In-House Counsel

Game Of Moans: Put The Burden Of Prioritizing Back On Your Business

Oh my god, the pissing and moaning that ensues when you ask a business partner to prioritize something is epic. 

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(Image via Getty)

We lost another member of the Legal team this month, bringing the total to the double digits over the past year. I think we’re actually on track to outpace the Trump administration in terms of attrition, which frankly, is a little horrifying. And because it’s June and HR has disappeared like panties at a Jonas Brothers concert, we’re short a few bodies for the foreseeable future.

As you can imagine, our business partners have taken this reduction in our numbers in stride and have graciously added additional time to their projects and initiatives they want to complete before July 4th. And if you believe that, then I would like to come work with you. In fantasy land. Where we ride unicorns to work.

It’s bad. Like telenovela bad. Like, I might launch a stiletto at the head of the next business partner who swans into my office and offers me extreme side eye or heaves a dramatic sigh when I explain we’re moving as fast as we can. Luckily, my new boss (who I plan to dedicate a future column to and call it, “My Time Working for Someone who Makes Hannibal Lecter Look Like a Rank Amateur”) has insisted that we implement this new process to set the business back on its heels and buy us some breathing room. And even though I generally find my new boss to be more interested in being right (and scary) than being helpful, I think she’s onto something with this one.

In all its simplistic, fiendish glory, it goes something like this:

Stop trying to guess where your partners’ priorities are. This is busywork that’s ultimately pointless and unrewarding. Make the business rank their priorities and then hold them to it. And for maximum effect, you can share the lists among them and make them fight it out in the pit for your attention.

I have to tell you, it’s basic, but proving to be wildly effective after you get through the initial round, which I’ll call Game of Moans, because oh my god, the pissing and moaning that ensues when you ask a business partner to prioritize something is epic.

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Determined to make this work (if for no other reason than to prove my boss wrong), I sat down with the head of each business unit I manage and told them I needed a list of priorities for the rest of the summer. And by priorities, I helpfully clarified, I specifically meant the order they wanted contracts, projects, and initiatives completed in the event that I learned to slow down time as we know it and get to all their requests. This ask went over like a fart in a space suit and yielded a multitude of responses including:

“I don’t have time for this crap.”

“I’m not doing that crap, that’s your job.”

“I don’t know why you’d need crap like that, all of my requests are priorities.”

“I don’t know how you could possibly expect me to plan out my [crap] priorities for the next month.”

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The excuses went on and on for why I couldn’t get a basic list of stuff. Sob stories about looming deadlines and ailing pets and lawns that weren’t mowed and personal hygiene that wasn’t being attended to — oh my god, the energy that went into creating these excuses could easily have been channeled into more useful pursuits. Like making me a damned list of priorities.

So, I tried a more subtle approach. I gave each business head a list of the contracts, projects, initiatives, and requests I’d received and asked them to rank them and add any items I didn’t know about it. (i.e,. items that wouldn’t be completed by July 4th or any other date this summer if I didn’t know about them.  Now.) Like I said, subtle.

This approach yielded results, really interesting results. Some partners gave me lists numbered 1 through infinity. Others offered ranking systems of urgent/non-urgent, or color-coding red, yellow, green, or a reorganization of tasks with honest-to-goodness subtasks and bullet formatting. And cross-outs, so many cross-outs. It was if my time had become an actual commodity and all of the pie in the sky “I’d like you to go through all my contracts and summarize the relevant provisions, so I don’t have to read them” requests dropped off the lists.

Life got even more interesting when I shared the various lists across business partners who had overlapping functions and commonalities. Actual productive discussions broke out over email on collective priorities and timing.

Moreover, it was a refreshing reminder that not all of my business partners were disorganized toddlers or megalomaniacal tyrants (in other words, organized toddlers) hellbent on monopolizing my time for no other reason than it amused them. I gained valuable insight into the way my partners’ minds worked (or didn’t) and what was actually important to them when they were forced to plan it out. Because if I’m being honest, I’d assumed I’d have been able to guess where their priorities would stack up (highest dollar value, right?), and I was wrong, more often than not.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. The sales crew is still ranting and raving and tearing their hair out like extras in a Greek chorus at the thought of having to do what every other function has now done, and frankly, my new boss being right about something was a deeply disconcerting feeling. But on the bright side, at least I can now slide the sales team down to the bottom of my lists with a clear conscience. And if nothing else, that’s going in the win column for the summer.

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.

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