Legally on the Move: Professional Training - Ian Noble - E05

0:00Welcome to Legally on the Move, professional training, a brand new mini-series from the Legally Speaking podcast sponsored by Clio. I'm Rob Hanna and in this exciting new series we're coming to you live from BMA House in London, where senior leaders from across the legal profession are gathering to explore a critical question. What really makes high-performing teams in law? From leadership and communication to resilience, trust and psychological safety, we'll be speaking to experts and industry voices about what it takes to build teams that perform at their best in today's legal world. So let's get into it.

0:39Welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast. Please kindly introduce yourself, name, title and organisation. My name is Ian Noble. I'm an account executive at Clio EMEA, so helping grow the UK and Ireland business. Absolutely. And proud sponsors of the show as well. And it's always good to catch up with uh clients um here live from bma house in london i know you've flown over specifically for it um but let's talk about it then today is all about high performance and it's often measured in revenue and utilization in your own view what is the most misunderstood driver of performance in teams well i definitely don't think it should be revenue i think it's around clarity you know and and to refer back to emma wiggs and was really impressive it's not about the gold medal at the end of the race it's about what we can do to get that boat moving faster so our vision clarity on how we get there removing the dead weight that's going to help us get there faster yeah i think that was such a good point and for our listeners i think emma's won 12 world gold medals continuous success and she's never focused on the gold medal she's focused on that one particular question like you say was what makes the boat row faster and that is her driver her motivation i think for organizations and people thinking about this what is that one question that's going to motivate you to continue to deliver success and which clearly cleo has had absolutely tons of i'm tickling last sort of 24 months but in terms of culture which has been a large theme of today what is the difference between a culture of accountability and a culture of fear i think for accountability it's it's meant to empower you right it's yeah you're meant to know what exactly our role is what foundations do we need to get us there whereas the fear like that doesn't help anybody you know it's it's second guessing how do we get somewhere and then when things don't go to plan ultimately the results are on your head you know we need to be empowered that you should own this this is your book of business for example yeah i agree and i think the whole accountability piece also works super well when you have a mission focused company which cleo clearly has and you know we fully support the mission to transform the legal experience for all and i know cleons within the organization can see their direct impact to that mission which is awesome and a large part of that is through good collaboration which i think cleo has so we're talking about cross-functional collaboration here between teams can be pretty complex at times um what have you seen work when aligning different incentives and priorities i think it's if we're to get the best collaboration possible for example it's about understanding the why you know what are we what are we doing here today what's what's our goal what can we do to move the needle everything that's not a priority that doesn't help us move and grow as a business is that something that we can shift to elsewhere so only when we all understand why we're doing this yeah that's how we get best collaboration yeah and i think like you say going deeper as well a bit you know not just at surface level why we do this but why why why why and i think through that um you can really get good results and good performance.

3:40And talking of today's theme is all around resilience. You know, a key word that's been discussed a lot today in the networking sessions, in the workshops, and indeed with MOXMBE keynote, which again, I thought was brilliant. At what point, though, does resilience become unhealthy endurance, in your view? And how should leaders recognise that line? I think it becomes a bit unhealthy when you don't know when to pause and reset yes yeah so for example resilience is great but it has to be sustainable the moment you feel as though you're just doing something to grind it out and not necessarily know what result it's going to bring that's when you've already lost it that's when it starts to become unhealthy you need to know when to press pause and it's so true i remember when a mentor said to me and this is when i thought i was working all the hours when i first started my legal recruiting business it says me rob the power is in the pause yeah i think if you really sit with that sometimes you do need to do that and you can come back stronger and again emma was talking very brutally around that you know sometimes it's better at giving her own advice and taking it but actually when she has actually leaned into that um she's come back so much stronger and again that's led sustained success given the amount of world championships and titles she's won sure um okay what stood out most to you about today's conference i guess going back again to Emma's talk earlier she described a scenario in which she felt that there was a competitive disadvantage and ultimately it wasn't somebody else's advantage over hers that was the challenge, it was her mindset, how she approached that so it was the process of the performance ultimately what can we do to change our mindset and get there faster.

5:21Yeah, I love that and I loved Jack Newton, CEO of Clio, of course, one of his keynotes at one of the Cleons. I think Cleocon is probably one of the first I went to in Nashville and he said something around, you know, everyone talks about, you know, what if it goes wrong? You know, what if this happens? And he just said, what is, what is the opportunity? And let's flip that mindset. What is the opportunity if we embrace this technology and the results that we can get from it? And I think just changing that mindset from, like you say, how Emma and people like Jack position it, it can be super, super powerful, reframe things, you can come back stronger.

5:51What motivated Clio to sponsor this particular conference there's so many out there and how does it align with the organization's commitment to high performing teams i guess you know we don't just care about the software ultimately we care about why people need it so it's great to give law firms and all of our different customers the correct tools to help improve their offerings but we also got to remember who's the end user you know our aim has always been transform the legal experience for all yeah we care about the people who need legal support as much as those who need our services and you know being present at conferences like this reminds us that we're here to spread that message yeah absolutely and yeah we can attest that obviously clio sponsoring our show for many years now you you genuinely care and community is key and i think you know one of the best things is getting out there seeing people and i can see the clio stand over there you've had lots of people around today and it's just a great energy and clio is being such a great energy and with that in case people are unfamiliar with Clio which is highly unlikely given we're in 2026 in the huge years and great work that's gone into it.

6:50Where can people go to find more about Clio or indeed yourself? Feel free to share any social media handles, any websites. We'll share them in this episode for you too. Yeah, well Clio.com and our Go Clio account on Instagram is always one that I tend to keep an eye on. So yeah, there's plenty of information out there. Perfect. Well it just leaves me to say Ian, thank you so much for joining me live here at BMA House for the Professional Training Conference. It's been an absolute blast chatting to you, wishing you and all the team at Clio lots of continued success with delivering on that mission to transform the legal experience for all, which we fully support here at the Legally Speaking Podcast.

7:20But for now, over and out. So that's a wrap for this Legally On The Move professional training mini-series brought to you by the Legally Speaking Podcast, sponsored by Clio. I'm Rob Hanna, and I hope these conversations have given you practical insights into what it really takes to build stronger, more resilient, and high-performing teams across the legal profession. We've been live from VMA House in London, capturing the voices, ideas, and strategies shaping the future of team performance in law. Stay tuned for more Legally on the Move series coming very soon. Spoiler alert, we'll be back in Ibiza for the lawyers retreat in May.

7:54So for more conversations like this, keep following the Legally Speaking podcast. But for now, from all of us, over and out.