The in-house life

The power of flexibility, thinking strategically and tactically

• Fabiola Magnaghi • Season 1 • Episode 8

Share episode

In this episode of In-House Life, we address the importance of flexibility, strategic thinking, and tactical thinking in the role of in-house counsel. We emphasize how these mindsets and skills contribute to professional growth and effective problem-solving in legal contexts. We will also cover insights on how to develop these skills and their application in real-world scenarios, ultimately aiming to enhance decision-making and innovation within organizations.


Thank you for listening!

Listen to The In-House Life on your favorite podcast platform:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2qcJuQzMAwbLNkYkfB85io
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-in-house-life/id1758955627?l=en-GB

Please consider following the podcast, leaving a review (on Apple Podcasts) or a star rating (on Spotify) and supporting this journey by word of mouth!

If you would like to have a separate chat and/or exchange on this episode, please feel free to reach out to me at fabiolamagnaghi@icloud.com.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal or any other professional advice.


And once you've learned to flex these muscles in your daily job, it comes relatively naturally to move this process to a strategic approach discussion.

Intro
Welcome to the In-House Life, the podcast that explores the experience and the challenges of an in-house counsel. I'm your host, Fabiola, and I have been working in the legal world full time since 2007. I wanted to share my experience as an in-house counsel to discuss content and knowledge and create more awareness about this career option.

Key points of the previous episode
In the previous episode, we focused on curiosity and how this is an essential mindset for professional growth. It is a powerful approach to work that gave me the opportunity to learn something new almost every day, and I find that it is still the mindset that works for me. And to summarize the key takeaways of the episode, curiosity is an impactful way to ask questions such as, please tell me more, or why?, and an inquisitive mindset has a broad application from learning about the organization to understanding what level of hard skills require development or not, and then moving to soft skills and relationship with other individuals, other people in the organization.

In the episode today, we're going to be focusing on mindset and skills that are complementary to curiosity, and they are specifically flexibility, thinking strategically and thinking tactically.

Flexibility
So we'll get going and let's start with flexibility.
Flexibility means the ability to change or be changed according to changing or different circumstances. And in order to use a definition that doesn't use changing as much as this one, it is the ability to adapt in case of different or changing circumstances. The first step, once again, is that there has to be the will to be flexible. It is, again, mindset first. Once you have this setup, then you can keep working on the ability to be flexible. So where do I use flexibility? Probably the first example that comes to mind to many of us is connected to time management and or time availability. I am available for a meeting at an earlier or at later time. I'm available at that time. I will need to reshuffle some meetings. In other words, it is connected with the ability to change timing plans. But what other plans could there be?

