GLD Vacancies

Reading the Runes

An ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances will mark out those senior lawyers who succeed in the next few years, writes Nicholas Dobson.

If you’ve been around the workplace for the best part of a life sentence, you’ll have noticed how much has changed over the years. Where for instance have typewriters, carbon paper and memoranda gone? Whither, for that matter, slide rules, adding machines and the clattering of the municipal tea trolley? Withered away and evolved out, that’s where.

For the older you get the more you might have to stop yourself intoning that, "It wasn’t like this in my day". It certainly wasn’t! Nevertheless, if you’re still roaming the workplace, the odds are you’ve kept sufficiently up to speed with practical Darwinian theory. For as the celebrated evolutionary biologist never said: "It is not the most intelligent nor the strongest species that survives but the one that most readily adapts to change." So those who wish to go the way of the pterodactyls, as you were.

For local government, being politically driven at both central and local levels, is eternally restless and can often feel like the famous cynics’ definition of history – just "one damn thing after another". From CCT, to best value, to CPA, to CAA to Big Society to. . . On, on and relentlessly on. But of course there’s no use asking the world if it wouldn’t mind stopping for a minute while you get off for a cup of tea, because clearly it won’t. So in a burst of oxymoronic splendour, you and yours will need to go with the flow whilst at the same time swimming creatively against the current.

Here are a few pointers:

  • Read the policy runes at both national and local levels. Seasoned and reputable political and sector journalists will often have their fingers on the national political pulse (as they’re paid to get close to the players involved) and it’s important to have a feel for the likely weather on the road ahead when planning the journey
  • At local level get into the corporate space and make things positively happen there. Ensure (like Thomas the Tank) you and yours are seen as ‘really useful engines’
  • Clearly the day job has to be done and you’re likely to be good at it otherwise you wouldn’t be where you are. But what exactly is it? What are we all doing and why? Do we actually need to do all of it the way it’s currently done? Does anybody? If yes, could it be done differently? Could we for instance do it more efficiently with other authorities or organisations? Could they do it better and more cheaply without us? If so how can the skills and experience currently absorbed in it be valuably redeployed?
  • Ask yourself regularly what you’re for – at least at work! What value are you adding? Would the organisation suffer if you weren’t there? If not what can you do about it. These are tough but salutary questions that can be asked at all levels
  • Avoid defensive territorialism. Local authority status structures traditionally depended on size of department and the number of people reporting to you. This clearly won’t play in the present globalised and hi-tech world. Status is now much more likely to come from achievements rather than position. Motivate yourself and your team accordingly
  • How can the authority take a lead on what used to be called ‘Total Place’ but which is now apparently emerging as ‘place-based’ or ‘community budgeting’. There is a compelling logic to area financial and service synergy for public services
  • How well do you know your people? Do you know what hidden talents they may have other than those you see them using in putting their nose to the daily grindstone? If not you should find out. Think of the value you could release for your authority if you gave them something to do which unleashes the hidden ‘genius within’
  • Make sure you and yours do what needs to be done rather than what you feel like doing. How it’s done though might be more flexible to enable release of individual seams of creativity
  • Expect the unexpected. Not for nothing are timeless myths populated with surprise attacks from monsters. For these are metaphors for our daily experience of reality. World War 2 fighter pilots were warned to: "Beware the Hun in the Sun". It’s often what you’re least expecting that will find your Achilles heel. So while driving energetically forward, do keep a weather eye on your rear and side mirrors and keep tuned into the corporate and political wavelengths.
  • But to manage effectively in a rapidly changing environment, you’ll need to inspire and fire-up the troops. So if you’re feeling battle-weary – and frankly at times anxious – start with firing up yourself. Or at least make sure you don’t generate viral cynicism! At the risk of giving the famous 15th century war hero overexposure, you could do worse than follow Shakespeare’s Henry V. For before the Battle of Agincourt where the English were hopelessly outnumbered, Henry takes time out to visit and encourage his ‘ruin'd band’ of troops. And despite his own anxieties:

"Upon his royal face there is no note

How dread an army hath enrounded him. . .

But freshly looks and over-bears attaint

With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;

That every wretch, pining and pale before,

Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks".

That’s the way to do it!

But to live up to the constant reinvention and re-creation that leadership now demands you’ll need plenty of resilience and underlying self-belief. And a support network is vital. Which is where ACSeS can play such a valuable role. For you’re bound to find an ACSeS colleague facing similar challenges with whom you have creative rapport. And the professional network at Branch level can be of immense benefit to your authority e.g. in shared services or in setting up suitable corporate governance structures for place-based budgeting.

You won’t be good at anything – no-one ever is. But just like all those in your team, there will be some things you’re hot on - aside of course from the usual sub-atomic legal particles. It’s clearly taken for granted you all can tell your Wednesburys from your Thursdays! The trick is to make sure that so far as possible you and yours are all managing to get a crack at what you’re good at and what drives you. For as the old saying goes, find a job you love and you’ll never have to work again.

It’s not so long ago that the only computer in the building filled a whole room to yield probably no more processing power than does the average mobile phone today. Now a powerful personal computer is central to us all in the workplace. The world is turning ever faster. Hold tight.

© Nicholas Dobson

Dr. Nicholas Dobson is a Senior Consultant with Pannone LLP specialising in local and public law is also Communications Officer for the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors.

This article first appeared in ACSeS' Firing Up the Passion for Leadership Excellence publication.To get hold of a copy (for a nominal £10 to cover production costs) contact the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors at Afon Building, Worthing Road, Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 1TL; telephone: 01403 788249; e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .