“Learning stuff outside of the law gave me patterns of mindset, recognition, skills and perspective which I would not necessarily have had purely within the law.”
What can the legal profession learn from other industries and domains?
We sat down with Andrew Wingfield to answer this question!
Andrew is amongst other things, a former soldier, pilot, conservationist, student of philosophy and spirituality and also a lawyer!
Off Road Legal provides consultancy to legal teams looking for actionable insight and support to succeed across four core areas: Transformation, Technology, Value Creation and Implementation.
Tabled has partnered with Off Road Legal and are delighted to offer our friends and clients a complimentary Discovery Workshop with Andrew and his colleague Peter Impey. This workshop is sure to help unlock legal operations and will provide:
Please complete this short form and Tabled will put you in touch!
After a successful legal career in the banking industry, Andrew is now embarking on a new adventure with his own business, Off Road Legal – a legal services consultancy aimed at helping legal teams and law firms who are looking to step outside-the-box (or ‘off-road’!) in the pursuit of new ideas and opportunities for their activities.
Watch the video to venture off the beaten track to see what lessons and inspiration we can find from other sectors that might be of use in the legal industry.
5 KEY SKILLS LAWYERS CAN LEARN FROM OTHER SECTORS
1. Stay Curious
As a self-confessed ‘scanner’ personality, Andrew’s key character trait is curiosity. While scanners need discipline to ensure they don’t lose focus too easily, Andrew’s experience has been that this trait has also helped him to avoid reinventing the wheel:
“…it’s an efficient way of finding solutions – merely ‘looking’ as a way of finding solutions rather than working hard yourself…”
2. “Don’t let the aeroplane get ahead of you”
This is a saying from the aviation world which is equally applicable to the legal sphere. There are a handful of elements to this:
3. Give yourself permission to fail and don’t be afraid of taking calculated risks
As a Territorial Army soldier, Andrew was trained in the role of special reconnaissance and operations behind enemy lines. The training process teaches you that, when the stakes are extremely high (life or death), people are capable of far more than they ever thought possible. These situations call for ingenuity and a willingness to accept (and judge) risk.
Work-related challenges rarely involve such high stakes so don’t be afraid to push the boundaries and take calculated risks in order to see just how much is possible.
4. Inspiration can come from anywhere
One of the catalysts for Off Road Legal, came from a chance encounter and shared taxi ride with a complete stranger who was the founder of the ‘Nomadic School of Business’ and an expert in tribal wisdom.
This led Andrew to the exploration of ‘territory mapping’ and the insights and principles that underpin the mission and approach at Off Road Legal.
5. Draw your map
In the words of a nomadic tribal leader from Papa New Guinea: “territory is everything.”
You need to be acutely aware of the world around you and always be considering what’s around the next corner.