Wrestling with Volatility

In today’s world, general counsel face an ever-increasing demand to manage exponentially more risks, involving greater complexity, in much shorter time frames and with more potential impact on business performance. It is a circle that cannot be squared.

The Lex Mundi Summit in Amsterdam, involving general counsel of multinational corporations and senior lawyers from Lex Mundi law firms, focused on how VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) conditions are impacting expectations upon the general counsel.

Through highly structured, interactive discussions, the Summit shed light on four key techniques that general counsel can apply to make their organizations more agile and effective:

• Horizon Scanning: “Known Unknowns”
• Scenario Planning: “Unknown Unknowns”
• Silo Busting: Legal as a Vertically-Integrated Business Partner
• Embedding Fast-Flow Learning into the Culture

In addition to the four topics above, the report elaborates the SCARF model for leading organizational change and concludes with supplements from Control Risks and Royal Dutch Shell.