinct is like where your energy naturally goes whenever you're under the gun, you're under pressure. And so that really does explain a lot when you understand that fundamental basis of Colby. It explains a ton because it explains why certain tasks feel heavier than they should for you or for your people.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:31 it it helps you understand why some people thrive whenever there's ambiguity. It helps you understand why some people thrive whenever they have very, very specific instructions. It shows you why some people struggle when they don't have very specific instructions. It explains why some people will burn out in certain roles that look perfect for them on paper. Like, we did this thing where we went around and it was at the end and she said, you know, you know, tell everyone in the group something you learned about yourself so that they can better work with you. And I can tell you, I don't I don't ever voice this frustration. Okay? But I'm this is me. My team might actually hear this, so, they'll make maybe they'll disagree with me because I don't normally show it. But sometimes if I'm talking to someone and they're over explaining something in my brain, I'm like, I got it. Like, okay, let's move on. I'm done. I don't need any more information. So I told them, I said, I seen bullet points, give me bullet points, I don't and don't don't ever tell me something.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:35 Just give me the basics. I got it. and I can it's I've got this ability where I can just boop. Just give me the bullet points and I've got. I can fill in all the details. It was really funny because Kerry, who is has been with us for a while. She's fantastic. She was She said, you know what? The moment we were talking about, because she's like, I started to understand Tyson more because I understand. So whenever I first started, he would give me instructions and they were very, very simplified instructions. And she's like, I need more detail. I need more detail. And if I had had her score when she first started, I would have been able to I would have known, oh, I need to give Carrie more detail. She needs to have like a book to read on things. She's not a bullet point person. I'm a bullet point person. She's more. She needs all the detail to fill in all the context gaps. And so it's really interesting that when you know that it really is.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:34 So I think it's going to help you with like engaging with your employees, with your team members, help you understand them and help you reassign some of the roles. Because people. I don't think that they really resist change. I heard this quote once. Like, people resist change. They they they resist or they don't resist change. They resist being changed. Something like that. And I think that that's right. People are okay with changing. It's just it's just how you do it, right? It's just it's how you address it. And you see the same thing with tools like, like changing with different softwares and all that, different. You, you name the vendor, right? It's how you it's how you adapt to that change in the firm and how you address it. Which is why we created back those lists, by the way, so you could find the best vendors. Just a little shameless plug, but go to Becca's List Co. But whenever you are looking, let's say you are looking for a new vendor and you're trying to get the team to adopt that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:39 How you approach it with some team members versus another team member is very different. It's very different. There is no longer this or there never was. Really. There's no there's not this cookie cutter way of doing it, even though. And this is where, I'm gonna get into some of my frustrations near the end with this because I had some realizations. So that's where the bitter pill. There's a bitter pill to swallow for me, potentially. But, the training made me a little uneasy. and it's that's not because it challenged me. Not because it's challenged people. It's really because it challenged policies. And this is where I'm getting a little bit of my bitter pill of frustration, because we do have uniform rules. And the problem with uniform rules is they really do sort of they assume uniform instincts, which is not true at all. Right? people don't operate uniformly. People don't have the same instinct scores. If you if that's what you the way you want to think about Colby. That. So that was a really tough realization.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:50 you have this leadership tension between consistency versus effectiveness and fairness versus fit. It has me really, rethinking some things. I'll give you an example. So this kind of came up during the training where we have office hours, and some people don't like office hours in the firm. Most people do, by the way. but the way some people are wired instinctually, they don't want the. They don't want it. They want they don't want office hours, but other people do. And that's where it's kind of there is a lot of friction there because I've got I've got something that I think really works when it comes to office hours. But if I let the person, let's say there's one person because there was really one major person that was vocal, but we had a couple people, not that are not huge fans of office hours. And that's because I understand their energy a little bit more when it comes to their instincts. But if I let them go outside the rules and if they violate the rules, so essentially wouldn't be violating the rules anymore because we would change them.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:53 But the people that need the office hours, if they're there sticking to the rules, then it's going to interrupt their work, okay, for the sake of these other people. So that's that's kind of this, this give and take and this tension. And I'm not really sure how we're going to deal with that yet. nothing's going to change until we've we've really fully thought it through, but I what I can't do is sacrifice what we're currently doing and sacrifice, you know, the work of other people just because a couple people want some changes. I can't really do that. But, we're going to do our best to align the roles and strengths as much as possible because it's going to improve productivity. It's going to improve happiness. People are going to really like it. It's going to improve, retention, lots of things. There's lots of benefits to it. So we'll we'll do what's best for our team. And that'll be really, really I mean, it's gonna be good for them, can be good for us, But, because I think we've all seen that roll that looks just perfect on paper.