And this is where I think the more interesting use of flexible comes into play. There is an Italian expression that defines this quite well, which is to fare la punta al cervello. In its literal translation, it means to make a fine tip to the brain. And while this makes no sense, the meaning of it makes the phrase a lot more interesting. It actually means to be sharp. And this is how flexibility can be interpreted in our daily job. The tool that I use in this context is another question and is, is there a different way I can manage this particular topic? I often ask myself this question when I need a solution to a problem that has an initial knee-jerk reaction of, cannot be done. But, and this is the other way to define this additional element of flexibility, it's about being solution oriented.
So, fare la punta al cervello really helps first with the intake of information. It has to do with the fact that we look at information in a strategic way. It is about being sharp while looking at risks, topics, patterns that are relevant to do our jobs. Sometimes these findings are positive. For instance, you can spot a trend in behavior or approach that matters to your own job. Typical example is that you provide a training on a particular topic and suddenly a lot more requests around that particular subject area come to your desk. And so it means that you have an immediate feedback that the topic, the training resonated with the colleagues and there is a positive trend as a result of it. Other times, which are, think, unfortunately, the more likely scenarios for legal counsel roles is that we spot problems. And once again, where does the being flexible, fare la punta al cervello, come into this process is by providing the second piece of the puzzle, which is to find solutions to the problem.
Imagine a colleague who identifies an issue and already brings a solution. How would you feel about that? And the way that I'm phrasing this already gives away what I think about it, which is very positively. And it doesn't mean that the solution provided or the solution that you identify is the final solution. But it is important to have that mindset, that approach to any topic that is, I find this issue, what is my proposal? Now, depending on the role and the experience that you or others may have, the solution might be more or less comprehensive. It has to do with experience. It has to do with roles and exposure and expertise.
Just to make a concrete example, it is possible that you've identified that your organization works extensively with distributors, but there is no culture of managing distributors. That means that you can come up with a plan being closer probably to your wheelhouse rather than not, or at least it would be closer to my wheelhouse. I would be able to provide a comprehensive solution that spans from training, cultural approach, obviously, and contracts being continuously repeated until the organization understands where we're going to. That helps the organization understand what the risk is and how to tackle this type of potential exposure.
I also find this mindset particularly effective in more challenging scenarios of our job. Let's assume, and going back to what tool I use for myself to be able to address flexibility, let's assume your internal clients come up with an idea and you only see red flags with it. It cannot be done, that knee-jerk reaction. And when I'm talking about red flags in this context, I refer to contractual challenges rather than compliance or criminal risks. I will dedicate a future episode to risks and it is also going to be addressing the different form of categorization that you can make when it comes to risk. But let's assume in this case it's a red flag, it contains a set of red flags that are, let's say, more contractual related. And when I find myself in this scenario, I tend to take a step back mentally and, if I can, even physically. And I start asking myself what alternatives are there? And sometimes the answers are right there, they are at our fingertips based on experience, based on exposure, based on education. Sometimes it's a combination of different solutions you've adopted in the past. Other times the solution might come from talking to others in the department by listening to a completely different topic or even consulting with third party experts. And for us, most of the times though, they are outside counsel.

So to summarize, flexibility applies to all aspects of our jobs and it can be condensed in two points, understanding challenges and patterns on one side and providing solutions on the other. And the powerful tool to use in this context is ask yourself, is there a different way to manage that particular topic? Are there alternatives out there that will allow me to achieve the same result even if I need to go through a different path? We spoke about being able to look to see facts strategically. And when that happens, usually, the next step of the equation comes naturally, which is to start thinking strategically too.

Thinking strategically
So what does it mean to think strategically? According to Wikipedia, it is a mental or thinking process applied by an individual in the context of achieving a goal or a set of goals. In other words, this process requires thinking about plans and the result that they might yield. The way that I visualize this is a chess game. How many moves ahead can I be thinking about while playing the games? Can I also spot the variables to these choices based on what my opponent is going to be doing? And I'm not a chess player by any means, but I understand that visualization of alternatives in the future. That is how I look at strategy. This process of visualizing and seeing many steps ahead requires a lot of brain power.

Now companies tend to embrace strategic thinking. It is one half of the equation of success next to execution. And we'll talk about it later when we talk about thinking tactically. There are benefits in these activities, especially when done as a group. It tends to create more value, helps analyzing facts, develop insights and opportunities to create competitive advantage. The value of doing it in a group is that there is a proactive and creative dialogue that gathers different perspectives on challenging issues. And this process is incidentally one of the key areas where diversity is so important. And there are many studies that show the value of adopting diversity effectively and helps develop significant competitive advantage. But this is not here nor there. This episode focuses on a different thing. Going back to strategic thinking, going back to strategic thinking on one hand, keep your curiosity radar up. So scan for opportunities where you could work on a strategic problem. Please make sure that you try volunteer for that.

