Last week I started to look at the thorny topic of productivity.
I was responding to a question from an AGC at a large Canadian banking corporation who asked my views on how best to achieve optimal productivity and whether there was a simple way to do so.
My guest GC, Jeffrey Pomerantz, gave some helpful productivity ‘hacks’.
I, somewhat disrespectfully to my guest, perhaps, said that I didn’t agree with his approach and that I favoured a somewhat different way of looking at the issue of productivity.
If I pull this - ‘I don’t agree with you, valued guest’ - stunt too often, I might find that my pool of respected guests dries up.
My bad.
My core contention, last week, was that you need to understand your own personality type to figure out how best to achieve productivity, and that you need to understand your team members’ personality preferences to help them do the same.
My correspondent this week is a GC in Singapore who poses a follow up question to last week’s issue.
My guest GC this week, Navneet Hrishikesan of Cisco (based in Bangalore, India) approaches the issue of productivity from a slightly different angle to the way I looked at it last week; an approach with which I wholeheartedly agree.
Navneet challenges the underlying assumption that productivity is all that it is cracked up to be. I’m so profoundly in agreement with his comments that my comments this week have taken me in a slightly different direction than I had intended and foreshadowed last week.
I take a deeper dive into the issue of productivity – and the assumptions that super-productivity is good - with the bulk of my comments this week responding to Navneet’s GC Expert View, and building on what Navneet has to say.
My bottom line conclusion is that productivity is great – but strategic productivity, not ‘busy’ productivity.
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 (jonathan@middleburghassociates.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.
‘Dear Jonathan’ … and Jonathan’s Reply
Dear Jonathan,
I was really taken by the most recent issue of Practical Counsel (Issue #8 – on Productivity). I enjoyed the lively exchange of views between yourself and your GC Guest. I initially agreed wholeheartedly with Jeffrey, but as I read your comments, I also saw some force in your argument too.
I’m Head of Legal of a relatively small legal department out in Singapore. We are the Singapore end of a mid-sized FMCG business with a mix of interests across Asia.
Like last week’s correspondent I sometimes struggle to find enough hours in the day for what is a very heavy workload indeed. The idea of some simple practical productivity hacks – of the type suggested by Jeffrey – is quite appealing to me. I am a bit of an IT geek, and I love some of the productivity tools that are out there, and use a mix of productivity apps, software solutions and good ‘old-fashioned’ excel spreadsheets to manage my work flows. I pride myself on having a continuous improvement mindset and have put myself through a couple of project management and Six Sigma courses.
On my most recent appraisal I received some feedback from the business that I am doing a great job but not always 100% aligned with the strategy of the business in my thinking. I have struggled with that feedback.
I would welcome your views.
Best wishes
Ross (he / him)
Dear Ross
Thanks for your email. You raise a couple of very interesting points, indeed.
First up, you highlight the fact that last week’s guest GC, Jeffrey Pomeranz, and I, were not entirely aligned in our thinking around productivity. I am going to comment a bit further on this in my comment this week, but the delta or disconnect between my thinking and Jeffrey’s is picked up by this week’s guest GC, Navneet. Navneet’s thinking is very similar to mine – you could say we are kindred spirits in that regard.
Secondly, you share a very challenging bit of feedback from your most recent appraisal. In a sense the feedback you received is every GC’s or Head of Legal’s greatest nightmare – or if it isn’t, it should be - namely that the business doesn’t feel that the GC / Head of Legal is fully aligned with the strategy of the business.
I’m going to comment on this further below.
Not to rub salt into what sounds like a somewhat raw wound, but every GC or Head of Legal should be deeply concerned by, and indeed struggle with, feedback of this nature. Your role is primarily to help the business and if the business does not feel that you are strategically aligned with it, you need to figure out why this is the case. Every GC / Head of Legal should aspire to be seen as a trusted adviser to their business and this is clearly not happening at the moment for you.
In my comment I’m going to try to link your quest for productivity with what, in my view, should be your real goal, to become the trusted adviser. But more of that after Navneet’s comment, as I feel his framing of the productivity issue helps to position and frame my comments.
So, more from me below.
Best wishes
Jonathan
GC Expert’s Insight of the Week
Navneet Hrishikesan is Executive Director, Legal, for Cisco’s Service Provider business, responsible for the Asia-Pacific and Japan region. A graduate of India’s National Law School of India University, Navneet has spent the vast majority of his career in-house, including roles at SmithKline Beecham (as was) and Wipro Limited (where he was General Counsel for the Americas region). He also had a year as an Associate at Simmons & Simmons in London in IT & Telecoms.
