Team size: 20

Focus on…The power resource behind a GC: their team

While it is often stressed why it is so important for a general counsel to have a seat on the board table, another key factor to the success gets less attention, maybe because many think it goes without saying: A general counsel can only be successful if there is a great and dedicated team behind – you can only make a difference as a team, not as an individual.

A general counsel should therefore, from my point of view, make sure to spend a fair amount of their time on building, developing and inspiring their team. Sometimes this time gets quickly absorbed by big projects and board demands, but I would like to put forward that this comes with a risk of losing an opportunity to leverage the most important resource that you have – your team members.

It is simple but needs continued defense: I always reserve sufficient time in my calendar for team meetings and regular 1:1 meetings with individuals. Furthermore, I have found it so powerful and energising to organise annual or bi-annual offsite meetings where you work on a joint vision for the team within the organisation: What should it stand for? How would you like to be perceived? What is the status quo, how do you get from today to your vision? What digitisation projects, which risks, or which opportunities should you focus on for the next 1, 3, 5 years? The business partner mindset will demand that all this is deeply connected with the business strategy. These offsite meetings create an engagement which is so worth the time and money spent.

From my experience, another key factor to building a great team is empowerment: I try to not only refrain from micro-management, but also make sure that team members get visibility to top management in order to grow. And encourage them to sit in important business meetings in order to truly be part of the business. I have also experimented with delegating some of my management tasks to match the strengths of individuals in the team: Why not take turns in organising the regular team meetings with the agenda and presentations instead of me sweating on topics? Or get assistance in the budgeting process? Many aspiring in-house lawyers will welcome the opportunity to grow for the next step in their career.

Finally, I find it important to create an ‘experiment and learn’ atmosphere, since some lawyers find it hard not to be perfect from the outset. Invite new ideas or tools into the team and emphasise the learning path which means rather kicking off a new idea with some iterative improvement rounds than not getting started at all because perfect requires too much time.

Team time, empowerment of the individuals and an ‘experiment and learn’ mindset at least helped me to bring the teams I have led in my career from good to excellent, which made my job as general counsel not only easier, but also much more fulfilling.