The second of my three-part series on practical tips to manage change in your legal function takes on the topic of strategy. When your operations and in-house lawyers span countries and cultures, a strategy is even more important. It's difficult for an in-house lawyer in Shanghai to stay on course with change when she's not sure what the course is. Regardless of global reach, it's impossible to demonstrate your progress to the C-suite if they don't know where you're trying to go or why.

A legal strategy promotes accountability and responsibility. It provides a business-minded way to communicate objectives and report on progress and performance. It helps you justify resource requirements. A strategy for your function is especially important in leading during times of change. It forces your team to define objectives. This article gives tips and insights to develop a legal strategy that helps you steer toward success.

Where is the organization heading? What are we aiming for?

Bill Deckelman, general counsel of DXC Technology (the April 2017 combination of CSC and a major part of HP Services), says, “Success in a major transformation has two critical requirements for in-house leaders. First, leaders must clearly and often communicate the vision of where the organization is headed, so that the team can execute against that. Second, leaders must align their organization with the strategy and operational model of the enterprise itself to ensure business support.”

The concept of strategy for in-house legal can be hard for capable corporate legal chiefs to grasp. In recent benchmarking, we asked global legal and compliance leaders what one of their team would answer if asked “What is the function's strategy?” The answers ranged from 'holistic thinking' to 'risk management' to “improve contracts” to “they probably wouldn't have an answer.” That's a problem for leading change.

Align with company strategy and to what your internal clients want.

Benchmark respondents were clearer on their operational objectives, with three major themes. But the themes rarely connected to what they said were their internal clients' main expectations. What's needed is a holistic statement of what you intend to change and why. It must relate to the company strategy and to what key stakeholders want from you and your team.

1: Your strategy should fit on one page. The more simple and concise the better. Some present their strategy as an outline, others as a roadmap, chart or infographic.

2: Gain ownership by involving your team in setting the legal strategy. The team can help gather data as part of development, and help decide which objectives are most important to include (and which are not).

3: Your strategy should make your priorities clear. Narrow down to three to five objectives. You may include a statement of the function's purpose, but the strategy should focus squarely on what you aim to achieve.

A strategy helps in-house leaders define goals and establish milestones.

When welcoming change, general counsel comment on the tendency to go off in too many directions. In that sense, a strategy is to a leader like a rudder is to a sailboat. A key value of the strategy is that it guides you to say “no” to proposed initiatives that aren't aligned.

4: Your strategy should respond to what your internal clients and stakeholders expect of you. The best way to get clear about what your key stakeholders want is to ask them.

Each in-house leader may approach change management slightly differently, but all agree on the importance of a strategy. Fabienne-Anne Rehulka, EMEA GC for Swiss Re, explains her approach. “In setting the personal objectives of my team members, I focus less specifically on what needs to be achieved over the next 12 months. Change takes more than 12 months to implement,” Rehulka says.

According the Rehulka, “I spend more time explaining where we want to be in three to four years and how it fits into the company's priorities. Only then can we agree on yearly milestones, which can be articulated in a more concrete manner. It is no longer a one-off discussion as the year begins. I explain it again and again, and it often takes three or four rounds until people fully understand it. We are human after all, not robots.”

A basis for setting priorities and focusing actions.

5: Your strategy gives you a basis to demonstrate the function's performance. As you repeatedly state the strategy and connect it to indicators of progress and performance, you align legal more closely with the business.

6: Start with the format and focus of your enterprise-wide strategy to guide your legal strategy. Your goals should align with the company's. This approach makes evident the connection of your strategy to business strategy.

KPMG UK General Counsel Jeremy Barton says, “The importance of a legal department's strategy is that it channels your purpose, your raison d'être, into your day-to-day activities. My team's purpose is to protect, navigate and anticipate for KPMG's UK business. Our strategy achieves three things: it keeps us fully aligned to the firm's overarching strategy, it sets our priorities, and it ensures each team member understands how what they do each day fits into the big picture.”

Differentiate the 'what' and 'how'—strategy and implementation.

As the strategy defines “what” you want to achieve, your actions and tasks are the “how.” Stick to one central strategy for the corporate legal team. Actions and tasks drive implementation. The actions will depend on in-house professionals' roles, and the behaviors you want to change. Tasks may vary by business unit and geographic region, while strategic objectives are constant.

7: Assume that the strategy will be adjusted from year to year, just as the business strategy will change annually. Frequent changes would confuse your team and your stakeholders.

8: Discuss the strategy with your key stakeholders and your team before finalizing. Test if they understand, by asking the person to repeat it back to you. It may take repeating before your entire team can comfortably recite the strategy by heart. You'll get there.

E. Leigh Dance advises corporate legal and compliance functions internationally to get better, faster results from change projects. She is executive director of the Global Counsel Leaders Circle, an exclusive in-house group: www.GCLeadersCircle.org. The discussions referred to above took place at November 2017 Leaders Circle conferences she chaired both in New York (hosted by Eversheds Sutherland) and London (hosted by Bird&Bird). [email protected].