How do you approach legal innovation? This is the question we asked in a recent Crafty Counsel community meet-up.
Embracing a growth mindset for legal innovation
Lani Beer, Innovator at King & Wood Mallesons, says for her it is important to always ask “How might we do things differently?” For her the key to innovation is not only having the right tools and frameworks, but also the right mindset.
Lani’s thoughts are backed up by the research done by American psychologist Carol Dweck decades ago. Dweck coined the phrase “growth mindset” which stands in contrast to “fixed mindset”.
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Growth mindset is the belief everything can be learned and that the brain is far more malleable than people may think it is. People who have a growth mindset see mistakes as an opportunity to learn and their own mindset as a muscle to exercise. Whereas a fixed mindset is the belief that what you can learn is finite and in a sense pre-determined.
An example of a fixed mindset is the idea that “I am bad at this. I will give up to do something I am good at.” In contrast, someone with a growth mindset would say “I am struggling with this, but with practice I will get better.”
Embracing a growth mindset means people are more likely to persevere even when things are difficult. The underlying belief of a growth mindset is that with enough persistence you can learn anything. People with a fixed mindset are more likely to give up. Embracing a growth mindset means people are less likely to fear failing as mistakes are part of the learning process.
Let go of failure and have fun with legal innovation
For Arno Gloeckner, Assistant General Counsel – Global Contracts SPX Flow, it is important to let go of fear of failure. When you come up with something new, don’t be afraid of looking silly, as this blocks creativity.
For him the key to innovation is having fun.
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Legal design specialist, Stefania Passera, teaches others new and innovative ways of doing things. She finds herself approaching things in her own life in quite a traditional way and feels there is more scope to leverage newer legal design tools. “I’m not using a lot of tech in my work,” she says.
For 10 years or so I’ve always been trying to help other people innovate. So it’s difficult for me to know if I am being innovative, or how I’m doing things in an innovative way. I almost feel that I’m doing things in a very traditional way
Stefania Passera
Using constraints creatively
Denis Potemkin, founder of Majoto, says constraints can help to get people to think in innovative ways. For him this happened when he worked in Italy with colleagues who spoke English as a second language.
After finding that Microsoft Word and emails were not the most effective way to communicate, he embraced spreadsheets and PointPoint. Making use of visuals to communicate more effectively with his colleagues.
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Denis also shared that to unblock creativity and go back to the big picture, he finds getting away from his desk and a change of activity – especially exercise outdoors – as the most effective.
Some community members also shared that they found using the PechaKucha method for team events. Designed by Japanese architects in 2003, PechaKucha is about using visuals to tell your story in a structured way.
Participants chose 20 images which flash on a screen for 20 seconds and participants tell that part of the story. This means that each participant gets 400 seconds to tell their story.
At Crafty Counsel one of the latest tools we’ve embraced is Miro – a nifty interactive online white board. Brainstorm session are committed to Miro, and many more creative collaborations on the way. We love ourselves a good Miro session.
We would love to know the ways in which you have been innovative.