#24 – Role Models From Pop Culture?
Part 2: What Can We Learn From The Characters We Love - & Hate?
Gosh!
I hadn’t expected this series on role models from pop culture to spark such interest … and such an array of different characters championed by various would-be contributors.
Lead contribution this week from the Jolly Contrarian, who champions nigel molesworth – a character probably little known outside the UK (and perhaps a handful of Commonwealth countries), but an absolute gem.
A slightly longer introduction this week, allowing me to comment a bit on the Jolly Contrarian’s contribution, and its relevance to in-house leadership.
First, a word or several about the Jolly Contrarian, whose sense of humour and genius might be lost on PC readers without a bit of explanation.
The Jolly Contrarian is a brilliant senior in-house lawyer, specialising in derivatives law and fintech more generally – who uses the financial security afforded by his day job to pursue his extra-curricular passions of which there are many, including music, philosophy and writing, the latter of which he channels through his somewhat anarchic website, the Jolly Contrarian. For those of you who haven’t read the Jolly Contrarian (and this will probably be most PC readers), I urge you to do so. You will never see the world quite the same way again.
Second, the somewhat obtuse and anarchic nature of the JC’s contribution shouldn’t obscure its relevance to in-house leadership, and leadership more generally – especially in this world of ‘post-truth’ and fake news.
At its heart, the JC’s choice of nigel molesworth as a role-model is a ‘cri de coeur’, an impassioned plea for a return to unvarnished truth in human relations, where leaders and managers call a spade a spade and leaders aren’t afraid to speak truth to power. Or at least that’s how I read it.
Adding my own commentary, I myself have reflected on some of these themes this week in light of the ongoing election process of a new leader of the UK Conservative party (the current party of Government in the UK), who when finally elected by Conservative Party members in early September will become the next Prime Minister of the UK1.
That process has now narrowed the field of candidates to a final two, each of which has held one of the great so-called ‘offices of state’, and each of which has sat in Boris Johnson’s cabinet (the key ‘committee’ of Government).
Without offering any political commentary on the merits of the final two candidates (that clearly would fall way outside the scope and purpose of PC as a publication) I want to offer some observations that are intended to be apolitical – and that are intended to focus on issues relevant to leadership.
A striking feature of the leadership election – and this has been highlighted by many senior and highly respected commentators – is the distortion of truth in the positioning of the remaining two candidates.
The one candidate – Rishi Sunak – is ideologically right-wing, voted for Brexit and is, without doubt, a conviction Conservative politician in the so-called ‘Thatcherite’ mould. For various reasons that are complex he has been branded by many ‘rank-and-file’ Conservative party members and commentators as a left-winger, whose selection as Conservative Party member and Prime Minister might put Brexit and other cherished aims of the Conservative right-wing at risk.
The other candidate – Liz Truss – started her political life as a supporter of / member of one of the more left-wing political parties and voted against Brexit. She has ‘rebranded’ herself as a right-wing politician and she (and in particular her supporters) are denouncing her opponent as a left-winger.
I’m with the Jolly Contrarian here, and his heartfelt plea for a return to a more innocent age when it was not just OK, but expected, that leaders / those in positions of power, tell the truth.
I’m not naïve. Leaders and managers have always spun the truth. They have always massaged the facts a bit, to advance their agenda. And that, I accept, is realpolitik, it’s the way things either have to be – or will always be - in complex organisations.
But what’s happened and is continuing to happen - not just in the UK but in the US and elsewhere internationally - is an abandonment of an attachment to the truth by many of our political leaders.
And what has emerged in many settings is a new consensus where it is OK to subvert the truth and to tell lies – bare-faced lies – in the advancement of supposedly more important agendas.
That’s not OK. And as senior in-house legal leaders, I would suggest PC’s readers can, and should, play an important role in speaking truth to power and joining other lawyers in private and government practice in pushing for the restoration of core values of honestry and truth in leadership, both political and corporate.
Enough from me. I’d welcome the views of PC readers on this very important subject. Please write in to me, and please comment online.
I also want to highlight the input of this week’s other contributor, Julia Chain, who chooses as her role-model Ted Lasso – a character for whom I also have a particular soft spot.
Enjoy reading, and please comment and contribute to the debate by posting direct on Practical Counsel. Also, please write in with your unique people issues to me (practicalcounsel@substack.com) - I unequivocally undertake never to reveal your identity and will change key details of your situation so as to preserve your confidentiality and anonymity (unless you don’t want this). I also undertake to write to you personally with my own thoughts and comments on your situation and am always happy to follow up with a call on Zoom or similar.
The unique and unforgettable nigel molesworth – Learnings for Leadership?
