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Ep 61: How to lead Legal without a JD with Zoe McMahon, HP, Head of Legal Ops
65 Plays2 months ago
What skill set should the Chief of Staff to a Chief Legal Officer of a major international corporation need? How do you build trust with a Chief Operating Officer? How do you cultivate the right culture with a large legal and compliance team?
Join Zoe McMahon, Chief of Staff, VP of Legal Strategy and Operations at HP, as she shares stories and lessons from her thirty-year career at the world’s second largest computer manufacturer. Starting her career in environmental responsibility, Zoe has transferred her skills to a diverse roster of teams, including HP’s global human rights office, privacy, and legal operations.
Listen as Zoe discusses how she drives change from within, why she loves working on the forefront of developing legal and business fields, her fascination with long-term change, why she values strong relationships, and more.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-61
Topics:
Introduction: 0:00
Tyler asks about starting a career in environmental issues: 2:02
How do you advocate for the environment from within a company?: 4:04
How do you resource responsibly?: 5:02
Why Zoe moved into privacy: 8:03
Can you build credibility without a JD?: 9:25
Should you change career trajectories? 12:55
What does the Chief of Staff to HP’s Chief Legal Officer do?: 19:36
How do you build strong relationships at work?: 23:57
What part of HP’s culture is Zoe proudest of?: 26:41
Fun questions: 30:30
Book recommendations: 34:02
What Zoe wish she know when she was getting started: 40:04
Connect with us:
Zoe McMahon - https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-mcmahon-44074814/
Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading contract lifecycle management platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues.
Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
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Transcript
Challenges of Non-JD Professionals in Legal Departments
00:00:00
Speaker
We have now about 65% of the legal department are legal professionals that are not attorneys. Interesting. and And so I have a ah deeper appreciation now for that. And I do think there is some challenges sometimes in in whether you know those legal professionals feel like they belong in a legal department. it's right I would say it's still a little bit of a challenge. but um So I try to be a role model and and remind them that, you know There's all kinds of experiences needed to run a department.
Zoe McMahon's Career Journey at HP
00:00:37
Speaker
What skill set does the Chief of Staff to a Chief Legal Officer of a major international corporation need? How do you build trust with a CLO? Cultivate the right culture within a large legal and compliance team. Today on The Abstract, I am joined by Zoe McMahon, VP of Legal Strategy and Operations and Chief of Staff to the Chief Legal Officer at HP Inc. HP, which I think many of you have heard of before, manufacturers, personal computers, printers, 3D printers, a variety of other technologies. And it is the second largest manufacturer of PCs in the world still. Zoe has been in HP for 30 years.
00:01:18
Speaker
where she's held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility, which we'll talk about, including acting as HP's head of trust and privacy for eight years. She also spent a number of years working on social and environmental responsibility, including leading HP's global human rights office. She's a certified life coach. And interestingly, ah you hold a doctorate in environmental technology. That's a lot. but What a career. Zoe, thank you for joining me today in person here at Legal Operators Summit by the Sea in La Jolla. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. It certainly reads like a fascinating story. yeah Well, let's get into it. This is a pretty beautiful place to record a podcast. You started your career working on environmental issues. What got you interested in working on or around the environment?
Integrating Environmental Responsibility in Corporate Roles
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, i I think I was about 16 and I don't remember the exact moment, but at some point I had this in my mind that at some point in my future, I wanted to be in a position of some authority to make a decision about whether the company would be impacting the environment or not so much. And so I was like, I just want to find my way on the inside. I don't want to be an NGO. I don't want to be a government. I want to work on the inside in government, in business.
00:02:42
Speaker
making a difference to the planet essentially and so I embarked on a first degree in environmental engineering and then as you said I did a doctorate after that and HP sponsored my doctorate and then and I've been there ever since 30 years so but yeah passion for the environment was where it all started for sure.
00:03:00
Speaker
was working on environmental issues in a corporation, sort of in a merging field at the time. And did did it merge around you as as you were building your career in this space? I mean, usually what happens here, right, is there's a lot of sort of activists and NGOs like you're referencing, and then policymakers get involved, and then companies realize like, hey, we might actually need to deal with this because regulations are affecting our day-to-day business operations.