But what happens if you are alone? Can you even think about topics alone in a strategic way? And the answer is obviously yes. And most importantly, it should be encouraged. It is a powerful tool to use, which is condensed in a more critical version of the why question.
If you ask yourself that question often enough, you will develop the first skill traditionally associated with strategic thinking, which is analytical skills. Being curious, is an essential requirement to move to the analytical skill stage. Without developing the network of information, it is difficult to look at it critically. And an essential part of looking at information critically is to ask why. And if why seems to be a tried question, try to move to strategic questions. So what are strategy questions? Well, this is a bit more complicated to define. It helps to understand that strategy applies to long term goals and has to do with anticipating challenges and opportunities, in other words, to be proactive and feel empowered. The luck of our positions is that we are often seeing a lot more of the organization than other roles and our questions will connect dots that not everybody is going to be in a position to do.
The other skills that are important to develop your sense of strategy are to observe and reflect, considering opposing ideas and look for training if needed. So observe and reflect has to do with a few different layers. The first is an observation within the organization and reflect what that means to the organization. Am I looking at an asset? Can I take that asset into my daily activities? Is that something that should be concerning for the organization? And so it helps you looking at internally the organization to see what assets and potential liabilities there are. It can also mean looking outside the organization, observing outside the organization, talking to colleagues in conferences, getting different perspectives on different topics, talking to outside counsel and sometimes inspiration. And so the observation and then the reflection that leads to inspiration comes from the oddest places and sometimes your own hobby while provide you unique insight and solution to a particular set of concerns that you have.
Considering opposing ideas is something that most of us have been exposed to since high school. For me, I have vivid memories associated with philosophy classes in which we were invited to reflect on ideas and their opposing ideas. And in a legal career, it's no accident that the terminology playing devil's advocate is used often. Our formal training helps us really nicely with this part of the process. It is very typical for us to ask ourselves if someone argues this, what is the opposing argument? For example, if I'm negotiating an agreement, I like to ask myself, what are the goals and the needs of the counterparty? As this will color all the choices that they make. And with this asking, considering opposing ideas, I will tend to interpret a particular clause and see where the position of counterparty will go. It is a time consuming process. However, it offers much value in the long run and it is something that I love to encourage doing. And before you think that your role is too small to start there, please reconsider. As long as you're working on non-disclosure agreements, you get the opportunity to flex these muscles. And once you've learned to flex these muscles in your daily job, it comes relatively naturally to move this process to a strategic approach discussion. Last but not least, training. We've covered this already under curiosity with the three E's of learnings. And so keep that in mind as an opportunity to flex strategic muscles.

Next to these that are more of a skill set that requires development, is there anything else that I can use to better understand strategy? Are there tools out there that can help in this. And I would have not been able to answer this question until I attended my leadership training, where I got exposure to a different way to analyze problems. And specifically, I'm thinking about the SWOT analysis and that abbreviation stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It is a wonderful exercise that initially that for me required a lot of getting used to. However, it offers a more structured framework into looking at strategy. And this is also a very helpful approach when it comes to presenting legal problems or legal solutions in the context of a SWOT analysis. It will be presenting a problem which is most likely phrased with terminology that is not really used, but in a familiar framework. And so this could help in developing an understanding with the business quite quickly.

To summarize, thinking strategically is a process of thinking about plans and the results they might yield. Useful tools associated with this come in the form of questions and specifically asking why. It is also the ability to take that information and reframe it. And sometimes it is also helpful to use tools like a SWOT analysis. Thinking strategically is essentially an analytical analysis observing and reflecting and considering opposing ideas.

Thinking tactically
I mentioned before that strategy is one element for success of the organization. And I said how the other side of the coin has to be execution. And this can be more closely associated with tactical thinking. If you have the best plan in the world, but you are not able to execute it so that the plans yield the desired results, you have essentially something that it's great on paper that cannot provide the competitive advantage that you're looking for. And tactical thinking is the ability to analyze immediate situations and develop effective plans to achieve short-term goals. So how do I distinguish strategy from tactic? And the way that I like to look at it is that a strategic activity focuses on long-term goals in a proactive way, while tactical actions focus on a short-term goal and they tend to be reactive to make a concrete example that you might have exposure to, I like to think about project management. And so project management is that part of the chain that comes after the planning. The project management process is to define initially a set of actions associated with individuals and relevant timeframes that allow to have a tactical approach to a strategic goal. Tactical thinking happens in our line of work quite frequently. The company, the group adopts a new policy in that execution requires board resolutions and training to the organization. Thinking about the example about negotiation, for example, be the ability to pivot in a negotiation on the spot is a tactical approach, is a tactical thinking that is connected with the long-term goals, but it is tactical in nature.