A shout out for a unique and much-loved character, by the Jolly Contrarian
This week’s Lead Contributor is a senior in-house lawyer who goes under the nom-de-plume, the Jolly Contrarian, and who curates / writes a website of the same name. He has worked in London for over 25 years in the global markets and has been involved in several successful tech initiatives to enhance legal process. He also has a highly developed expertise in derivatives law, and a significant section of the Jolly Contrarian website2 is devoted to the practical implications of derivatives law.
Dear Jonathan
Asked to chose his favourite literary character as an inspiration for his leadership, management and leadership style, the Jolly Contrarian — after a wistful look at A. P. Herbert’s curmudgeonly litigant Albert Haddock — chose, of course, Geoffrey Willans’ and Ronald Searle’s immortal, heroic schoolboy nigel molesworth, self-styled “curse of st custards”, made real through the winsome prose of real-life schoolmaster Geoffrey Willans and real-world illustrating genius, Ronald Searle, in a series of books published in the 1950s, and now available through compendiums like The Complete Molesworth.
Molesworth — a ner’er do well 12 year old at a Boarding School that may well have inspired Hogwarts — stands on neither form nor ceremony in how he expresses himself. For our age of obsessive modern formalism, nigel is the embodiment of unapologetic, old-fashioned substance. He cares no fig for spelling or grammar — “uterly wet and weedy” — but, through a savant genius for subversion of the vernacular, has still generated his own idiom which — as ‘any fule kno’ — survives to this day in publications as august as Private Eye, Test Match Special and (cough) the jole contrian3
Molesworth cuts through where the insipid bromides we have become accustomed to do not. His language and his clarity of vision survives the ages:
“Second to swots headmasters like boys who are good at foopball and shoot goals then they can shout ‘Pile in caruthers strate for goal’ or other weedy things from the touchline.
Personally i am not good at foopball i just concentrate on hacking everbode. Headmaster yell at me he sa MARK YOUR MAN MOLESWORTH ONE what does he think i am the arsenal chiz. Acktually fotherington-tomas is worse than me he is goalie and spend his time skipping about he sa Hullo clouds hullo sky hullo sun ect when huge centre forward bearing down on him and SHOT whistles past his nose. When all the team sa you shuuld have hav stoped it fothertingon-tomas he repli ‘I simply don’t care a row of buttons whether it was a goal or not nature alone is beattful’.”
It would be lovely if more lawyers —in-house and out — would look at their world the same way.
Molesworth is also the quintessential legal operations man. He understands the importance of automating and operationalising tiresome and unnecessary tasks — take, for example, the patented “molesworth self-adjusting thank-you letter”:
Document assembly, St custards Style - which at a stroke solves the problem of feigning unctuous gratitude to matron aunts for birthday presents you didn’t really want, and making time to whizz for atomms. If there is a better description of commercial law than that, I can’t think of it.
Molesworth has a unique way of looking at the world, instinctively understanding the natural order of things, why it is perverse, and what thereby, is its potential for subversion for better effect. Hence, his handy, countercultural guides to the alien landscape of SKOOL and all its manifold institutions and demagogueries.
Thus, nigel molesworth is for ever one of the troops, a rank and filer, but for his wit and his wry observation, at the mercy of masters, matron, the skool dog, sossages and GURLS chiz chiz. But he believes in himself, what he stands for, and realises it takes grit and determination not to mention knowledge of How To Be Topp.
I mentioned regretfully overlooking Mr Haddock, though I am not sure I have: I fancy that, when young Molesworth grew into an adult — he would be in his eighties now — he would be just the sort of fellow who would present paymen for his tax arrears to Her Majesty’s Revenue made out, crossed non-negotiable, on the side of a cow.
Signing off with best wishes,
The jole contrian4
Ted Lasso – Not Just About The Football (aka Soccer)
Insights from a legal leader, Julia Chain
Julia Chain is former General Counsel of T-Mobile, a telecoms corporation which merged with Sprint in 2020 to become one of the world’s largest mobile networks. She is now Chair of the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and is a past Deputy Chair of the UK’s Commission for Racial Equality (a forerunner of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission).
Dear Jonathan
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this series. I very much agree that characters from popular culture can be role models for our own leadership.
And what better role model than Ted Lasso!
For those who aren’t familiar with the American comedy-drama TV series of the same name, Ted Lasso is a talkative and seemingly ineffective American college football coach, who is unexpectedly hired to coach an English Premier League football5 team, AFC Richmond, despite having no experience coaching English football (aka soccer). The team's owner hires Ted desperately hoping he will fail so that she can her exact her revenge on the team's previous owner, her unfaithful ex-husband, who is hugely attached to the team and its success.
What happens – and no spoiler alert here – is that Ted wins over both the players and the new owner / ex-wife. The new owner starts to root for the team, rather than against it - and eventually it becomes a winning team. No need for a spoiler alert, as the joy of the drama is very much in the detail rather than the broad plot outline.
