The power of three
Here is a New Year’s Resolution for any lawyer: three things you must accept as true, three things you must never do and three things you must always do.
Three things that are true:
1. There will always be more things to do than the time you have to do them in.
2. The better you get at your job the more demands there will be on your time.
3. Managing your relationships with others is not about trying to please them; it is about doing the right things in the right way at the right time.
Simply working longer does not solve the problem.
Three things we must never do:
1. Doing a less-good job than you are capable of doing will not only make you less valued, it also saps your self confidence and self belief. It is the most destructive cycle.
2. Blaming systems and clients and policies changes nothing. In the end things change through how we behave and not whether we have the best IT system. Encourage in yourself an attitude that values seeing the potential to improve things rather than an attitude to criticise things. Make your engagement unconditional.
3. Doing nothing when we could do something, because improving the way we work is about taking action not suffering inaction. If we have the talent the patience and the will to tolerate inconvenience, inefficiency and ineptitude, we also have at least an equal amount of talent to invent, innovate and inspire.
Three things we must always do:
1. Treat time as a precious thing to be shared with friends, family and work. We plan our work lives with our diaries, our computers, our blackberries and our staff (sometimes even into six minute slots!) and yet friends and family are often left with the dregs of our day. Plan the whole day for the wholeness we need in our lives.
2. Constantly assess and reassess the value we achieve for the time we invest. Everything we do can be done better and not everything we do adds enough value. If you find just a five percent efficiency improvement in a year then you will have the equivalent of an additional ten working days. Time, perhaps, to then reinvest in family or friends…
3. We are creatures that need praise…if people see we work long hours and praise us for doing so; we will often repeat this behaviour to receive the praise again. Soon we can become trapped – so heavily reliant on working long hours that the only thing people will see to praise are the hours we work. You must therefore build relationships with colleagues and clients that ensure value is seen across a range of indicators…your colleagues and clients will of course value your work ethic, but they must also value results, efficiency, effectiveness, acumen, timeliness, humour, empathy, thoughtfulness and leadership.
You have a choice.
Geoff Wild is director of law and governance at Kent County Council
- Details
Here is a New Year’s Resolution for any lawyer: three things you must accept as true, three things you must never do and three things you must always do.
Three things that are true:
1. There will always be more things to do than the time you have to do them in.
2. The better you get at your job the more demands there will be on your time.
3. Managing your relationships with others is not about trying to please them; it is about doing the right things in the right way at the right time.
Simply working longer does not solve the problem.
Three things we must never do:
1. Doing a less-good job than you are capable of doing will not only make you less valued, it also saps your self confidence and self belief. It is the most destructive cycle.
2. Blaming systems and clients and policies changes nothing. In the end things change through how we behave and not whether we have the best IT system. Encourage in yourself an attitude that values seeing the potential to improve things rather than an attitude to criticise things. Make your engagement unconditional.
3. Doing nothing when we could do something, because improving the way we work is about taking action not suffering inaction. If we have the talent the patience and the will to tolerate inconvenience, inefficiency and ineptitude, we also have at least an equal amount of talent to invent, innovate and inspire.
Three things we must always do:
1. Treat time as a precious thing to be shared with friends, family and work. We plan our work lives with our diaries, our computers, our blackberries and our staff (sometimes even into six minute slots!) and yet friends and family are often left with the dregs of our day. Plan the whole day for the wholeness we need in our lives.
2. Constantly assess and reassess the value we achieve for the time we invest. Everything we do can be done better and not everything we do adds enough value. If you find just a five percent efficiency improvement in a year then you will have the equivalent of an additional ten working days. Time, perhaps, to then reinvest in family or friends…
3. We are creatures that need praise…if people see we work long hours and praise us for doing so; we will often repeat this behaviour to receive the praise again. Soon we can become trapped – so heavily reliant on working long hours that the only thing people will see to praise are the hours we work. You must therefore build relationships with colleagues and clients that ensure value is seen across a range of indicators…your colleagues and clients will of course value your work ethic, but they must also value results, efficiency, effectiveness, acumen, timeliness, humour, empathy, thoughtfulness and leadership.
You have a choice.
Geoff Wild is director of law and governance at Kent County Council
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