Highly Agile Team Training: It’s A Jungle Out There

What happens when in-house lawyers are forced to participate in seemingly pointless team training sessions?

As much as I bemoan the inevitable spring arrival of our fresh-faced consultants (shameless plug: check out “Baby-Birds: A Care and Feeding Guide for In-House Counsel”), I can usually find a way to insulate myself from their never-ending fountain of theoretical opportunities for efficiency. What I can’t seem to duck is the quasi-mandatory trainings with outside consultants. You know the ones I’m talking about, the perky Stepford types who come armed with their seasoned smiles, personality quizzes, and pop-psychology theories that are targeted at making you a better version of your corporate self.

Since my company apparently signed up for one of those “consultants of the month” clubs and hasn’t figured out to how to quit yet, I’ve been subjected to quite a few of these. To date, I’m a blue INTJ eagle with reformer and Ravenclaw tendencies who is best suited to being a lawyer, reality television producer, or honey badger patronus. Thank goodness, I paid attention on career day in high school. I just don’t have the stomach for 90 Day Fiancé.

These days, I apparently also don’t have much of a stomach for consultants peddling what I can only describe as the “it’s so obvious, I can’t believe we’re paying good money for this” method.

Enter Highly Agile Team training. Allow me to summarize the three tenets of this method which will purportedly make you better suited to be a part of such a team.

Point one: Show up on time to meetings. End the damned things on time.

Point two: Set an agenda for said meetings. Send out the damned thing in advance of meeting so people have time to read it.

Point three: Be honest, open, and truthful (or, to use one of my new favorite, not at all an HR issue, acronyms — H.O.T. Yeah, that’s right. Go forth and be H.O.T.)

Sponsored

There, I just saved you half a million dollars in consulting fees.

Here’s the jaw-dropping part (okay, I grant you that the price tag is pretty jaw dropping in itself, but wait, there’s more): the business lapped this up like they’d never heard of such radical, outlandish behavior. Imagine, being punctual and prepared for a meeting, and saying what you mean instead of saying one thing at the meeting and dissecting it like an episode of Thrones the minute the meeting is over. What novelty! We could change the world! Or as I like to think of it, we could all be attorneys!

Seriously, I sat there watching my internal team members scribbling notes in their H.O.T.-branded notepads and gazing up at the consultants like they’d just cracked the code for calorie-free pizza. I started to wonder if maybe I’d grown too hard, too cynical, too unwilling to appreciate fresh perspective when it was offered.

And then the consultant wrote asses on the white board instead of assesses. So, no then.

I will say this for Arthur, consultant extraordinaire and purveyor of Highly Agile Team training and all things H.O.T., he could read the crowd well enough to know there were more than a few doubtful faces (thank you Quality and Safety VP). It didn’t take him long, but Arthur eventually narrowed his consultant’s gaze on me, taking on his most professorial tone.

Sponsored

“You read skeptical to me,” he says. “Crossed arms and closed off posture are body language symptoms indicating I don’t have your full buy-in.”

Instead of pointing out that body language symptoms make it sound like I have the fever and chills and in dire need of a decongestant, I offer Arthur a broad smile. “Oh no,” I say breezily, “I’m really enjoying this session. I just should have brought a cardigan with me.”

He eyes me, debating whether to move on and let it go or try and use me as some sort of shame-based teaching moment. He goes for the latter.

“So, Kay,” he says, squinting at my name placard, “how would you assess your H.O.T. behaviors? On a scale of one to 10.”

“I’m a solid eight, Arthur.” I know, I know. I’m a total 10 and so are you, dear reader. At least when compared with my seatmate, Andy from Sales, who I’m pretty sure hasn’t been able to find an open and honest conversation with two hands and a flashlight since the Reagan administration. But I don’t want to invite Arthur to pick on me further. We’re paying this guy by the hour.

“Pretty confident in your assessment, Kay.”

“She’s definitely an eight,” pipes up Randy from R&D. Thanks, buddy. I’ve never been so thankful to be described as an eight in my life.

“She’s the lawyer,” Jim from Finance adds.

Sensing a fellow bullshit artist, Arthur withdraws and declines to make eye contact with me for the remainder of the morning session. Smart move, Art. Smart move.

Once we’ve all had a turn assessing our H.O.T. behaviors (and that’s assess, friends, not asses), we move on to the part of training that everyone loathes — role playing. I brace myself as Arthur dutifully proceeds to move small teams through conflict-resolution role scenarios that are frankly as pleasurable as a root canal when the anesthesia has worn off.

Still, I learn a few things from watching my fellow business partners struggle. This is tough stuff for them. They don’t want to be blunt. They don’t want to have the difficult conversations. They don’t want to be perceived as anything other than amiable team players. And that’s where we add value. We’re not afraid of conflict — conflict and resolution is what we do best. We know that when two parties are motivated enough, there’s always a path forward, even if it means cutting our way through a jungle of barbs and ankle-turning twists to find it.

Hours later and sick to death of role playing, we reach the pinnacle of our H.O.T.ness. We use our newly acquired skills to look inward and decide … what animal would I be in the corporate jungle? Seriously, I’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment, since as you regular readers know, I love to wax poetic in these columns as to my trials and tribulations in the in-house jungle.

My business partners pick solid, if predictable picks: Lions (courageous leaders), cheetahs (fast and agile), and monkeys (fun and clever). Bless the Quality and Safety VP who deadpans that he’s the baboon from The Lion King, a little wild-haired and crazy, but generally in the right.

Warily, Arthur turns to me. “What about you, Kay?”

“I’m an African honey bee,” I say sweetly.

“A honey bee?” He doesn’t want to ask, but he just can’t help himself. “Please elaborate.”

“I’m a hard-working team player with just a bit of a sting when needed.” Actually, what I really want to do is have my watershed Network moment here and tell him I’m the one-eyed crocodile you never see coming, rising from the murk to rid the corporate watering hole of the weak all in the name of keeping the company herd strong. I don’t say this, mind you, because I like my job and it’s easier to do my job if my business people think I’m a nice person. Or at least a useful person who can help them navigate their way out of the jungle to yes.

I do get at least one other unexpected joy out of this particular training. I get to decide what jungle animal Arthur (and others of his ilk) would be. After much deliberation, I settle on the majestic capybara. Not because I have any idea what their function is in the jungle, but because they are the largest of the rodent species.


Kay Thrace (not her real name) is a harried in-house counsel at a well-known company that everyone loves to hate. When not scuffing dirt on the sacrosanct line between business and the law, Kay enjoys pub trivia domination and eradicating incorrect usage of the Oxford comma. You can contact her by email at KayThraceATL@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @KayThrace.