So what are the benefits of thinking tactically? One was already addressed, which is to execute long-term goals into tangible actions.
It also addresses immediate challenges. Oftentimes, one needs to change approach based on the challenges faced. And the goal of this process is to ensure that challenges do not become obstacles for long-term plans. In addition to this, it tends to bring efficiency and increase productivity as it focuses on streamlining processes and optimizing resources.
So what other tools can I look at to develop a tactical thinking? And the strongest one is use the terminology correctly, right? Are we talking about a plan or are we talking about goals and actions? Because if we're talking about goals and actions, more likely than not, we're talking about tactical. If we're talking about goals in particular, the framework given by SMART might be a useful tool to use. And SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound Goals. Historically connected this terminology to goal setting. But the SMART goals are broader than this. They can be very useful guidance when creating project management or project implementation plans. And even in the legal department, we are often exposed to project management scenarios. You decide to implement, as we said, policy. The organization decides to implement a contract management tool, even if it's 2024, that's actually 2025, and it might be less relevant. But it could be the introduction of a different software or a different tool. And you will need to have a project plan in order to achieve that. Just pay attention to what tools are being used in your organization and try to get exposed to them because it could be a particularly inspiring moment and will give you a leg up overall when it comes to, again, execution, which is an essential part of the success of any organization. I also like to think about tactical thinking in a slightly different way that allows a unique concoction of circumstances that lead to something unexpected, especially in legal roles. Tactical thinking requires a combination of analysis, creativity and problem solving. And while these three are also quite common in strategic thinking, the mix, especially in relation to tactical, could lead to an interesting result, which is innovative solutions. And while our jobs, the legal counsel, the compliance counsel roles are not known for creativity, I don't like to be restricted to a non creative role. In fact, creativity, which might not be perceived as such outside of our profession because it's based on technical expertise, but creativity can be thinking outside the box and providing outside the box solutions. And depending on how comfortable we are with the organization and the knowledge of that particular structure, our solutions might not be limited to a legal technical solution. They might also come with an organizational approach, an organizational suggestion. And so being able to address a topic at a company procedure level rather than only at the legal level will elevate your position.
The other aspect where creativity in our roles could apply is also and therefore innovation is also what tools currently using in order to communicate. And so think really outside the box here. Are there software tools that will allow you to train your organization more effectively? Are there ways to communicate, for instance, podcast? Are there podcast opportunities within your organization where you can share the value of legal and compliance? So creativity is not limited to how we perform our job, but it can be also associated with tools and ancillary activities that will bring an additional value to the organization. To summarize, tactical thinking allows us to carry out plans in accordance with strategic goals. It requires a few skills associated with decision-making and reactivity. There are tools that help us define first and keep track of progress over time second, such as SMART goals. This unique scenario also helps with creativity and innovation in our jobs whether the innovation comes from technical expertise or goes beyond that.

A combination of both strategic and tactical goals
And one last comment on strategic and tactical thinking. It is important in our roles to be able to do both, moving from big picture to specific picture, going back to big picture. And it is an additional skill to foster. Some of us will be more naturally talented to do that, others not as much. And yet it's a skill, therefore it can be learned. Overall, being able to move from one to the other enhances decision-making and it will also help within the organization when we are capable of providing that difference. so make sure that the organization puts strategic discussions into a strategic framework and assesses and defines tactical activities in a tactical framework. When a topic emerges, sometimes the working group just gets into the middle of it. There might be a lot of interest, there might be a lot of drive, lot of there might be a strong will to find a solution to that particular problem, but forgetting the difference between tactical and strategic. Therefore, it is important and will elevate our position if we are able to help the organization also to keep the two topics separate, which also comes from using the correct terminology.

Outro
Today we spoke about a lot of topics and I really shared a lot of information. We focus on mindset first by fostering and enabling a curious and flexible mindset. We also spend some time talking about strategic and tactical thinking, defining each and sharing skill and capabilities that are required and can be developed over time. 

Thank you for spending time with me today and listening to my point of view. If you want to reach out to me, if you believe that we are not covering all the soft skill or mindset that we should in your opinion, feel free to email me at the address in the episode information. In the next episode we will continue talking about mindset and soft skills for an in-house council. If you find the information I share with you valuable, please consider following this podcast, leaving a review or a star rating, depending on which platform you're using, and supporting the channel by word of mouth. Thank you so much and have a great day!