00:03:25
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I was right at the beginning of that. Actually, I was one of the first students in the environmental engineering degree program that I did. And in the doctorate program, they were both really new at the time. um And then I was, I think, the first person in HP in the UK, at least, to be hired with an environmental background.
00:03:45
Speaker
prior to that, people had just kind of inherited a little bit of the job, like on the side. And so yeah, I think at the time, HP was sort of looking at, you know, yeah, we can see this thing coming and hard made to work on these issues, which were definitely new at the time. And that was so So it was good, it was I love building new things, so it was exciting. That's kind of an interesting mindset to have, something that I've done too, and I think we can talk about this when we talk about privacy in your work there, which is maybe the best place to be is in the company, as opposed to sort of outside advocating or outside
Driving Change Through Internal Company Roles
00:04:18
Speaker
reporting on it. I mean, and talk talk to us a little bit about that and how you reached that conclusion relatively early on in your education, it sounds like. Yeah, it was always part of my vision was to drive change from within. I'm i'm not sure where it came from, but it was definitely a conviction that I felt like you could really influence decision makers if you were kind of embedded with them. Right. um as opposed to complaining or creating like that tension. um I think there's some places for everyone in this game, but the game I wanted to be in was on the inside and really really driving change and making a difference. and yeah I guess I just figured that was the way that I could be the most useful on the topic. so yeah Yeah, it was early. And mean we could do a whole podcast on this sort of like supply chain issues, human rights work that you've done and and did for HP. But tell me a little about resourcing to to lead on that. Like, is that challenging to do? How did you get the sort of executive buy in that you needed? And then did you have to sort of show the end result? Like, look, we're going to get this good press if we do this. Or how does that happen in ah in a large organization?
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I think HP has had such a long history of an an attitude of responsibility or corporate citizenship, it was called for a long time. And so I feel rather blessed to have worked with executives who cared about the issues, right? and who who didn't need much convincing right to to invest in doing the right thing. So um perhaps I was fortunate in in that way. yeah um But in the supply chain issue, certainly um the key, I think, to resourcing change in environmental and social responsibility was really to embed
00:06:03
Speaker
the process of of the work right where it happens. So for example, having ah an ethical sourcing team or responsible sourcing team that sits on the side is one thing and it has to be resourced. But if you can embed with the procurement people who are working directly with the suppliers some accountability, you don't have to resource so much, you just integrate it into what they were doing. And so I found that in environmental and in human rights and in privacy, that The real wins can come the deeper you can integrate responsibility for the topic into other people's jobs.
Transitioning to Privacy and Diverse Skill Sets
00:06:39
Speaker
Is that just accountability or is that like a culture shift or a mindset shift? I mean, I've got a lot of experience, say, working with product managers and how they're using data around privacy. I always tried to think about it less from an enforcement perspective and more from that if you believe in this and we agree that this is the philosophy and this is the sort of long term ambition that the business has. These are the decisions that we should make. Yeah. How do how do you think about that interplay?
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, so I think it was, you know, we talked often in the early days of environmental of combining two things a kind of business case and more of an emotional case of being the right thing to do. And depending on who you were talking to one, you know, the person would kind of either lean to more towards the business motive or the the kind of but right to do thing motive. And so knowing what was going to motivate the person was really how I i always roll. And I think there's a broader aspect to that, which is if you're talking to marketing people, you know how to market, you know how to motivate marketing people, right? If you're talking to procurement people, it's to lower your spend costs. if it's If you're talking to, you know, sales, it's another different thing. So I always just basically translated my agenda, no matter what change I was trying to drive into the sort of dictionary and the culture of the team that I was working with. And I think that's a very effective way to drive
00:08:00
Speaker
behavioral change in organizations, no matter what you're talking about. What was it that led you into privacy? like Was privacy super interesting at the time? Was that an emerging field too? No, well, maybe, but I don't think that's how it happened for me. um You know, at the time I was leading HP's Human Rights Office. And so I'd been exposed to some really interesting dilemmas around the intersection between technology and society and people's rights.
