When you take a flight on a commercial airplane, there’s one thing that most people get a little nervous about: turbulence. Especially bad turbulence. The kind where your stomach flips over itself a couple of times, once when it feels like the plane is dropping out of the sky, and again when the whole thing starts shaking like a toy plane in a washing machine.
You might assume the most important people in the plane at times like those would be the pilots, but you’d be wrong. The likelihood of the pilot losing control is small. The likelihood of the passengers losing control? Pretty big. Because of that, the most important people onboard are definitely the flight attendants.
Why?
If you’re a passenger and you’re feeling nervous, and you look over to see the flight attendants running around urgently, grabbing parachutes, you’re going to feel even more anxious. If they’re walking around, calmly handing out snacks, then you’ll feel way more at ease.
Such is the role of an in-house lawyer — especially the general counsel.
Change management is, put simply, oiling a transition process so that it runs smoothly. It sounds simple, but keep in mind that 30% of it focuses on the change, and the other 70% revolves around the people involved. In this article, we will deal specifically with technological changes.
In our analogy, the in-house lawyer needs to keep a level head, not making any rash decisions. They move between the different departments, informing them of any policy changes, as well as exploring tools to keep everything running optimally.
When it comes to deciding what tech to use, you need to ask yourself a few things first:
- Is tech the best solution?
- What exactly do you need?
- Have you found a tool that suits your purposes, or are you shaping your purposes around a tool?
Still, that’s only 30% of the job. The hardest part is the people.
It’s natural for people to want to be seen, heard, and believed. So, then, it’s important to make sure your team has the opportunity to provide input. What is even more important is showing that you appreciate the input and that you’ll legitimately take it into consideration.
Furthermore, people support what they had a hand in creating. Make them stakeholders by showing them the why behind what you do. Ensure they are a part of the process. If they don’t contribute, they’ll rarely execute it.
At the end of the day, it boils down to two pivotal points: your process and your people. Your process needs to be data-driven and well-researched. We’re not just dealing with a new normal anymore. We’re dealing with a new next — a reconstruction. Drastic change does not make our world fall apart, though. It deconstructs it, giving us a chance to reconstruct a more beautiful, optimized iteration. An iteration built on ideas, actionable through innovation. A world of comfortable passengers relaxed on a turbulent plane.
Be a bridge-builder; unite your people with your process and its data-driven and people-purposed changes that move everyone forward at a sustainable pace for a successful touchdown.
I recently spoke more in-depth on this issue. Please check it out:
How do you manage change? What are your best tips?
Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can follow Olga on Twitter @olgavmack.