The O Shaped Blog - Success is a Journey Not a Destination

“My new line manager introduced me to O Shaped and it’s something I wish I had discovered years ago."

Colin Telford, from the Outsourcing, Technology and IP team in Legal, Governance and Regulatory Affairs at NatWest

I suspect that my story is a familiar one for many solicitors.

I thrived at High School. I found learning to pass exams straight-forward. I had good friends and great relationships with teachers. I was devastatingly bad at sport with a lack of coordination that haunts me to this day but I consoled myself that, although I’d never follow Owen Coyle in making the Airdrieonians’ centre-forward position my own, I felt confident that a bright future lay ahead for me. 

 I moved onto University and things weren’t quite so easy. It was great meeting new people and throwing myself into student life, but suddenly people weren’t spoon feeding me; A grades turned to C grades. There was a spell around Christmas time in second year where I felt that I was constantly scrambling to meet deadlines and to submit essays that were “good enough”.

 Don’t get me wrong, University wasn’t a disaster. I applied myself and emerged with a 2:1 honours degree. A key highlight was taking part in the Erasmus exchange programme which took me to Ghent in Belgium. I spent a year studying there and become friends with and learning from fellow students from all over Europe. 

 During my final year of University I landed a traineeship with a top Scottish Law Firm and felt like I’d course corrected back onto a path towards certain success... 

 It didn’t work out quite like that! I started my traineeship in September 2007 on the same day that people were queuing outside branches of Northern Rock looking to withdraw their money. It was the first sign of the “Credit Crunch” which was a far from ideal backdrop against which to qualify. Irrespective of my bad timing though, I really struggled as a trainee. I tried to understand the complex Share Purchase Agreements and Banking Facility Agreements which were key to my new world but I felt completely out of my depth.

 I aimed to be a grafter as that is what had essentially worked for me up until that point. I would prepare for training sessions, try to be in the office as much as possible and willing to help my team, but I knew I wasn’t doing good work and I couldn’t even get an email approved without it coming back covered in a sea of red pen. I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact I felt like I was failing and so rather than being open about it I plodded on until the end of the traineeship. Ultimately the firm had 4 jobs for 16 trainees. I wasn’t a recipient of one of those positions but I consoled myself with the fact that I never had a chance with those odds and I no longer had to reflect on how difficult I found that part of my career. 

 It was a tough time to be a newly qualified solicitor but I managed to find positions and slowly, my technical knowledge grew. Admittedly fumbling my way through at first but I managed to upskill to the point where I felt I was technically proficient and could do a solid job for my employers. 

 In 2021 I joined NatWest’s Outsourcing, Technology and Intellectual Property team and felt like I’d finally found a home. It was made clear to me that technical expertise was expected as a minimum but that was not what the team or the Bank valued most. Suddenly I was in a psychologically safe environment where I was encouraged (and expected) to have views on key issues such as the future of the profession and how we could be customer centric for our stakeholders. I was given a long leash to go out and find ideas from other industries that could improve our team. I was regularly given feedback on how I performed and encouraged have a positive relationship with failure. 

 My new line manager introduced me to O Shaped and it’s something I wish I had discovered years ago. An organisation with a clear view on what good looks like for a modern professional and granular detail on how to get there. I find the 5 Os and the 12 O Shaped Attributes to be brilliant tools in allowing me to assess where my strengths and weaknesses lie and how I can work on those with the goal of becoming O Shaped. 

 My mindset has shifted with the result that, 14 years into my career, I feel that I finally understand “what kind of lawyer I want to be when I grow up” and what steps I need to take in order to get there. 

 My High School Chemistry teacher had “Success is a Journey not a Destination” painted on the classroom wall. It appealed to me then and it’s a mantra that has remained with me ever since. When I relate that to my own development as a solicitor, I have a long way to travel, but I’m satisfied to be at a point where I have the self-awareness to recognise my short-comings and the confidence to be vulnerable in talking about those.

 I’ve chosen to start this blog mainly as a tool for my own development. I want to commit to making progress and hold myself accountable. I will write about my steps and missteps along the way. I hope that others might enjoy reading about my journey and find some of my thoughts useful. If I can stop one person from feeling as lost as I did early in my career then I’ll feel like it has been a useful endeavour. 

 To learn more about how you can bring O Shaped to life in your own team, contact us at info@oshaped.com.