On Friday evening I was driving back from Cambridge after one of our residential alumni events with some of our friends who have completed our leadership programme or who have worked with us as “wise owl” mentors. We had just spent 24 hours together reflecting on what it means to be strategic. With nearly three hours on the motorway to get through and the unrelenting misery of radio news programmes spoiling my mood, I opted for silence and a chance to properly reflect on the things discussed when brilliant people, with big hearts and generous spirits share some time together.
For much of my working life it has been a familiar refrain of lawyers that they would like to be “more strategic.” In part this is a plea to do less routine, mundane work, and partly a desire to sit in more important meetings. This ambition, however, is rarely described in terms of the difference this would make.
It may seem a little harsh to say so, but any ambition which is described by what it isn’t, is more likely to remain unfulfilled. Saying, “I don’t want to do the boring stuff anymore” is not necessarily a compelling reason for your credentials to be able to do anything else.
There are however some uncomfortable dead-ends which some of us, me included, once hoped might be a fast track to becoming more strategic, but which became a slow road to operational mediocrity.
For example, business partnering is not being strategic. It mostly means you are at the beck and call of people who consider you to be “their lawyer.” You’ll get little credit for making them look great, and your role will become one of willing subservience. Being proactive is not being strategic. It mostly means you will attend more meetings than you need to, that you will feel overwhelmed at how easy it is for other people to give you work, and how little you can complain because it was what you apparently asked for and wanted. Working all hours is not being strategic. It is mostly a product of business partnering and being proactive. It will burn up your well-being and in the end it doesn’t make one jot of difference. And, having a reputation for fighting fires, even if you do it brilliantly, is not being strategic. A crisis can be validating, even enjoyable; but it encourages short-term, reactive thinking and gives everyone an excuse not to tackle planning for change that might actually make life easier and better. Even if you achieve executive status it does not mean you are, or will become, strategic because being strategic isn’t determined by status or hierarchy or resources.
So, what is it then?
Being strategic is about how you think, how you plan, how you build relationships and how you assess the contribution that you need to make.
Being strategic is having such clarity and simplicity of objective that your team and your business understand it and support it. Being strategic is then having clarity in your planning and having the relationships in place to get the job done.
Being strategic is building those relationships before you need them. You can invest in many things, from tech to process improvement, to operating models, but your relationships are the key to everything positive. No conversation should ever be wasted. Never cancel a one-to-one. Be a great listener, be a generous mentor, and care about your people deeply and genuinely.
Being strategic is also ensuring you have a compelling narrative for your objective; so that simplicity, clarity and integrity should flow through every single word.
Then you must plan together with your team, being open to all ideas and perspectives. Delegate as much as you can to release your team’s energy, passions, care and creativity. Test their ideas, and then bring everyone towards the settled course of action, before it is then implemented with kindness, open-mindedness and determination.
In doing so, you must also free yourself (and others) of those things that undermine your objective; give yourself time to encourage your colleagues and be open to how you can flex your plan to keep the objective in your sights and on track.
Being strategic is the power of influence aligned to the talent of your team and the needs of the moment. It is leadership stripped of status distractions and steeped in kindness, openness, vulnerability and determination to do what is right, right now.
You can be strategic too. We don’t have to wait for strategic status to be bestowed upon us; it isn’t exclusive to those of higher rank, and it is never just about being in “big” meetings. We can all be strategic and we all need to be.
Take care. Paul x
