Strategies to Measure and Improve Your Professional Adaptability

An article by Relativity’s Sam Bock offers actionable strategies for assessing and enhancing professional adaptability, a critical skill for legal operations professionals. The article highlights the importance of professional adaptability, self-reflection, learning from past experiences, and setting goals for continued growth.

Review your network growth. Expand your professional connections for diverse perspectives and opportunities to learn. Use LinkedIn to track new connections made during the year, reflecting on the interactions and insights you have gained. Show appreciation to those who impacted you and identify themes in your learning to inform next year’s goals.

Reflect on habit and mindset changes. Evaluate how your habits or thought processes evolved over the year. That might include adopting new tools like AI assistants or revising workflows. If you’ve embraced change, consider how these shifts served you; if not, plan to experiment with new approaches next year.

Seek feedback from colleagues. Request constructive feedback to ensure a well-rounded view of your performance. Reach out to trusted colleagues for specific insights and reflect on how their input aligns with your self-assessment. This step highlights your openness to growth and adaptability.

Review past work and communications. Revisit emails, deliverables, or other work from a year ago to observe confidence, style, and clarity growth. This exercise helps identify areas for improvement while acknowledging progress and fostering pride in your legal department.

Examine unmet goals. Analyze missed goals to reveal insights into why they weren’t achieved, whether due to changing priorities or unforeseen challenges. This reflection helps highlight quiet successes, redirect efforts, and set meaningful objectives for the coming year.

By taking time for introspection and embracing lessons learned, you can recognize achievements, address gaps, and set the stage for ongoing professional adaptability.