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:47 It looks fantastic, but unfortunately it's draining that person slowly, slowly, over time, and eventually they it becomes no longer a good fit for them. So what is great, great about Colby, and I'm glad I have a better understanding of it now is that, now that we have a better understanding, we can understand the instinctive energy and we understand that uniformity. It feels less important now than designing things for effectiveness. and I think that that's something I, I'm really excited to see how people react to this in the association. Is that what's kind of cool about the association is you have these people that go and, you know, we'll talk about things, you know, maybe in a mastermind it could be in, you know, just at the conference, Max Lacon or, you know, talking down the halls and, you know, go out and adopt these things. It's it's a really good testing ground, which I think is really, really cool, where we can. I can see what other people are doing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:45 They can see what I'm doing and we can all kind of work together. That right. Rising tides approach. I think that's kind of a cool thing. So this is one of those topics like because I hear people talk about disc and other things, but I think it's one of those topics is really, really cool. I think because we do Enneagram two, which I think there's some, some value in that as well. So I think these each of these tests, they have value for the I mean, I don't know, all the tests, tests, but I know a lot of them. I think they all have value. They just have different they're different tools for different things. And so I wouldn't say Colby is better than disc is better than Enneagram. I think they're just different tests, different assessments, different different things. They measure different things. So what we have to know those, we've got to design and we'll probably do some of these other we'll probably test out disc two just to see what you know, what that information gives us.

Tyson Mutrux 00:20:38 Because I know that Brian Minton is someone that is, you know, a big, big believer in disc, but well, we have the nose with the design, these rules around the strengths instead of control. A big mistake that I see, and I've seen this since the beginning, ever since I heard about the attorney that made their, not to call them out. I'm not going to mention their name, but they they made their their employees put their phones in their lockers at the beginning of the day and they couldn't get them out. And unless it was on a break or lunch or at the end of the day, that's control. That's that's what it is. It's still crazy to me. But you have to design these rules around strengths and not control. So like think about like ask some questions. You know, where do people stall for no obvious reason? Where do they move fast without really being asked to do things? You know, which rules exist to make management easier and which ones you know are not really working.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:31 Right. so I think that's kind of an interesting thing. especially when it comes to management, like what are what exists To make things easier, management easier. And what things, are make compared to like not making it better. Right. So you're making management easier is one thing, but making management better is different. And there's a big distinction there. So maybe ask these questions as to what rules do you have in place that just makes management easier. Okay. But not does it make it better? Yeah. So because I think once, once we kind of get this dialed in a little bit better, it's it's going to make effort not be as, you know, hard, I guess I don't know a better way of putting it. I think we're going to see probably increased output, which I think is interesting. You're going to see a decrease in friction. Now, when I talk about that friction, I do talk about you need to naturally create increase some friction. And that's from a world without email.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:35 there is some friction you need when it comes to communication. But whenever friction in the role itself and the task themselves, that's a little bit different. So, because what we're ultimately trying to do is we're trying to increase the culture. Culture is really, really important. So we want to improve the culture and increase the culture. We want to improve culture. I think that, we should always be focused on that. and part of that is, is decreasing the friction in those tasks. It's really important. So it's not really about controlling chaos or anything like that. It's really about, creating some intentional flexibility in the roles. I think that's an important part of this. Two heavens, instead of having these rigid rules, having some intentional flexibility could be pretty important. But, yeah. So I think that this is really, really important. I think that law firms, are generally built on rules and precision. that's a big part of some of the things that law firms are built on. There really are lots of rules, right? We we have rules that we're guided by.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:43 We have rules of evidence. We've got statutes, things like that. We create all these rules and policies and procedures in our firms. And so it makes over standardization really tempting. It really does. But what really matters the most if you think about it's judgment and initiative. It's really judgment and initiative. so if you can kind of figure that part out that matters most and you combine that with, you know, how to certain people instinctually react to certain situations. I think what you're going to see is just a lot less burnout in your firms, and you're going to see a lot less exhaustion in you and in your team. and you're going to see a lot more alignment in your goals. But I and I, I don't want to overstate this because I think that this is sometimes this is sometimes what happens and it doesn't matter what it is. You name the tool, right? you know, if you could go on Becca's list and you could say, you know, this is the best software for this, right? This is the silver bullet.