GC Power List 2014 – The view from the top

Legal Business returned to its original GC Power List and other legal heads who have already climbed the ladder for insight into career development and how they try to help their star performers reach their potential.

 

Ed Smith – General Counsel, Telefonica UK
… on developing the next generation

‘I have regular career conversations with every member of my team to understand and discuss their ambitions and help them form their own realistic development plans. The deal I’ve got with my team is not that they do what I say and promotion is guaranteed immediately. It’s that I will listen and bear in mind their ambitions, and will intervene to make sure they have opportunities to grow professionally. Worst-case scenario: they will have a better CV.’
Philip Bramwell – Group General Counsel, BAE Systems
… on the road to general counsel

‘We have invested a lot of time and effort in a six-dimensional capability matrix for our lawyers, which takes them from two years post-qualification experience through to general counsel level – a whole career competency framework. When we’re recruiting junior lawyers – and most of the lawyers we recruit are at the junior level because we prefer to an extent to grow our own – we look for nascent capabilities in each of these areas, for example, technical skills or the ability to build strong relationships inside and outside the business.

‘Within each dimension, we have three levels of competency that each have demonstrated levels of accomplishment. In the professional skills and capabilities parts of the review meetings that we hold, we measure where the lawyers are in terms of building all the bricks in each of the capabilities. Everybody self-assesses before they go into their review and then their manager also gives an assessment, and they look where the differences are. That usually stimulates a healthy and open discussion. So as you work your way up through the business, you have a ladder of capability that you see ahead of you and that you can identify.’
Robert Blok – Group Legal Director, Virgin Group
… on external sources

‘We lean on our panel law firms for the free training they provide and we do a legal forum once a year for all in-house teams across the Virgin group globally. The external training involves discussing high-level topics, and then more bespoke things, such as tax training with an external firm’s tax team. This could be three two-hour sessions with junior or senior associates, giving the in-house lawyers the additional skills they wouldn’t necessarily get working at a law firm, but need to manage their in-house role. The firms are more than happy to provide small bespoke training on a personal level.’
John Bennett – General Counsel, Bank of Ireland
… on training rising stars

‘Development has more of a focus than it once did. Many organisations have talent programmes where individuals can develop a whole range of skills beyond just technical legal ones. This equips them to make diagonal moves within the organisation as well as vertical ones, applying those skills to a new set of circumstances.

[Training and development] starts with creating an environment where it is taken seriously, rather than given lip-service. Everybody has to take a degree of ownership over their own training and development needs and it’s important that general counsel create an environment conducive to that approach. Everybody’s needs are different, so an approach that is tailored to those individual needs within a framework that’s manageable in practice is key. It’s important to treat it as an integral part of performance management rather than an afterthought.’
Benedict O’Halloran – General Counsel, European transactions and UK, General Electric
… on training younger lawyers

‘As your career reaches certain stages, part of your managerial progress within [General Electric] means there are certain steps and training you will need to complete.

‘We’re fortunate enough to have training a bit like in university or college-type courses. We have a new lawyer orientation course that runs periodically to help people get oriented in the company. For years we have had an advanced business course in finance and accounting, as well as doing case studies to help lawyers develop some knowledge relevant to accounting concepts, which we also started a few years ago. It’s essentially teaching non-legal content with the objective of helping people become strategic advisers to the business.’
Kirsty Cooper – Group General Counsel, Aviva
… on the bigger picture

‘The problem in-house is that it does tend to be a flatter structure, so you need to be able to broaden your perspective in your current role, [whether it’s] taking on other opportunities to do some development outside the legal team, or to informally mentor people who are more junior than you. You do all those things to show that you’re taking the initiative.

‘Success for me is that my successor comes from within Aviva. That will mean working in different parts of the business, or maybe even leaving Aviva and coming back. You need to broaden yourself out.’
Anthony Inglese – Outgoing General Counsel, HMRC
… on growing into the role

‘You can learn and develop management skills. If you’ve got good people skills, have an understanding and an interest in people, as well as a good focus on the standards expected of everybody, you can grow into the management role. Early on you do see leadership skills, but management develops over time.’