Dear Jonathan
Sue’s email from last week and the subsequent discussion on how to improve productivity resonated with me. After all, aren’t efficiency and quick response times one of the cornerstones of our profession?
Similarly Ross’s email this week resonates as, on one analysis, he is perhaps worrying overly about productivity when he should be much more focused on what he talks about at the end of his email, namely the fact that his business does not see him as fully aligned to their strategy.
To comment primarily on productivity.
While there is no doubt that being able to manage stress and a multitude of issues (sometimes simultaneously) is an important part of being a lawyer, I sometimes wonder, if productivity is all that it is made out to be.
Admittedly we look at the world differently in 2022. The pandemic and the current supply chain situation have exposed the fallacy at the root of the relentless drive for efficiency. Productivity, it seems to be telling us, is absolutely no use if you don’t have resiliency.
Similarly, for lawyers, it is important that we build some leeway into our schedules and workloads. I find that productivity dips in high performing teams if they don’t get a break occasionally. In fact, I encourage my teams to look actively and without feeling apologetic or ashamed for doing so for ways to cut down their workload.
More importantly, there is also the thing about innovation.
Isaac Newton didn’t discover gravity while in back-to-back meetings. He discovered it while relaxing under an apple tree[1]. Productivity can be an enemy of innovation if you don’t have time to breathe.
There is no doubt that Sue and Ross have fundamental issues around productivity though - and this is something, I suspect, that my philosophical ramblings won’t solve. I would however suggest that both consider the following:
1. Core v. Context: Are their overwhelming workloads caused by work that is their direct responsibility or are they, like many good in-house lawyers, sometimes picking up the slack for someone else? Is the work they are doing important to their business? This can be tricky to navigate and in Ross’s case the second question is probably more relevant, but thinking about what will happen if the work doesn’t get done is usually a good way to start analysing the problem.
2. Emergency v. Normal: Is the workload being caused due to an unexpected development, for example new legislation, or has it become normal / the new normal?
If the answer is yes to either of the first two questions, and if the answer to the second is that this has become normal or the new normal, then instead of trying to solve the problem by way of improving productivity, Sue and Ross and their respective organisations would be better served having a funding and resourcing discussion.
In the case of Ross it seems like he needs to think carefully about whether the work he is doing is what the business actually needs. He needs to listen carefully to the business to understand their needs and the core of the business strategy. Once you understand your environment, I find it is easier to resolve this feedback and, more importantly, build an ability to influence.
In a nutshell, if we as professionals don’t invest in (and actively search for) time to think, we will never be able to innovate or think of ways in which we can do better by our teams and companies. Also, well-intentioned steps taken to improve productivity may end up hiding a fundamental problem. In the long run these could be way more detrimental than a missed deadline.
Best wishes
Navneet
Jonathan’s View
Dear Ross
I couldn’t agree more profoundly with Navneet. His comment is as wise and worth heeding as it is succinct and well-put. Not just among lawyers in-house or in private practice, but in other spheres of my life I have seen plenty of highly-able people spend a lot of time in frantic ‘busyness’, spinning lots of plates and attending lots of very important meetings – but ultimately not being truly productive in what really matters.
I referred last week to Stephen Covey’s seminal work, ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ and argued that individual personality factors were of vital importance in figuring out what works best for you, productivity wise – and in helping your team members to do the same thing.
To remind you, the Seven Habits articulated by Covey are these:
I don’t think I’m saying anything inconsistent with what I said last week if I focus on two of Covey’s Seven Habits and argue that they are spot on – and indeed of universal application.
The first is Habit 2, ‘Begin with the End in Mind’ and the so-called Habit of Vision. I think that part of Covey’s insight there is that whatever you do should be aligned to strategy and truly purposive in that sense.
The most impressive time-managers I have seen have not been so impressive because they are wizards with spreadsheets and productivity apps. Their star quality has been their single-minded focus on what really matters, what is core to the need at hand. It’s so easy to create lots of busy work if a significant percentage of that work isn’t core to purpose and isn’t ‘lean’ – in the sense that there isn’t unnecessary fat and blubber (if I can put it that way), which is extraneous to core purpose.
Can you honestly look at your working day and say that everything you do is truly core to strategic purpose? If you can, you’re a better person than I am. And, let’s be brutally honest, Ross - the feedback you have received from the business should have given you serious pause for thought.
The second is Habit 7, ‘Sharpen the Saw’ and the Habit of Renewal. Navneet is absolutely right that the work of the in-house lawyer is a marathon, or probably, more realistically, an Ironman or Ironwoman challenge – and then some.