00:08:28
Speaker
and Obviously, privacy is kind of part of that and data protection is very tied to freedom various rights and freedoms. and so i I was aware of it on the side, the Chief Privacy Officer was my peer. and um I think I was just looking for my next career move and it looked kind of curious. and oh I raised my hand and I said, if ever there's a chance, I'm curious about that thing over there. and Six months later, HPE separated into two companies and they said, do you want the privacy thing? and I'm like, sure.
00:08:56
Speaker
ah Zero background, um apart from a background in leadership and clients, but zero subject matter expertise. Went in as the CPO with no privacy background, so that was fun. that's we have We have a lot in common. When I took on my first privacy job, i had a lot of but I had some public policy experience. I don't want to overstate it, but I had no experience in privacy. Neither of us have a law degree either.
00:09:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm curious if you've ever had challenges building credibility, given your background, given the lack of a JD. I think it's great that people can thrive in legal and legal adjacent professions and areas like privacy without a JD. That's one of the big things we talk about
The Importance of Transferable Skills and Embracing Change
00:09:39
Speaker
on this podcast. But I'm curious what your experience was like.
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah, you know, for me it was normal at the time when you know I view privacy and data protection essentially as a compliance function. I might call it something like that. And the job of that function is to take the law, which presumably someone else understands, right? Yeah, understand it, but then translate it into process and compliance and governance and education. And so that translation process for me is the most interesting part. And that's not a law degree thing. That's a business operational thing. It's a process issue. um And so and a change management issue. And so I never felt disadvantaged or or different yeah because to me, the task wasn't lawyer work, right? It was it was something different. I think now in my role as chief of staff within the legal department, you know we have now about 65% of the legal department are legal professionals that are not attorneys. Interesting. And and so I have a ah deeper appreciation now for that. And I do think there is some challenges sometimes in in whether you know those legal professionals feel like they belong in a legal department. it's right I would say it's still a little bit of a challenge. but um So I try to be a role model and and remind them that you know there's all kinds of experiences needed to run a department, yeah data analysts, project managers, compliance professionals, paralegals, all of the above, and lawyers as well, to to effectively advise the business and run compliance. So I didn't feel disadvantaged myself, but I try to be a role model to ensure that other people don't either. right yeah
00:11:26
Speaker
And we are at a legal operations, legal operators summit. What do you think folks without babies sort of bring to the table on a legal team? And I'm curious how you think about hiring for or resourcing a legal team because you've seen legal teams sort of like build out and grow up and go through transitions and have GCs who come in who have different perspectives. We'll talk about that too. um What do you think that different folks bring to the bring to the table?
00:11:54
Speaker
I mean, I feel like there's so many answers to that. like yeah and Almost as many answers as there are people. you know everybody's Everybody's just got a different experience, different background, and they've chosen to maybe focus in on analytical skills or or project management skills, like I said. And so I i see legal, and and in fact, any department, but since I'm in legal, we'll talk about legal. Yeah. I see legal like a big machine and it consists of lots of different parts that need to flow together. And only some of those parts need lawyers to flow, right? And then there are other parts driving change, driving projects, driving analysis, whatever.
00:12:33
Speaker
And so all of those different people bring such amazing skill sets to the machine. And the machine doesn't work. Public policy analyst, your policy background. yep you know You don't need lawyers to to do policy advocacy. You can. I mean, it's OK. But the machine works really well when it has a big diversity of professional skills in it, and in my opinion. You've worked in a lot of these high growth. When I say high growth, I mean the field is high growth. I mean great personal growth to areas in environmental ESG, supply chain, privacy and trust. I think one of the interesting things about your career trajectory and and experience
00:13:13
Speaker
is that you haven't stayed in one. And I wanna ask you about that, right? like Have you ever worried or felt like, oh no, I'm like leaving this thing behind, say like right as I'm getting good at it, or privacy's about to blow up and now everybody wants to talk to me, but I've decided I wanna go off and do something different. like Talk to me about prioritizing, say, like curiosity over, I don't know, sticking with something that you're starting to get really good at.
