May 26
Career Development Plan
Getting Started with a Career Development Plan
A career development plan is your opportunity to envision where you want to be with your career three to five years from now—and then identify actions steps that will get you there.
- First identify your long-term career goals. Do you want to be doing the same work in three to five years as you are doing now? Or will your responsibilities be different—for example, managing others, building a new practice? Would you like to change settings, practice areas or your entire career? Be as specific as possible. Make your goals SMART: Specific,Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. An example of a long-term goal is, “Build my own solo practice in wine law.”
- Next, identify short-term goals. Focus on two to four goals you would like to accomplish over the next 12 months to help you achieve your long-term goal. Examples of areas your goals might cover include: knowledge building, skill development, client management, case management, leadership skills, client development and pro bono involvement. Like your long-term goals, these should be specific. Keep your goals to no more than four. Studies show that creating more than that will likely result in you achieving none of them!
- Action steps. Once you have identified your short-term goals, create action steps, along with “start by” and due dates. Using our long-term example from above, a short-term goal might be, “Gain substantive knowledge in wine law.” Action step examples, include “identify a CLE or other course in wine law by May;” “sign up for and attend course;” “use LinkedIn and other resources to find three individuals practicing wine law;” and “conduct informational interviews with them by end of June.”
Next Steps
Great—you’ve created your plan. You’ve identified your long-term goal and thought about action steps you can begin taking now to get you there. Consider what assistance you may need along the way. Are there individuals who can be good sources of information or mentors for you? Are there resources you need? Do you need to work with someone to help you achieve your goals? A buddy or coach can help keep you accountable and on track moving forward.
Consider what obstacles or challenges you may encounter and how you will overcome them. Perhaps you’ve been thinking about this goal for a long time but you never start working toward it. What’s keeping you from doing so? Confidence? Lack of knowledge? Others’ opinions? How important is this goal to you? Is it worth pursuing and, therefore, worth investing the time and dealing with the challenges?
May 25
Coaching
Thinks I want to know about the people I coach: Drive: What’s motivating her – her driving goals? Fascinating: What’s fun – what fascinates her? Triggers: What causes her to be uncoacbable? Pathways: How will she best hear what she needs to hear? Amazing: What is her special skill(s)? Fault lines: Where are her personal blind spots or potential derailing factors?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManagementCraft/~3/_rhZtpBIjUo/things-i-want-t...
May 22
3 levels of Knowledge Management
http://www.nickmilton.com/2012/04/three-maturity-levels-of-lesson.html
May 15
Collaborate, Plan, Work Smart and Get Noticed
Collaborate, Plan, Work Smart and Get Noticed goo.gl/jZK4r Good advice for #legal #management
May 15
How to lead yourself
By Dan Mc Carthy http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/greatleadershipbydan/gfUp/~3/LENWJOu3AkY/how-t...
May 15
Five ways to organize how we might organize our thinking about #law department #management
Five ways to organize how we might organize our thinking about #law department #management bit.ly/KjIbSU
May 12
How can the Legal Department get guidance from the CEO?
A survey of more than 50 function heads of European companies found that “fewer than one in 10 function heads felt they had received sufficient guidance on how their function should contribute to the company’s overall strategy.” Reported in MIT Sloan Mgt. Rev., Spring 2012, at 12, the research by the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre found that the functions often had KPIs but “these rarely assess the overall contribution of their function.”
The thesis of the article is that without CEO guidance, a legal department, for example, can under-perform and disappoint clients. They can become self-serving. They fall short of helping the business divisions with “the practical support they want and need.” Instead, “corporate functions measure themselves against industrywide best practices or implement initiatives that increase their influence or simplify their own work”
The article suggests that CEOs fail to direct functions because either (1) they focus on business units or (2) they feel they lack enough technical knowledge to give direction to the staff group.
The article urges CEOs to remedy this gap with three changes. (1) Define the main sources of added value at the corporate level and have the legal department define its role in relation to those sources. (2) Review the strategies of the legal department annually. (3) Put corporate functions in a matrix and take a company-wide view of which of their initiatives has priority. (4) Break out shared services into a service-oriented shared service group. General counsel should push for (1) and (2) but few of them would support (3) and (4).
Source. http://bit.ly/J2Bk2J
Filed under //
management
strategy
May 9
What to do when things go wrong
1. Calm down.
2. Evaluate the problem in relation to the project.
3. Calm down again.
4. Get the right people in the room
5. Explore alternatives.
6. Make the simplest plan.
7. Execute.
8. Debrief.
http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2012/what-to-do-when-things-go-wrong/#
+ What did we do well / wrong during the crisis?
Filed under //
crisis