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:48 It's not true. Colby's not a silver bullet, either. I guess that it's one assessment of many that does one thing. So don't think that you're going to have. You're going to bring on Colby, and Colby is going to solve all of the firm's problems. That is not what I'm saying at all. I think you should take the information that you get from it, use it the way it's supposed to be used, and that's it. Okay. It's not a it's not a magical elixir. Okay. So don't think of it that way. It's going to. Instead it's going to be a tool that you use. It's going to allow you to stop blaming people for doing things incorrectly or, you know, thinking it's one thing, what's actually another thing. It's going to give you additional information to see. Okay, maybe their energy is better placed over here and not over there. Or maybe this person. It's simply an instruction issue where we're not giving them enough detail in this role because they just they're more of a fact finder.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:46 They need to know more about this particular project, and we need to give them more instructions. What was interesting about the last number is implementer I. This is and I don't want to get off to too far off track. But something I learned was implementer is not what I thought it was implemented is not like you take it, you take something and you implement it into the whatever. Right. So, what I always thought it was is that, we have this new system that we create, and the implementer is really good about implementing that into the system, you know, into the firm. Right? That's and that's not at all what it is. It is actually the implementer. So it's not implementer. She made Christine pointed that out. It's an implementer or it's that person's ability to. And I don't know how this makes any sense with the name, but whatever. It's that person's ability to actually interact with the in the real world. so the tactile world, build it like touch and move things and all that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:55 And I was like, wow, wow, that's really interesting. So almost six on that five, three, six, six. But I can I can also that's one of those ones. I think I can move up and down that scale. And I'd ask her about, well does that mean like, you know, building software and all that. And she, she said maybe a little bit, but not really. They're really talking about what's happening in the real world. Things you can see, touch, taste, all that kind of stuff, which I thought was that was really interesting, really interesting distinction. so I think this is something that I may talk about at Max Lau Con this year. I don't know, it's part of this conversation I'm going to have with her this week. We'll see. Because I part of this in May just, you know, have conversations with people in the hall out of Maxwell Card. You know, that may just be what what I do, but. Or it's something that may come up during masterminds and all that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:40 It's it's I think it's a really cool topic. I'm very curious to see how other people are using it because, I, I'm, I know there's a lot of value, and we've been using Colby for a while, and I know that Amy and Chris and our firm, they use it way they think about it, way more than I do. But I this is just sort of a wake up call for me. I'm glad we did the training because it's a wake up call for me to use it more. and so I'm meeting with that with Christine again this week. I'm very curious. It's not like I need the answers. I'm very curious. She's very curious, which makes me excited. So we're both very curious about, you know, what we're going to learn. I think the important lesson from all this, though, you don't need to redesign everything overnight. I don't plan on redesign everything overnight. I'm thinking about everything. But, the big thing is identifying these energy patterns. because once you do it, you're not gonna be able to unsee them, I promise you, because we started as we had, we have in click Zoho Click, which is where we chat with each other.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:41 Each of us are each other's numbers and you're like, oh, that makes complete sense when you look at it more. And so I'll make sure I pay more attention to it because we've had those in there for a while. But, really interesting. I think it's interesting stuff. but identify those energy patterns. I think it's going to, you know, take you a really long way. Really. Do I think it's really, really important. But, just remember, it's maybe the goal isn't to make everyone work the same way. Maybe it's just to let people work the way they're wired. Okay. so I'm going to say that part again because I think it's important. I don't want to let that get lost when you're dealing with your team, maybe the goal is to make everyone work the same way. Maybe it's to let people work the way they're wired. Okay, that makes it more difficult for us to manage. However, it's probably going to make us more effective as a team. Okay, really really important.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:40 So. All right. just. I'm not getting paid to do this. This isn't a plug for Colby, or this is a plug for Colby. I'm not getting paid for this, so. But I just want to say I can't recommend Colby enough. It's Colby. In case you don't know, that will also be in the show notes, but, I don't have a referral link or anything like that. If I if I can get one before this goes live, then maybe I'll, maybe I'll put one in there. But I don't have a referral link. I don't know if they have a referral link, so don't worry about that. But I just want to make sure that, I pass this on because I think it was a really great training. And if you have questions about the training itself, we did have to pay them to do it. They have different levels of trainings that you can do. They do it via zoom. so if you want if you have more questions about that shoot, feel free to shoot me a text.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:21 Text line is in the show notes. So, 63095383146309538. But it's also in the show notes. But all right. Have a great week everybody. And we'll be talking to you.