00:13:41
Speaker
yeah yeah i mean i Which I admire, by the way, which I like. and i think that yeah i I think that a lot of people should have careers that are like that. I actually feel like I stuck around in some topics a fairly long time. my average yeah My average career change is about seven years, which these days is pretty long. That's true, actually. ah yeah People jump from company to company every two or three years. i don't think There does come a time where
Role and Responsibilities as Chief of Staff to HP's CLO
00:14:06
Speaker
I feel like, yeah, it's time to time to do something a bit different. And I've always loved being at the beginning right of something, as you said. So I was right at the beginning of the environmental movement. And then in ethical sourcing, it was pretty early days. In that privacy, early days. you know and
00:14:26
Speaker
I don't think I'm early days in legal operations, but there's some aspects to to that. So i I like solving problems. I like big challenges. I like making things bigger. And and for something to be growing bigger, that it tends to be at the beginning, right? and so and that scale moment of like building something new and and that excites me. um And I think I often say that I've got a sick fascination with long-term change. So I love planting the seeds at the beginning and then like five years later going, it's happening now. right
00:14:59
Speaker
So I've really enjoyed seeing organizational change over time and culture change on these big issues. It's been super fascinating. So I've never looked back. I've never regretted to change. I know your question was about, you know, I got that credibility, but then did I ever regret that or or feel like I was losing expertise or something? No, I've always really leaned on transferable skills across these roles. Right.
00:15:24
Speaker
right, not domain expertise. yeah And I would give that advice to anybody watching, like you can change, but sell yourself on those transferable skills, your leadership, your team management, your process management. And at the end of the day, a lot of jobs are kind of similar at the high level. And so, yeah, people shouldn't feel limited by their their past roles, in my opinion. I think it's great advice. i mean I worked for a GC at one point who said, you know I'd love to help take this company public, but then if I let us through an IPO with the CFO and et cetera, right? My first thought wouldn't be, how can I go find another company to take public? I would think to myself, I've done that, right? Likewise, if someone came along and said, we only want to hire you because you've taken that company public, you'd think like, well, that's not like, it' I'm not like a one-trick pony, right? Right. The same skills that I applied in that situation I can apply in a lot of others. I think that's great advice. Yeah, I think there's an interesting tension sometimes when leaders are hiring. they The tendency is to look for someone who's already done the job. And that isn't always the right answer.
00:16:32
Speaker
Yes. Right? um Because it doesn't allow for the kind of thing that I did, which is completely changed in the middle, right? And so if they wanted to achieve privacy, obviously, that knew what they were doing, I was the right person. But turns out, it worked out quite well. So sometimes giving people a break, you know, like that is the best thing to do.
00:16:51
Speaker
And you might see problems from a slightly different perspective because you haven't been sort of like in all the nuances of it for 15 years or 25 years. or yeah I think that's an undervalued, I don't know if it's a skill set, right? But like it's an undervalued perspective that people bring to bear when they might be looking at something with slightly fresh eyes. Yeah, totally. and's so you have to In hiring someone different like that, you're taking on a maybe three to six months knowledge ram, sure but you're benefiting from a bunch of other skills and strengths and perspectives that you might not otherwise have got.
00:17:29
Speaker
HP brought on a new chief legal officer about a year and a half ago, and you took on a role as her chief of staff. Can you tell us what that role entails? Yeah, I mean, um you know, everybody's chief of staff is a little bit of a different flavor depending on the leader. um so But in my case, you know a lot of my emphasis is around communications for her as an executive as well as facilitating her team management and her ah internal all-employee meetings and um team effectiveness. I drive culture programs at HP for Legal, engagement employee engagement and development.
00:18:10
Speaker
and um And then I also manage our legal operations team, which includes our budget and technology strategy and other things. And so it's a blended job across many different skill sets that, again, build on the things I did in the past, perhaps not in an obvious way. But I think it was kind of intuitive. But yeah, so it's a broad ranging job. I summarize it as helping our legal department with engagement, efficiency, and effectiveness.
