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The general counsel (GC) is more important than ever. From playing a central role in coordinating COVID-19 response to managing corporate risks to providing input on strategic plans, a GC who can set priorities, clarify actions and balance competing interests is vital for a company to execute effectively in today's uncertain environment.

Unfortunately, most GCs do not have the impact or influence they should—or desire. Less than half of GCs believe they play a significant role in identifying and managing emerging issues, providing CEO support or executing corporate initiatives. Only one out of four corporate directors believe their GCs effectively inform the board about the legal and compliance risks of digital business transformation (a key priority for many boards). All in all, only 19% of general counsel are effective in their role.

GCs are certainly executing their job but performing a narrower version of it and contributing less than they might like. It all raises a good question: what makes a GC effective?

What Is GC Effectiveness?

GC effectiveness has no fully satisfying definition. Effectiveness basically means a GC is supplying what the company most needs, when it needs it.

But while it's hard to precisely define the personal effectiveness of a GC, we can put some parameters around it. A good starting point for effectiveness would be:

1. Achievement of personal objectives (your management objectives)
2. Influence with CxOs (CEOs and C-suite peers)
3. Significant contribution to firm outcomes

Collectively, achieving these three components indicates that you've done your job, can sway decisions when and as necessary, and helped the company prosper. You might include other factors, (reducing cost of legal service, supplying surplus legal certainty to business decision makers), but the above is a good, tractable definition of personal effectiveness. It is a definition that signals a GC as an executive. 

So, if that's the definition for effectiveness, how does one achieve it?

The Behaviors of Effective General Counsel

To study this question, Gartner surveyed 97 GCs from large and midsize enterprises and asked about more than 75 attributes of their management behavior and time use. We wanted to know how GCs spent their time, what they worked on, how they allocated resources, how they coached their teams, and how priorities were set. We asked about their company and their objectives. We asked about performance in role and results achieved. 

This research identifies several drivers of personal effectiveness as shown in the graphic below. The left-hand side shows different dimensions of the GC role (role you play, risk-management orientation, service orientation and more). The middle column summarizes the typical GC behavior as evidenced in this research and our history of studying legal departments. The right-hand side shows the behaviors that drive personal effectiveness. These are the orientations and behaviors associated with general counsel that achieve objectives, drive firm performance and possess influence. These are the behaviors of personally effective GCs. 

Define Your "Executive" Role

When asked, 46% of GCs indicated they would like to be a "corporate executive." But when we assessed how GCs behave, (how much time they actually spent on tactical versus strategic work and the extent to which they offered legal guidance versus business guidance), a different story emerged.

If an executive is someone who works strategically and provides business guidance, only 8% of GCs spend their time this way. How do GCs spend their time instead? They spend it where they are comfortable—providing legal guidance in tactical areas. Fifty-nine percent of GCs operate this way. Despite aspirations and intentions to be corporate executives, most GCs are oriented or default toward providing legal guidance.

Of course, not all GCs see it as their job to execute company strategy, and that's fine. But any definition of corporate executive—the stated goal of many GCs—suggests they should, in fact, contribute to strategic objectives and emerging risk management. 

And failing to act as corporate executive does limit corporate impact. GCs who spend a higher percent of their time performing strategic work and supplying business guidance are more effective on every dimension of personal effectiveness. Personally effective GCs spend, on average, 48% more of their time on strategy and 43% more of their time offering business guidance (as opposed to legal guidance). Put simply, the most effective GCs spend more time on strategic matters and business guidance.

Why is it so hard to spend time on strategy? Consider the current moment: dealing with the many legal, financial and humanitarian implications of COVID-19. The pandemic puts the GC at the center of most critical corporate activities—from tracking regulatory standards and interfacing with the government to coordinating internal stakeholders to enabling corporate actions. But being at the center does not make a GC a strategic partner. It's the difference between supplying information and driving a decision. Most CEOs, executive teams and boards will consider and use their GC as the supplier of legal information unless explicitly "trained" to use them differently. GCs must be explicit about the role they should perform and why. As a starting point, GCs should ask themselves a few questions and have a detailed conversation with their CEO. 

• Am I performing my ideal role? Do I spend my time in a manner that best contributes to firm outcomes?
• Are there standing meetings or strategic corporate decisions I should join? 
• What is the "opportunity cost" of my current activity set?
• Are there activities or responsibilities I could delegate with little change in performance?

Ensure Enterprise Risk Governance

Corporate risks emerge faster than ever, are more cross-functional and interdependent, and often manifest in ways that challenge existing control frameworks and functional silos. Personally effective GCs address this by clarifying the corporate owners of risk and determining the level at which the risk should be addressed. We call this "enterprise risk governance." GCs that are effective "enterprise risk governors" are 51% better at executing corporate initiatives and 50% better at identifying emerging risks than other risks. An enterprise risk governor focuses on the following behaviors:

• Understanding organization's risk-taking needs.
• Building consensus positions on emerging issues.
• Clarifying risk-management role and accountability.
• Directing resources to resolve cross-functional inefficiencies.
• Holding leadership accountable.

This isn't to imply that the GCs should own a particular risk, but it does suggest that GCs should ensure efficient governance of emerging issues.

Set Boundaries on Client Service

Our research shows the return on investment of meeting customer expectations and making their interactions with legal easy is much higher than that of "delighting" customers. Accordingly, GCs must work with business clients to help their department understand business client challenges and build out service plans. It also means that a focus on "pleasing clients" as a fundamental goal is counterproductive. Put simply, GCs must understand client goals without relinquishing control of the path to reach them.

Own Their "Priority Time" Cycle

The typical GC spends 50 to 122 days a year on work they should not own (work that should have been done by someone else or work that didn't require GC involvement). While impossible to eliminate all "time wasted," personally effective GCs recover a month of time every year and reduce interruptions through the following behaviors:

• Codify and announce personal priorities.
• Zero-base their schedule.
• Build flexibility into their schedule (saved time on calendars for the inevitable but unexpected ask).
• Audit time spend.

These simple behaviors can make a dramatic difference in time management. For example, simply stating your priorities reduces interruptions and empowers staff. Telling staff when they don't need your approval reinforces your priorities and enables development. 

Invest for Legal Scale

Underinvesting in legal department capacity increases long-term legal cost/revenue. Instead of stretching resources to reduce legal department budgets, personally effective GCs focus on (1) understanding future corporate demands for legal services and (2) making proactive investments to reduce long-term cost of legal service to the company. That is, personally effective GCs anticipate resource needs and make proactive resource requests and investments to minimize Legal's overall cost to the business. Personally effective GCs take the following steps to increase scale:

• Conduct a workload analysis to identify low-value work that can be discontinued and routine work to be codified.
• Track use of outside counsel for matters that could have been handled in-house.
• Build a technology strategy based on practical solutions that advance automation of workflows with the greatest impact on key departmental metrics and company performance.
• Build business case for staff and technology investments targeted to specific needs.
• Make sure that department capability-building and innovation are rewarded "on par" with legal work.

Putting It Together

While the role is more important than ever, most GCs do not have a significant impact on firm outcomes. Personally effective GCs dramatically improve their impact by viewing their role differently and making small, material tweaks to their management behaviors. Not only do personally effective GCs achieve their objectives, have more influence and contribute more to firm outcomes, they also waste 32% less of their time and play a greater role in corporate strategic planning.

Making changes to five key behaviors—related to role, risk governance, client need, time management and legal investment—can take a GC from good to great.

 

Abbott Martin is a vice president of research with Gartner's Legal and Compliance practice.