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Why is building a culture often neglected?

October 04, 2017

change management legal services legal leadership team building

A great question for in-house legal teams. I know a few who actively work on “creating culture” but many still expect the culture of their team to flow directly from the corporation body.

In many ways as more in-house teams become integrated into their business, this alignment makes sense.  However, in-house legal teams still need to ensure they have their own culture, which of course should be aligned to the corporate culture and philosophy.   This is because without building its unique culture, legal can not only lose its way and become heavily output driven, but the softer, vital EQ skills will not be developed and measured.

As Chris sets out in this piece, before you start any cultural change process, have a good understanding of the status quo but also of what good looks like.

There are a number of reasons for this its a slightly vague concept, it pretty difficult to deliver, its as intangible as you get and therefore difficult to measure and its historically undervalued not least because a common reason people are promoted in most organisations is fro their ability to deliver – despite any bumps in the road, people who get the job done get promoted. This can result in a leadership team focused on the delivery of products and financial outcomes at the expense of the ‘softer stuff’, despite the soft stuff being an enabler to delivery.

 http://www.halebury.com/latest-blogs/creating-the-environme..


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