00:18:42
Speaker
We're going to take a quick break and we'll be back in just a minute.
00:18:48
Speaker
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Building Trust and Authentic Relationships at Work
00:19:34
Speaker
um Before the break, we were talking about taking on this new role as chief of staff to your CLO, Julie Jacobs. When Julie joined, you took on this role as chief of staff to her. I would think that to be effective in that role, you would really need her trust. It's not necessarily easy when you have an executive coming in and they're scaling up in the business and then, you know, you need to build trust with them. Talk to me a little bit about how you've built that with her. Yeah, I mean, it's right. She was coming in from the outside into a new role as our CLO. And um although I was in the legal department at the time, I was the head of trust and privacy then, um I was ready for a change. And so, you know, I raised my hand to her and
00:20:22
Speaker
It became more obvious that it would be a good match because I'd been at the company for 28 years. I'd been in the legal department for 12 years. so I had some credibility and I had some network that I could utilize in serving her. But in some ways it was a leap of faith. I mean, she yeah she didn't know me. and so the I think one of the other reasons maybe the trust was established quickly is I ah kind of showed her right from day one that I was there for her.
00:20:50
Speaker
for know and I literally said that to her and the first day I met her. I'm like, you know I'm not your problem. I'm here to support you. you know ah In any way you want, like let's go. you know so and i i think Actually, I have a mantra and I might have even started then, but I try to say to people, I hope this is the i want this to be the easiest meeting you've had all day.
00:21:11
Speaker
I like that. Yeah. And I think I might have said that to her that day too. Like you've had a whole day meeting your new staff yeah on this one to be the easiest one. And I think that established a kind of sense of like, okay, this is safe. This is someone who's not, you know, self obsessed or self oriented or selfish, right? i'm I'm here for her. And I think that's what helped.
00:21:35
Speaker
I mean, another side of that is to be an effective chief of staff. I think you need to be seen as a sort of honest broker and you need the trust of the rest of the team as well. You can't just be sort of a person who's executing on everything the boss is saying, right? Talk about how you've maintained, I guess, the trust that you built over 28 years at HP before taking on this role.
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I pride myself in being very relationship oriented. And so I think that's key to this role in chief of staff is to really focus on building and maintaining relationships at every level of the organization.
00:22:15
Speaker
Though, you know, among Julie's leadership team, that's really important. but But also not just them, also, you know, influences in the organization, ah all members of staff in the organization. And one of the things I like to think about is engagement as a process, not an outcome.
00:22:35
Speaker
right So we often talk about employee engagement or engagement of teams and as though engagement is the outcome. But engagement is a process, it's a continued process of interaction, listening, communicating. And I think that's how I maintain that trust over time is just continually listening, continually being relationship-oriented and also saying that thing of like making this the easiest thing they've had all day. I think that helps too, right? Yeah, um I like that. Yeah, like an ENPS score is not really it's that's not the driver necessarily, right? It's you think that employee engagement is something that you have to sort of cultivate over time. And then the benefit is not the score. or The benefit is like the business is running really well, and the teams are happy and the people are doing great productive work. Yeah. And it requires you to engage. Right. That's the thing. yeah It's not it's not like let's do all this abstract stuff to drive engagement. Engagement is engaging. Yeah. Right. And that's what I mean by it being a process. So really working with people, listening, engaging. Right. That's how we maintain relationships in the work. And I'm a passionate believer in work depending on meaningful relationships.
00:23:49
Speaker
And so, yeah, i that's like a huge obsession of mine. So I think that helps. Yeah. Meaningful relationships at work. One of the things that we heard about today here at the conference is this sort of idea of untold stories that people may have a variety of sort of stories in their lives or ah parts of their lives that are not showing up at work or that they actually may be sort of hiding. They may be putting on a little bit of a veneer, right, when they when they come to work. And I understand how, from time to time, right, like, you don't need to bring all of yourself to work all the time, right? But I do think that it's, I like the talk that we heard, and I do think that it's nice to think about how we might actually tell some of these untold stories to our coworkers so we have real relationships like you're talking about. With that in mind, what do people what do people not know about you?
