Hello world!

Hi there.

This blog is a crazy experiment to see if anyone is keen to follow a transformation of a team of professionals in a corporate lunacy environment.

Four months ago, I became the General Counsel (ie head of Legal) for a local operation of a major international company.  I’m just gonna refer to it as “the Company” and be done with.

Until last year, I was working somewhere else, and had taken an underperforming legal team to an award-winning one.  We had the most wonderful team I’ve ever had the pleasure to be a part of and, let me tell you, I made some mistakes along the way with leadership issues.  But, despite my blunders, we got there in the end.  Along the way, I learned a lot, and found there was nothing more exhilarating than creating, and being inspired by, a wonderful team of people.

I took the job with the Company because, for the last 4 years, I have heard about how hopelessly their Legal team has been led.  My heart went out to the lawyers in it; wonderful people who had been beaten to a pulp while part of the team, and then again on their way out the door.  A team who was given no direction or future, and who, again and again, had terrible leaders appointed who just took them to new lows.

There are all sorts of parts to my story: what we’ve done so far, what lunacy I’m encountering along the way, why I left my old job and what’s happened to them since (a lunacy story in itself).  I’ll try and get to all of that along the way, and maybe share my thoughts and seek your feedback on how to handle some of the more lunatic moments and people. 

The one thing I was keen to do is to have a way of recording what happens.  Maybe I can help others create similar transformations, or we can all just work out how to build and lead wonderful teams together.

The one thing that I’m really passionate about is great leadership: the sort of leadership and humanity that makes your eyes fill with tears, and that makes you want to be a better person.  Those Mr Smith Goes to Washington/ West Wing/ To Kill a Mockingbird/ Band of Brothers type moments.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be that type of leader: the type who puts their people first and creates a platform for greatness in others.  Who doesn’t seek accolades, but quietly goes about the business of making theirs the no 1 team in whatever space they are in.

I’ll try and post an entry at least every week, and I’d love to hear from you (esp your great CL/ Corporate Lunacy tales).  They make us feel like you’re not alone!