Lawyers don't want to manage and managers can't lawyer. Welcome to Legal Operations.

You won't find a single in-house lawyer that believes they have to deal with just the right amount of administration in order to do their work. There is always too much administration for lawyers. And they aren't wrong. Using evidence-based management as a guide, in-house teams can introduce the right operating practices while avoiding those that make things worse rather than better.

Shared Mental Models (SMMs) in Team Performance

Shared Mental Models (SMMs) refer to the organized knowledge structures or cognitive representations that team members commonly hold regarding key elements of their work environment. These are essentially shared understandings about the team's goals, the tasks required to achieve those goals, the equipment or tools involved, the roles and responsibilities of individual members, and the patterns of interaction and coordination necessary for collective success. The critical aspect is the degree of overlap or "sharedness" among individual team members' mental models. When team members possess similar and accurate mental models, they are essentially "on the same page," which facilitates smoother and more effective collaboration.

Research distinguishes between two primary types of SMMs, both vital for team functioning:

1. Task-Related SMMs: These pertain to the work itself. They encompass shared knowledge and beliefs about the team's objectives, the specific activities involved in performing the task, the sequence in which these activities should occur, potential strategies, and contingency plans for dealing with unexpected events.

2. Team-Related SMMs: These focus on the team's internal dynamics and functioning. They include shared understanding of team members' roles, responsibilities, expertise, and characteristics, as well as the team's established communication channels and interaction patterns.

Possessing only one type of shared model is often insufficient. For instance, a team might clearly understand the task steps (Task SMM) but fail due to confusion about roles or poor communication protocols (Team SMM). Effective team performance relies on the convergence of both task- and team-related mental models.

Successfully implementing real-time feedback and visibility requires more than just technology deployment. Best practices include:

• Cultivating an Open Communication Culture: Encouraging psychological safety where giving and receiving feedback is normalized and valued.

• Leveraging Integrated Digital Tools: Utilizing platforms that seamlessly integrate feedback and visibility into daily workflows. 

• Providing Constructive and Actionable Feedback: Training individuals to deliver feedback that is specific, behavior-focused, impact-oriented (e.g., using the SBI model: Situation-Behavior-Impact), and solution-focused.

• Training Managers: Equipping managers with the skills to deliver feedback effectively and coach their teams using real-time insights.

Technology plays a crucial role, with modern platforms increasingly incorporating AI and advanced analytics to analyze feedback sentiment, predict performance trends, identify risks, and personalize insights.

How mot-r plays it's role:

• Digital Workflows: These are central to mot-r. They provide standardized, automated structures for managing business tasks and operations, digitizing manual processes. By defining clear steps, roles, and information flows, these workflows create process visibility. This shared view allows teams to understand how work progresses, identify bottlenecks, and collaboratively refine processes using the platform's configuration tools.

• Single Source of Truth: mot-r aims to provide a unified, transparent view of essential operational information: what needs to be done, who is responsible, associated deadlines, relevant documents, and current status. This centralized repository, tailored by roles and permissions, combats information silos and ensures all team members operate from a consistent, shared dataset.

• Workload Management: This component offers real-time visibility into team capacity and task distribution. It provides transparent data on who is working on what, enabling managers and teams to understand workloads, identify potential overloads or underutilization, and make informed decisions about resource allocation. This fosters a shared awareness of team bandwidth and priorities.

• Knowledge Management (Process-Centric): Unlike generic knowledge repositories, mot-r's knowledge management capabilities are tightly integrated with its workflows. It focuses on capturing, organizing, and leveraging the knowledge embedded within key operational processes, particularly those deemed high-value or high-risk. This process-centric approach helps build a shared, practical understanding of how critical tasks are performed and improved over time.

• Notifications & Audit Trail: The system provides real-time notifications to keep users informed of relevant updates or required actions. A comprehensive work history or audit trail tracks actions, decisions, and document versions, providing transparency and a clear record for accountability and compliance purposes.