00:24:44
Speaker
For someone that has been at the company for 30 years, I'm a VP, I'm an executive, I'm successful, but I'm human, right? And I think you know we all have, or I'm going to speculate that many of us have self-doubt at times or nervousness about situations. um And I'll give you an example for me that's very real right now. I care a lot about mindfulness practice, and I think it's a little bit missing in the workplace, sort of recognizing, yeah, just a little bit of calm. But to actually speak up and say that sure to people at work without them going, are you crazy?
00:25:25
Speaker
yeah You know, there's a little bit of like trepidation about it. um But you know, I have seen by and experimenting a little bit by being brave and sort of dropping it in from time to time, like I've seen people respond. but Oh, yeah, I like that, too. And I think sometimes when when people are brave and they bring props and aspect that they care about into workplace, ah it liberates other people to do the same thing, as you were just saying in this untold stories case. And I think that's a really good thing to bring our humanity.
00:25:55
Speaker
Yes. and And particularly if we can like be more respectful, more gracious to each other, bring ease. There is so much stress in a legal department. ah you know As we've heard at this conference, the demand for legal work is growing, the budgets are shrinking, yeah there's not enough bodies you can throw at the problem.
00:26:16
Speaker
So along with efficiencies and and skills and technology to drive those improvements, we have to have some corresponding empathy for each
Breaking Down Silos for Legal Team Collaboration
00:26:26
Speaker
other as well. sure So I think like if we can all just take it down a notch and be nice to each other, i' I'm a big proponent of that. And maybe some might think it's a bit Pollyanna, but and that's my that's my story to bring. so Are there ways? I would imagine even well before this conference, you've been trying to do this or build this sort of culture at HP, even before this role, probably. boy Are there ways that you try to sort of like coax those stories out of others or out of people who are reporting into you or working on your teams so they feel a little more comfortable at work?
00:27:03
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I would say I am an authentic leader that's not shy about telling my stories. um But I think in terms of coaxing it out of other people, that's a lot about asking questions. yeah Not nosy questions, but curious questions, simple questions like, how are you? ah Simple things like that, which just taking a few minutes to check in.
00:27:31
Speaker
you you can learn a lot about a frame of mind that is someone's coming to a situation with. And so, yeah, I definitely encourage those kinds of check-ins. And I do that in both, yeah, management context, but also in inspiring other leaders and you know as we work as a leadership team as well. So I try to do my part both as a fellow leader and also as a leader of people.
00:27:59
Speaker
yeah Last substantive question for you before we get to a few fun ones. When you think about the culture of HP's legal org, which you've been a part of for many years, what are you most proud of? And maybe in this role, what are you most looking forward to working on or building? I think in this role I've had for the last sort of almost two years working with Julie, I think the thing that I'm most proud of is really helping her create the vision that she has for the team which is around really supporting the company's vision and strategy. Julie is incredibly business focused, it's very inspiring and I think bringing the team along
00:28:45
Speaker
with her priorities on that and constantly communicating about it. has' been I'm just really proud that the team has embraced her style and vision around that. So that's been really fun. I think where we're where we're still focused um and it's it's it's ah it's something we have to cultivate on an ongoing basis is just our collaboration as a team, showing up as one team, avoiding things like advice shopping from the business.
00:29:14
Speaker
That happens. No. yeah So a little bit of that, and really just you know developing the kind of culture where we're all those silos are broken down among the different parts of legal, that we rely on each other, that we trust each other, that we're a high-performing team in a large organization. This doesn't happen by accident. yeah And so i'm ah I'm excited about continuing to work on that.
00:29:37
Speaker
part of it. you know If you think about what we've heard today about the demand on the legal department versus the resources of the legal department, the advancements in technology, but we can't throw and you know too many people at the problem, as well as all the things that we're doing to drive efficiency and technology adoption, I think we've got to work in parallel on being together as people and having the culture and the teamwork, because that's what's going to help in the end right with and these difficult times. so um that That excites me to complement the transformation that we're all going through in the industry with the people part of it. I love that what is most exciting to you is a real challenge, not a this one thing that we're going to do for the next three months and then it'll have a shiny bow on it. Yeah. That's great. i Like I said before, I i kind of have a sick fascination with long-term change and so I'm all in.
