Every employee wants to add value to their team and organization. This value adds momentum to your career, as your colleagues and leadership realize you have essential skills that can improve their own work as well.
Here’s how to improve your value-adding efforts in order to build stronger relationships with your co-workers, leadership, and clients.
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Understand How Your Work Affects the Big Picture
At times, it can be difficult to understand how a task affects the overall outcome of a case or legal issue. For instance, a long day of research or of examining legal citations can begin to feel like busywork, rather than hard-hitting legal achievement.
To improve your value, improve your perspective. Step back for a moment and consider the end goal of the project. Examine how the work at hand improves that end result, and look for ways to gain greater impact on the result. When in doubt, talk to your manager or co-workers for more information on how all the pieces lead to success.
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Take the Client’s Perspective
Since law firms and legal departments seek to solve problems for clients, taking a moment to examine the situation from the client’s perspective can be invaluable. What problem does the client have? What would success look like? Which results would be harmful, catastrophic or unacceptable to this client?
When you view the problem from the client’s perspective, you may see opportunities to add value, such as by performing certain tasks more efficiently or addressing a particular problem in a novel way. By spotting these opportunities, you can advance a client’s position while also demonstrating your own value to your team and employer.
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Build a Strong Support Team
While many professionals want to be seen as individual superstars, most success relies on the strength of a team. Whether it means finding a mentor, building your network, or connecting with a recruiter, a strong support team can help you find ways to add and demonstrate value on the job.
Find Top Talent!
At Kent Legal, our recruiters help legal support professionals find the right fit with law firms and legal departments within the greater Toronto area. For help in taking your next career step, contact us today.