Creative Problem Solving is Today's Most Sought After Skillset
BY
Steve Glaveski
We recently surveyed legal innovation thought leaders, and discovered and the results were almost unanimous.
The four most sought after skills to differentiate today’s lawyers from the pack are:
- Creative problem solving
- Customer experience
- Technological understanding
- Business development
The legal profession isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when we think creativity. In fact, it probably doesn’t even hit the radar for most people.
But lawyers are professional problem-solvers, operating at a very high level with lots at stake. Lawyers who can think up practical ways to help clients solve and avoid legal problems, identify the best available solution to a specific challenge, and plan strategically - taking into account all of the first and subsequent orders of consequence, are of upmost importance.
When you peruse the curricula of most law schools, creative problem solving is notably absent. Students might learn all about the practicalities of, say, commercial law, artificial intelligence, privacy legislation, or consumer law, but spent little to no time on innovation and creativity.
This can leave many lawyers all too prepared to give you a best path of action, based purely on precedent and what has happened before, but ill equipped to forward plan and come up with new ways of solving problems or tackling challenges.
This is why more and more law firms are rolling out human-centred design (or ‘design thinking’) training.
Freehills used the firm’s annual conference to roll out design thinking training to over 80 of its team.
Clifford Chance too turned too the NewLaw Academy to roll out training to its lawyers, the purpose of which was to help lawyers identify opportunities that they normally wouldn’t.
And Maddocks used a design thinking sprint to help identify over 60 ideas and an action plan to help improve its recruitment and employee development processes.
As the world of work changes at a faster rate, the ability to navigate uncertain waters through creative problem solving is critical, and it’s an area that organizations around the world are increasingly investing in.
We recently surveyed legal innovation thought leaders, and discovered and the results were almost unanimous.
The four most sought after skills to differentiate today’s lawyers from the pack are:
- Creative problem solving
- Customer experience
- Technological understanding
- Business development
The legal profession isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when we think creativity. In fact, it probably doesn’t even hit the radar for most people.
But lawyers are professional problem-solvers, operating at a very high level with lots at stake. Lawyers who can think up practical ways to help clients solve and avoid legal problems, identify the best available solution to a specific challenge, and plan strategically - taking into account all of the first and subsequent orders of consequence, are of upmost importance.
When you peruse the curricula of most law schools, creative problem solving is notably absent. Students might learn all about the practicalities of, say, commercial law, artificial intelligence, privacy legislation, or consumer law, but spent little to no time on innovation and creativity.
This can leave many lawyers all too prepared to give you a best path of action, based purely on precedent and what has happened before, but ill equipped to forward plan and come up with new ways of solving problems or tackling challenges.
This is why more and more law firms are rolling out human-centred design (or ‘design thinking’) training.
Freehills used the firm’s annual conference to roll out design thinking training to over 80 of its team.
Clifford Chance too turned too the NewLaw Academy to roll out training to its lawyers, the purpose of which was to help lawyers identify opportunities that they normally wouldn’t.
And Maddocks used a design thinking sprint to help identify over 60 ideas and an action plan to help improve its recruitment and employee development processes.
As the world of work changes at a faster rate, the ability to navigate uncertain waters through creative problem solving is critical, and it’s an area that organizations around the world are increasingly investing in.
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about the author
Steve Glaveski is a Harvard Business Review contributor on all things productivity, effectiveness and high-performance at work. He is the author of Time Rich: Do Your Best Work, Live Your Best Life (Wiley, 2020), a SXSW21 speaker, and just so happens to be co-founder of Collective Campus.
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