O Shaped Story

On 6th February 2014, everything changed. 

My wife Sandra and I had our first child, Oliver.

Oliver was born with a critical pulmonary stenosis, a heart condition that required urgent surgery. The operation took place at Great Ormond Street Hospital when he was four days old.

After the operation, the surgeon sat down with us. He explained the procedure and the prognosis. He was clear in his explanation and empathetic in his approach, appreciating and understanding our distress.

He finished by apologising that he had to leave because he needed to undertake precisely the same life saving operation on a new-born baby in the intensive care bed adjacent to Oliver’s. He was, and remains, my hero. He not only saved Oliver’s life, but also Sandra and mine and we have since gone on to have Niamh in 2017.

When the immediate trauma passed, I reflected on the experience and thought about the contribution I was making in the work I did. I was a Senior Legal Counsel at Network Rail and worked hard, but the work I did had very little impact on anyone. Nobody really cared. I knew then that I needed to do something to make a difference, I just didn’t know what that was.

I took a year out from the legal team and worked in Network Rail’s commercial function. I quickly saw a disconnect between the work of the lawyers and the objectives of the business. This disconnect wasn’t caused by a lack of quality or competence from a group of talented and capable lawyers, but a mutual misunderstanding of what each other was trying to achieve.

When I returned to lead the legal function, I set out my approach of ‘people first, then lawyers’ to create a much more human and personable way of engaging with our business colleagues.

I wanted us to leave our lawyer ‘label’ at the door and build trusted relationships with people across the organisation. I wanted us to understand their worlds and gain a better appreciation for the risks they were dealing with each day and the worries that kept them awake at night. I wanted us to walk in their shoes.

Over time, this approach led to a highly engaged team who were on the same side as our colleagues around the business. We were involved much earlier in decision-making and were part of helping leaders across the business achieve their strategic objectives.

My recruitment approach was all about mindset – ‘hire for attitude and train for skill’. It struck me how many people I met who used the interview as an opportunity to demonstrate their technical excellence, but not to share more about themselves, their motivations or how they could bring a positive influence to the team and better business outcomes for the company.