“Where do we go from here?”

Leadership of the legal department will be crucial in these uncertain times. Geoff Wild considers the way forward.

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?“

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don’t much care where," said Alice.

"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.

I guess there’s a little bit of Alice in all of us at the moment. We’re all wondering where we ought to go, but not sure where we want to get to. And like Alice, if we don’t have clarity about where we are going, we shouldn’t be surprised if we end up somewhere different.

What’s clear, though, is that if your business needs reinvigorating or re-inventing, it needs a complete and fundamental shake-up. Simply giving it a corporate comb-over by merely tinkering at the edges, will achieve nothing. You have to be totally focused and have the complete commitment of all stakeholders: customers, Members and staff.

“When your very existence is threatened, you have to change” – Sir Richard Branson

Don’t wait until your very existence is threatened; don’t wait to be told to ‘shape up or ship out’. Make the necessary changes to your business now.

Change is often seen as a discrete programme or project – something out of the ordinary. Yet in life we change all the time: we learn, we grow, we get fatter...or thinner; we make mistakes and we start again.  In fact, the only constant is that we change.

People apply themselves surprisingly readily to things they understand and believe in and change is something most people enjoy in their private lives because they are in control of it. Change in the workplace should be no different. It requires openness and transparency, not just information on a need to know basis.

Healthy organisations are (and should be) in a constant state of flux. As the Chinese proverb goes: “Unmanaged change is applied chaos. Unwilling change is pointless. But no change is unacceptable”.

The days of the law as a superior profession are now gone – it is a job like any other. It is no longer acceptable to dispense advice from on high, in an aloof and disinterested manner, expecting it be accepted and acted upon unquestioningly. The lawyer is expected to roll up their sleeves and share their clients’ pressures and goals, to be a specialist problem solver and be an instrumental team member in devising solutions.

Gone are the days when we simply need to give customers what we think they need. Gone even are the days when we give them what they say they want. True service requires us to help customers uncover and discover what they need – but do not yet realise it.

If our clients (or customers) keep changing, setting higher standards and requiring different services, then we must change with them – or perish. This sounds trite, but many in local government are slow and reluctant to acknowledge this and make the change.

“If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don't do it, and it won't happen.” – Desiderius Erasmus

Keep dreaming, but make sure you turn those dreams into reality. For example, you may dream of…

• a place where people come to work everyday in a rush to try something they woke up thinking about the night before
• employees who go home from work wanting to talk about what they did today rather than trying to forget about it
• a place where when the working day is finished, everybody wonders where the time went, and
• a place where, by shaping their own work experience, they make their own lives better and their team the best.

Aspirational stuff, I know. But if just one of these dreams turns into reality for just one member of staff, then the effect can be incredible – and contagious.

For staff to succeed, a leader has to recognise that they have a strong responsibility to serve and inspire them, and make sure that they have everything they need to be successful. If they succeed, you succeed. If they fail, you fail.

A leader needs to get out more and be with customers and employees, understand their needs and provide resource solutions, not sit in their corner office waiting for information and reports to flow in, and be briefed by a few cohorts.

Remember…

• Good staff give you competitive advantage
• Customers can identify with 92% accuracy which employees are poor performers and which are dissatisfied
• Dissatisfied employees are 20% less productive than satisfied employees
• For every 1% of dissatisfied employees there are 5% of dissatisfied customers

This requires more empowerment, and less control from the top, which can be quite scary to begin with. Distribute and delegate power, authority and autonomy. It helps to think of yourself more as a coach than a manager.

Allow decisions to be taken where the knowledge is. But like any other skill, the ability to take good decisions requires training, practice and the right tools – don’t just leave people to get on with it and be tolerant of early mistakes.

It is also vital to make sure that accountabilities and responsibilities are clear and that passing the baton of decision-making does not result in ‘adhocracy’.

It can be a little scary to let go, but be prepared to explain the What and the Why, and have confidence to leave the How to the skills and capabilities of the staff. It works.

In particular, train for soft skills in a systematic, thoughtful and planned way. Our soft skills (influencing, presentation, communication, negotiation, etc) are the means by which we convey our expertise and judgment; without them we might as well be talking to ourselves.

So make sure you train these skills and rely less on professional osmosis for your improvement.

A leader should always put themselves in the position of the client and ask what they would like to receive in the way of good service

It is the job of leader to constantly trumpet the views and importance of the customer, to think of their role as that of Customer Advocate within their organisation, even if that sometimes results in them challenging their own people. It is vital to develop and maintain close customer ties, articulate customer needs, and keep priorities in focus with the desires and expectations of the customer.

You need sound strategies, with balance, credibility and common-sense – which don’t easily frighten either Members or staff.

Don’t be easily deflected. You won’t please all the people all the time and do not aim to win popularity contests amongst your own staff.

Innovative Leaders…

• Marry the art of invention with the discipline of management
• Are motivated by what is possible, not by what seems probable
• Consistently push the envelope – for themselves and all who follow
• Fear stagnation more than taking risks
• Are unflagging excellence junkies who resist the status quo
• Embrace failure as a step toward success
• Welcome change and challenge like fine old friends
• Hunger for learning, stimulus and discovery
• Are motivated by internal drive, rather than external forces
• Inspire others by "doing" and "demonstrating"
• Admit to a strong inner sense of direction, mission or calling

Geoff Wild is director of law and governance at Kent County Council.

This article first appeared in ACSeS' Firing Up the Passion for Leadership publication. To obtain a copy (for a nominal £10 to cover production costs) contact the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors at 64, Smithbrook Kilns, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8JJ; telephone: 01483 277888; e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.