All important for our purposes is that Ted (a subplot!) goes through a relatively deep process of self-analysis, realising that not only his team but he too needs to understand his own vulnerabilities, acquire greater self-awareness, and allow himself to heal.
So how does Ted do this?
A few themes emerge which demonstrate that although leaders come in many different guises, the basics are always the same:
1. The ability to motivate without micromanaging
2. Demanding accountability but also giving responsibility
3. Never taking anyone for granted
4. Building confidence and assertiveness while demanding that everyone is treated with respect
5. Facing your own vulnerabilities and sharing them
6. Calling out bad behaviour but always trying to engage
7. Understanding how each member adds value to the team as a whole; and
8. Not being afraid to let go of the superstars if they play for themselves rather than for the team
It’s basic leadership 101 – but you could do worse than watch Ted Lasso, to see how its done!
Looking forward to seeing who else your readers nominate as their favourite characters.
All best wishes
Julia
Key Takeaways
1. This issue is the second in a series of issues combining light-hearted fun with some serious learning. As I said in last week’s issue, nothing too heavy – it’s summertime for lawyers in the Northern Hemisphere and many are on their summer holidays.
2. In each of these issues of Practical Counsel, senior in-house lawyers and / or industry experts are nominating / presenting their favourite characters from fiction who speak to them with regard to leadership, management and relational issues.
3. In this issue the Jolly Contrarian nominated nigel molesworth, the supposed author of a series of books written in the 1950s by Geoffrey Willans, with cartoon illustrations by Ronald Searle.
4. In the books, nigel is a schoolboy at St Custard’s, a fictional and dysfunctional school set in an unspecified part of England. The Jolly Contrarian nominates him for his belief in himself and what he stands for – and for cutting through the ‘insipid bromides’ and telling the truth.
5. In my extended introduction to this issue I endorse the nomination and express personal discomfort with the ongoing trend of senior leaders (I am referring here primarily to political leaders) subverting the truth and telling bare-faced lies.
6. My personal plea is for senior in-house lawyers to play their part in trying to reverse this trend through the power and influence many of them are able to exercise.
7. Julia Chain – former GC of T-Mobile – nominates Ted Lasso as her role-model character. In her short piece she highlights a series of leadership qualities that Ted possesses and argues that he is indeed a role-model leader.
8. In coming issues, other in-house lawyers / industry experts will nominate fictional characters from popular culture, and explain what leadership or other managerial / relationship lessons they have learnt from the characters they nominate. To make your own contribution and to nominate a character, please email practicalcounsel@substack.com
And now …….
Contribute to the debate and write in with your comments and observations. Also write to Jonathan with any other people issues you face as an in-house lawyer.
Jonathan can be reached by email atpracticalcounsel@substack.com
A note for you picky lawyers; and a plea for tolerance
I am a British lawyer by background and went to both school and University in the UK. So my English is British English. I have taken a conscious decision to write this newsletter in British English, but to try to avoid phrases that aren’t common outside the UK. Sometimes, though, I’ll use a phrase that isn’t commonly used outside the UK, without realising that it is a Britishism. I also endeavour to use the vernacular spellings of my contributors (e.g. to use US spellings for a US contributor), but won’t always get this right.
My plea is for you to tolerate the British spellings and grammar and the occasional Britishism. And to focus on the substance of the newsletter rather than the occasional (to you) annoying turn of phrase, bit of grammar or unorthodox spelling, or the occasional inconsistency in spelling as between, for example, UK and US ‘standard’ spellings.
Thank you and best wishes,
Jonathan Middleburgh
Strategic Partners
The way the political system works in the UK is that when a Party leader who is Prime Minister resigns leadership of his or her party, this does not trigger a General Election. Instead the party chooses a new leader and that leader becomes the new Prime Minister and remains as Prime Minister until there is a new General Election. In the case of the UK, Boris Johnson has resigned as leader of the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party is in the process of selecting a new leader. This process has so far narrowed down the field of candidates to two – Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. These two are now being ‘put’ to the party members who will choose one of the two as its next leader. That individual will – in accordance with the current UK political system – become the next Prime Minister of the UK.
The Jolly Contrarian website describes itself as ‘a stroll through the brambles of law, management, philosophy, language, technology, cricket, high finance and the versimilitude of Toto’s 1981 smash Africa’. See www.jollycontrarian.com
Editor’s Note: The mangled reference is to the Jolly Contrarian, in so-called ‘real life’ a senior in-house lawyer who specialises in structured finance and derivatives. The bracketed ‘cough’ is a nod to the contributor’s supposed modesty and self-deprecation.
For you curmudgeonly loyyers, all spellin mistks r deliberatt.
Editor’s Note – for international readers this is English football, also called soccer – which is a completely different game from American football, with different rules, different strategy and different tactics. So hiring Ted to coach the team is a bit like hiring a Maths professor to teach Physics.