00:30:28
Speaker
Okay, some fun questions for you now, Zoe. Your favorite part of your day today? i I love driving effective communications. I think communication is so important to alignment as a team and inspiring around a vision. And so a big part of my job is enabling the communications across the legal department. And um i love I love working on that. So that's that's the fun part.
00:30:56
Speaker
but How about a professional pet peeve? Yeah, you know, it's it's probably says more of my my weaknesses than than anything else. But um the one thing that really frustrates me is kind of people pushing work around. So sort of email chains where if somebody on the way had just read further down, you know, it could have ended three sessions ago kind of thing. So I prefer I like like it when people really dig in. take accountability, drive something forward. If they're going to touch it, try to finish it. man well that she to yeah As opposed to like, oh, it's not me, I'll pass it on. So yeah, accountability and also kind of slowing down to go faster. I think we're we've all got so many things flowing through our email box and it's sort of related to the same thing. Like don't just go fast, look at it, go deep. Think about it. Go slow. Solve it. And then move it on. So yeah, slow down to go faster and take accountability. I like that. I like to ask our guests if they have a book recommendation for our audience. I also take a lot of these on airplanes with me and read them. And I'm always looking for good books to read. This could be something you've read recently or something that was really important to you in your career. yeah or Just a good book.
00:32:13
Speaker
There are two books that I find myself recommending all the time. One is a book called Principles by Ray Dalio. Oh, yes. I've read that one. Now, it's not a beach read. It's more of a reference text. But I do find that just the principles approach and some of the insights that he's generated just super fascinating. So again, it's not a novel or anything. But it's one I recommend a lot. And it's where the ideas of meaningful relationships kind of came from for me.
00:32:42
Speaker
Another one that I think people forget about, it's the first 90 days. okay um It's by something like Michael or David Watkins, something like that. We'll find it for the show notes. I don't even remember exactly, but it's about transitions. So like you take a new job or your your boss changes. Typically, when people think about their first 90 days, it's when they're first taking on a job and they're trying to like navigate that first period. But what this book does is it reminds you that transitions are happening all the time.
00:33:14
Speaker
So like, you could have a new team member, you could have a new boss, the company direction could change. Anytime there's a tradition transition like that, it's time to kind of hit the reset button and apply a little bit of methodological thinking around, all right, we're back in.
00:33:30
Speaker
I'm kind of back in the first 90 days again and that's the time to reset expectations with those around you and communication patterns. and So i like I like that book and I think it helps people navigate those transitions, be it a new job or a new boss or or something like that. So that's another one that always trips off my tongue as well. I just don't know who wrote it. That's her reason.
00:33:49
Speaker
We will find that yeah for the audience. and That's a really interesting approach. i can i can think i I'm already thinking about ways that I might be able to apply that in my day-to-day. Okay, last question for you, my sort of traditional closing question for my guests.
00:34:06
Speaker
um You'll have to ask the other guests once you've heard it. it's If you could look back on your early days, maybe at HP, just getting started, something that you know now, that you wish that you'd known back then. Yeah, I think and I've talked a lot about relationships today. And I think it's very much who I am. I don't know if that was always true. So I would say looking back at the very early Zoe at 30 years ago in HP. ha
00:34:37
Speaker
I can't believe it's been that long. But um I would probably just say that relationships matter. you know Behind every decision is a person, behind you know every problem is a person. and So navigating the good times and the bad in companies is all about your relationships with other people. and I don't know if I fully knew that when I started. So i would my wiser older self would but tell me to focus on relationships.
00:35:04
Speaker
Great answer. We'll fit well in with all the other ones over the episodes. Zoe, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of The Abstract here in La Jolla at the Legal Operators Summit by the Sea. yeah You're very welcome. It was it was fun chatting and I hope that we just get something useful out of my little career journey.
00:35:26
Speaker
I'm sure they will. yeah And to all of our listeners, thanks so much for tuning in into this episode and we hope to see you next time.