As in house counsel, your value to your company is increased by your ability to harness the power of ideas.  Everything was born from an idea.  An idea gave birth to the computer I use to draft articles such as this.  An idea gave birth to the internet you use to search for and read articles such as this.  Before there was the smartphone you use, the car you drive or the chair you sit in, there was an idea that each of those items was possible.  Ideas have debased us (slavery), elevated us (emancipation), brought us down (Jim Crow Laws) and raised us up (Civil Rights Movement).  They survive their creators, and form the bedrock of just governments (democracy) and unjust ones (communism and dictatorship).  They are bulletproof, such as the ideas of Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln, whose ideas survived their assassinations.  Ideas transform business, commerce, law and communication.  An idea preceded every advancement, change, choice and decision.  If you can create an environment in your legal department where ideas are born, germinate, grow and flourish, you will create a legal department that solves not only legal problems, but business problems, sales problems, customer problems and every company problem imaginable.

               So how does one transform one’s workplace into an incubator of ideas?  Let’s start by bringing back the Suggestion Box.  Create the following form and ask everyone in your department – attorneys, paralegals, assistants, etc. – to complete it once a month:

MY IDEA

• My Idea Is:

• It will Solve the Following Problem:

• This is How My Idea Can Become a Reality:

• This Is How I Will Make My Idea a Reality:

             This form requires the person with the idea to have a plan to bring the idea to fruition and assume responsibility to make that happen.  Have the company provide gift cards to those with the best ideas each month and provide a more substantial gift to those whose ideas are implemented and solve problems.  Create an environment where employees are encouraged to have ideas and are rewarded for finding solutions.  Sam Walton has said that the secret to his success was to get into his stores and hear what his associates has to say.  He also said that most of us don’t invent ideas.  We take them from someone else.  Take your team’s ideas and make the most of them.  Each of us, no matter where we are in the pecking order, have ideas.  If you don’t create a supportive, creative environment where employees are encouraged and feel safe to share their ideas, then you’re missing out on solutions you would never think of on your own.

            Today’s currency is ideas and the value of your legal department will be driven by the ideas it generates to solve lawsuits faster for less, reduce your company’s legal exposure and find ways to generate revenue and have your legal department be more than a cost center for your company.  TED Talks is immensely popular because it is a venue where ideas are fostered, shared and developed.  Turn your legal department into a similar venue and watch the benefit to not only your legal team but to your company as a whole.  Ideas change everything. Go change everything for the better.