Dear Leonie…
On Wednesday evening, I met a paralegal called Leonie on a team building night out.
We got chatting about the legal profession, AI and what the future might hold for people starting out in their careers. Then Leonie asked me a question that really got me thinking.
“What advice would you give someone like me, starting out?”
Now, as anyone who’s met me will testify, I’m rarely short of an opinion. But this was a good question.
With AI transforming the way professional services firms operate, what skills should someone starting their career concentrate on developing?
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that some of the best advice hasn’t changed in decades.
Forget the five-year career plan for a moment. Forget becoming a thought leader before you’ve learnt how to use the office printer.
This week’s Three Things is dedicated to Leonie and everyone else starting their professional journey. Enjoy.
#1. Say yes. Get sh*t done
A few years ago, Barack Obama was asked what advice he’d give to young people starting their careers. His answer was refreshingly simple: become someone who gets stuff done.
It’s brilliant advice.
Early in your career, don’t obsess about your next promotion, your five-year strategy or whether a particular task is technically in your job description.
Say yes to opportunities. Volunteer for projects. Help the colleague who’s drowning in work. Put your hand up for the jobs nobody else fancies.
Why? Because you’ll learn an enormous amount, meet people you wouldn’t otherwise encounter and, most importantly, develop a reputation as someone who can be relied upon.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Do What You Say You’re Going To Do, When You Say You’re Going To Do It.
It’s possibly the simplest and most effective BD tactic ever invented.
Your challenge: This week, put your hand up for something outside your normal responsibilities. Own it. Deliver it. Make someone’s life easier.
#2. Be curious
One of the biggest advantages of being junior is that nobody expects you to know everything.
Use it!
Ask questions. Lots of them. And don’t limit your curiosity to the team you work in.
Go and speak to the corporate lawyers. Find out what the disputes team actually does. Have a coffee with someone in finance, marketing, IT or HR.
How does the firm make money? Why do customers choose it? What frustrates the people who work there? What could be done better?
You have a golden opportunity to understand how the entire business operates before the politics, departmental silos and competing priorities start getting in the way.
There’s another benefit too. You’re building relationships across the organisation without needing anything in return.
Fast-forward five or ten years and that network of colleagues, many of whom will have progressed into senior positions, could become one of your greatest professional assets.
Your challenge: Book a 15-minute coffee with someone outside your team this week. Ask them what they do, what they’re working on and what keeps them awake at night. Then listen.
#3. Be brave. Teach your boss something
Here’s something that might surprise you. Just because someone is more senior than you doesn’t mean they know more than you about everything.
Particularly when it comes to AI.
You’ve grown up in a digital world. You’re comfortable experimenting with new technologies, learning new tools and adapting to change. Many of your more senior colleagues haven’t had that experience.
And whilst they probably won’t admit it, some of them are genuinely scared about what AI means for their jobs, their firms and the careers they’ve spent decades building.
Here’s your opportunity.
Rather than waiting for someone to teach you, turn the tables. Offer to show a partner how you’re using AI. Demonstrate a new tool. Challenge an existing process. Share your thoughts on how the firm might operate differently in five years’ time.
This is reverse mentoring, and it can be enormously powerful.
But it requires courage. Speaking up in front of someone with 25 years more experience than you can be intimidating. Do it anyway. Be respectful, be prepared and don’t be afraid to challenge conventional thinking.
Your challenge: Find one senior colleague and show them something new. A tool, a technique or simply a different way of thinking about the future. Start a conversation. You might both learn something.
Chat to Tina by voice, when you’re between meetings, on the commute to/from work, or heading into something you’d rather avoid.
Final thought
Regular readers will recognise some of this advice. We’ve been banging on about reliability, curiosity and relationships for nearly three years.
But there’s a reason we keep coming back to them. They work.
And for those of you further along in your careers, here’s a question: are you creating enough opportunities for the Leonies in your organisation to learn, experiment and develop?
Because the next generation of partners, leaders and rainmakers needs somewhere to start.
Thanks for the inspiration, Leonie. I hope this helps.
We’re building a team of voice enabled AI assistants to support you with BD activities and allow you to spend more time being human. Interested? We’d love to chat.
