Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Down with the Department!

At multiple CLEs I've attended in the last few months I've noticed that presenters like to talk about how we have to "move from being the 'Department of No".  After the statement is made, I look around the room and see a lot of nodding heads.  However, after the session when  I'm speaking to fellow in house folks we all appear to have moved past the 'Department of No' mentality a long time ago and are really looking for how we can move into the next step of becoming a truly strategic partner.

After talking it over with a few of my brethren (I admit there was wine involved), we've decided that the first step is to kill the myth of the "Department".  Except in increasingly rare circumstances, today's in house counsel is ingrained to say yes whenever they can.  The main value we bring is in helping the business accomplish it's goals within the legal framework our industries operate in.  As the leader of my in house team, anyone with the 'Department' mentality wouldn't get past the hiring process, much less last long on my team.  Yet, I'm still hounded by the myth at every conference and with almost every interaction with counsel and lay person alike.  It's hard to get to the next step when everyone seems fixated on killing the dead horse that is the previous step.

So for all CLE presenters, fellow in housers, and anyone else listening - I have a very simple request.  Let's kill the myth of the Department  of No once and for all and start the having the real conversation of what to do at the strategy table now that you're there.  

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Encouraging Growth Realistically

Here we are in April again, and once again I'm focused on raising Autism Awareness - which is a year long project in our house, but I get a little help in April from the rest of the world.  In keeping with my tradition of posting about the what we can learn from the autistic community and apply to in house practice or law department management, here's my Autism Awareness post:

After first getting LG's diagnosis, I reflected a lot on what Autism would mean to him and our family.  Over time, it's seeped into other aspects of my life and I've realized that there's so much I can take from him and apply to my professional life.

Lately, I've been focused on longer term issues - How do I help him reach his maximum potential while also helping him deal with limitations completely out of his control?  How do I refuse to let him use his Autism as an excuse, but also recognize that it does put some things outside of his reach?  And how do I, as his mother, know where to draw that line?  Autism is a spectrum and his abilities are also spectrum like.  He may be brilliant, but is probably not a savant.  He is capable of behaving without tantrums, but is susceptible to melt downs.  He may be able to hold down a job someday, but probably won't be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company (not saying that an Autistic individual can't be, there may very well be someone on the spectrum that would excel at that job, but LG is not likely to be one of them.)  So how do I tell him to try hard in school, get the best grades he can, behave the best he can, be the best he can? All while knowing that Autism has taking some of his options away from him and the best that *he* can be will be drastically different than the best a NT person could be? - Not worse, just different, and a different that I can't predict.

As I struggle with these thoughts, I'm struck by the fact that they aren't so far removed from my job as a manager.  How do I help my employees reach their full potential (productivity, professional growth, etc), when there are budget, process or technology limitations that they have no control over?  How can I make sure that they use all the resources we have while knowing that we may not yet have what they need, and may never get it?  How do I keep them from using the external limitations as an excuse not to succeed? Where to I draw the line between "just get it done" and "it is what it is"?

For now, I'm focused on open communication -  clear expectations of both LG and my employees, along with an candid acknowledgement of the things outside of our control.  We all have outside factors that shape our world, but we still have a responsibility to make our world the best it can possibly be.  If everyone understands that mission, then hopefully we'll get there together and I'll be able to help LG and my employees be their best in spite of the limitations the world puts on us.  I still don't have all the answers to either side of this challenge.  I'm all ears if you do!  I'm confident I'll figure it out, both as a mother and a boss (but I reserve my rights to get it wrong along the way)!

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Autism Awareness - Our latest "incident"

April is Autism Awareness month and April 2nd is World Autism Awareness day.  In honor of this I usually post something about how I've applied a lesson learned from Autism to practicing in house or the management of the legal department.  While I have one of those prepared and will post it soon, something happened over the weekend that I had to discuss first.

As my regular readers will know, one of my boys is on the spectrum.  In my offline life I'm very open about it and how it affects our family.  For the most part, it's just become part of our identity and our routines may not be what yours are, but they're normal for us.  I can almost forget that LG isn't like other kids.  Until he has an "incident".

Over the weekend we had an incident.  We were window shopping for a grill at Target when my youngest, the Rockstar, decided he wanted a hat.  LG was sitting in the cart busy with a book while my husband and Z were looking at the grills so we split up.  I took the younger two over to look at hats, which are an entire store away from the seasonal stuff hubby and Z was looking at.  LG looked up and discovered that his big brother wasn't around and got freaked.  He jumped out of the cart screaming Z's name.  I caught him and tried to calm him down and told him to wait while I turned the cart containing Rockstar around to head back to the seasonal aisle.  But before I could turn around, LG was gone.  He'd taken off to find Z.  With my heart in the pit of my stomach I yelled and ran after him, but couldn't find him in the most direct route.  Seeing my husband and no LG, I started to freak.  While he went aisle by aisle looking for him, I went to the front of the store to ask that they post people by the doors to make sure he didn't wander into the parking lot - something a lot of autistic kids do.

Target's response was awesome.  I don't know if they train on how to handle kids on the spectrum or if this store was an anomaly, but they sprang into action.  Two people jumped to the doors, they gave his description out over their radios (including that he was autistic), and they quickly found him back by the Easter toys/candy.  They didn't try to grab him, when he wouldn't engage with them they didn't try to force it.  They just calmly radioed back his location and followed him until my husband could get there.  What could have turned into a very traumatic event for LG was completely avoided due to the calm way those employees handled the situation.  It may not seem like a big thing, but for a family having dealt with meltdowns caused by strangers trying to engage him and his affinity for taking off when he gets focused on something, this was huge.  So I wanted to take a minute to post a huge Thank You to Target.

I know they've not had the best media lately, but they've earned a customer for life, and they've shown how just a little awareness can change everything.  So whether you 'light it up blue' or 'tone it down tan', take a minute today to share how autism has impacted your life - raise awareness and let's make my Target incident a regular response rather than such an exception that I have to blog about it.