Skills To Future-Proof Your Career in Law and Finance

Guest writer, Joanna Gaudoin, is a best selling author and Managing Director of Insight Out Image. She helps professionals with their technical skills whilst improving their non-technical ones to aid career progression and boost their company’s performance.  

Skills which are often neglected

In this article, I want to share with you why it is so important to work on skills beyond the technical ones you have and talk you through what some of those skills are.

We don’t work alone

Nobody works in complete isolation, the reality is every day I need to engage with different people, whether that be colleagues, clients, suppliers and other business contacts – and so do you.

Work naturally creates a web of interdependent relationships. Even during the Covid-19 lockdowns, we were all interacting with others professionally, whether by video call, phone, instant messenger or email.

The more positive relationships are and the broader range of relationships you develop, the easier daily working life will be to navigate and the more likely you are to progress your career as you want to.

You might have in mind you don’t go to work to make friends, but the benefits of positive professional relationships are numerous – increased knowledge sharing, more honest and open discussion that encourages everyone to input, better decision making and improved productivity to name a few. As an individual when you have better relationships at work you will feel happier, be more focused and haver a greater sense of motivation and purpose.

The relationships to work on

I often find that most people spend at least some time working on what I call their ‘obvious’ relationships at work. In other words, the people you have to work with on a daily basis which are likely to include your line manager, team members and where relevant, your direct clients whether internal or external.

The relationships people consider less frequently are those with ‘less obvious’ people. These include people in other departments who may be able to help you do your role better as you can learn from them, you rely upon one another for information and expertise or people you could cross-refer clients to.

Additionally, it is important to consider building relationships with more senior people who may be key influencers and involved in decisions about what you work on and your career. Coleman’s PIE theory explains how building your exposure/visibility at work is the major factor in career success.

I have worked with many clients where we have built a strategic plan for which relationships to work on and how to approach it. This has led to easier day-to-day working, new roles in other areas of the business and improved performance.

It is also vital to build your broader network beyond your organisation, as I have with the Institute of Legal Finance and Management! Having a network isn’t just for those who have responsibility for business development!

Key relationship skills

I explore ten of these in great depth in my latest book, but I wanted to include five key ones here:

1. Consider how you come across. Reflect on how you could be perceived by others in terms of your physical appearance, body language and how you use your voice, as well as your words and behaviour. For instance - are you perceived as someone who is approachable or more distant? Do people think you have a strong leadership style? These sorts of perceptions set the tone for interactions and therefore relationships.
2. Listen well to others. Very few of us truly listen 100% of the time. However, it is an important skill. To actually listen to hear and be perceived as listening. When others feel heard, they are more likely to engage positively with you and listen to you in return. Use body language to demonstrate listening, nod gently, ask clarifying questions and /or paraphrase to check understanding and demonstrate engagement.
3. Take your time to react. It’s so easy to react quickly, especially to something you have a negative emotion about. However, it is completely acceptable to ask for time to reflect before you respond. Then at least if you wish to express a negative response, it will be a considered one! People will also respect you more if you have clearly reflected before responding.
4. Understand others’ perspectives. If you have a different view to someone else, always consider with which information, assumptions, beliefs or information you could see the situation the same way. This will help you to try to understand even if you still end up disagreeing.
5. Consider others’ working styles. To work effectively with others, you need to consider their preferences in terms of how they work and negotiate how to interact, where appropriate. For instance, understanding any specific life patterns, when they are at their best during the day and how they prefer to be communicated with and at what frequency. This is particularly important with hybrid working being the new normal.

Considering different professional scenarios

You will engage with people in different ways in your working life. It’s helpful to consider where you encounter others and what skills you might need to work on to improve how you deal with relevant professional scenarios – what I often call ‘touchpoints’.

Some examples include:

• Meetings - when you run these – do they run to time? Are they well-structured? Do they achieve what they are meant to? Does everyone know what their role is. Likewise when you attend a meeting, are you clear what is expected of you and what the objective is? There is a lot of meeting bloat in working life, too many people invited to too many meetings which don’t achieve a lot!
• Presenting – do you avoid presenting or do it and dread it/don’t achieve what you need to? That might be a happy client who understands the work you’ve done, a senior stakeholder who has been persuaded to support your proposal or a group of people who are clear on what you have updated them on.
• Video calls – do you come across clearly, professionally and impactfully on video calls? How could you improve what and how you communicate when on screen with limited body language you can use?
• Online – do you know what is online about you? Does it align with you in real life and how you want to be perceived? Is your LinkedIn profile complete and professional?

Working on your skills in key professional scenarios is absolutely essential to navigate working life and future proof your career - navigating these scenarios well creates opportunity. Fundamentally, you need to come across effectively and positively in all professional scenarios, with different people to achieve what you need to and build the relationships you require at work, for the short and long term. After all, relationships take time to build so it’s best to start as soon as you can.