Your team members are not going to survive that marathon or challenge if you don’t give them time for renewal. And you, too, are going to burn out if you don’t, as Navneet argues, find time to replenish yourself.
Don’t feel ashamed if you need to take some time out. Don’t make your team members feel ashamed if they need to do the same. You should be treating your team members as highly-committed professionals. If they aren’t professional, and can’t be trusted, you have the wrong team around you.
Navneet makes an excellent point around resourcing. Are you on the busy ‘flywheel’ if I can put it that way, or are your team spinning round tirelessly (and probably tiredly) on that flywheel? If so, is this because you are under-resourced and need to fight for more and / or better resource? Some of the best in-house counsel it’s been my privilege to observe have been so good because they have known how to fight for resource – and to win those battles.
This is a topic that I will be reverting to time and again in these newsletters, I suspect.
If you don’t have time to stop and think – and some effective ‘space’ to do so – and let’s face it, many lawyers we know don’t – you won’t be the best strategic partner to your business. A busy, overcrowded, head doesn’t have the mental space to think creatively and innovatively.
I don’t get hugely impressed by the lawyers or other professionals who are stressed because they are overwhelmed with their workload – or with their own self-importance. I am impressed beyond words by those who always seem calm and unharried, and who have the time to think and explore new ideas. Those are the role-models, in my view.
This is such an important topic that I am going to revert to it next week, for a final set of comments (at least this time round – I’m sure I’ll be returning to the topic in subsequent issues). The need to respond to your incredibly poignant email means that I haven’t quite done in this issue what I said I would do last week – namely to suggest some ideas and techniques for achieving greater productivity, bearing in mind the needs of different personality types.
So watch this space next week – both Sue and Ross.
In the meantime, thanks for writing in, Ross, and I hope that what Navneet and I have each said has given you plenty to chew over.
As always, I encourage members of the Practical Counsel community to write in to me at jonathan@middleburghassociates.com with your people problems and issues that are currently concerning you, or that come up for you regularly. And, as always, I will anonymise your observations / issues and preserve confidentiality and write to you individually in response to any scenario that I use in this newsletter.
Best wishes
Jonathan
This week’s key takeaways
1. It is important to define what is helpful productivity.
2. Helpful productivity is productivity that is strategically aligned to the needs of the business; not ‘busy’ productivity or productivity for productivity’s sake.
3. Plenty of in-house lawyers are busy and achieve a high work-rate. That doesn’t equate with achieving high value for their businesses.
4. It is also important to have downtime – both to allow you and your colleagues to achieve resilience, but also to allow the space for new ideas, innovation and creativity.
5. If you are busy all of the time and can not find time to think – and think expansively – it is unlikely that you will be innovative, creative or truly focused on the strategic needs of your business.
6. So take time off, and find space to be able to think and let your mind wander – as well as being highly focused on the work.
7. If you or your team members are super busy, analyse whether you or someone else needs to have a resourcing discussion with the business.
8. Always focus on the core value you are trying to achieve – strategically aligned to the needs of your business. Everything else is, in a sense, noise.
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 at jonathan@middleburghassociates.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
[1] The story is apparently apocryphal. But the point it illustrates is nonetheless an important one.
I read the contributions this week and last week on productivity with much self identification. I have definitely experienced periods in my work life when I have felt overwhelmed by my to dos. Here are my thoughts.
As an executive coach with years of experience working with pressured lawyers, I have often wondered how they have coped, especially during the pandemic. Some just haven’t and have succumbed whilst others have dropped activities that gave them much needed space to return to a sense of being in control. Many are seriously considering changing their career. Scarily, the pace of change and work pressure seems unlikely to slow down any time soon.
The advice given is all good, much of which I have shared with clients myself over the years. However, the challenge for many is the mindset that frames the actions. Like climate change, we know something needs to be done but on the whole, we aren’t doing it. The pressure of dealing with stuff now trumps, what we know deep down, needs to be addressed. To engage with our unanswered questions, we need support and encouragement. Without it a manageable life/work balance can be difficult to achieve.
As a coach I can offer this encouragement but I can only do so if my potential client can allow that initial conversation, acknowledging that something has to change, now. From experience, I can appreciate what courage it takes to swap the ‘ought to be able to keep up’ for ‘want to know how it came to this and is it what I really want? These conversations can be life changing.
We all know that we are at our most productive when we feel clear about our purpose and are fully aligned with it and that requires quality thinking time. Only then can we successfully calibrate what effort to apply to what.