Some compensation surveys gather data about the amounts awarded in-house lawyers for stock options and restricted stock grants. Yet many law department managers don’t understand how accountants can place a value on those equity awards. To value a call option, many people use the Black-Scholes formula. That formula uses five…
If a lawyer can’t manage others, if a paralegal never gets the hang of litigation document review, if a secretary proofreads horribly, they may be blissfully ignorant, but they leave carnage all around. Incompetents don’t see how poor their own performance is and they can’t recognize or learn from the…
In-house counsel seeking an innovative solution need not wait for the muse, they can goose it. Here are some ways to think beyond the • Challenge defensiveness and “we tried it” • Brainstorm and use scenarios (See my post of Dec. 9, 2005.) • Encourage contrarian views (See my post…
A study, reported on Columbia ideas@work, distinguishes between two kinds of diversity. Diversity of social networks varies according to how commonly and well team members knew each other before joining the team; diversity of demographics varies according to race, age, gender, national origin, religion and other mostly-innate characteristics. The research,…
A piece discussing management of radical new business ideas (NY Times, Jan. 1, 2006 at B4) stridently claims that “you must hire an outsider to run the breakthrough idea because insiders are always wedded to orthodoxy and the inside success formula.” If the law department has stagnated, quality has sagged,…
A group that reviewed the DC Office of Corporation Counsel back in 2000 recommended solid practices to transform its evaluation system for attorneys and support staff into a performance management system. Key elements of that system were that it should be: • based on a core competency model; • aligned…
Often, in law departments, seemingly petty differences cause rancorous discord. “He has an office two floor tiles longer than mine,” “She got promoted to Chief Assistant Senior Counsel, while I am only Assistant Senior Counsel,” “I got a bonus of 17.2 percent while the other lawyer got a 17.4 percent…
I thought I would planet an idea. Only the most mercurial personality would concur that the Venus de Milo of talent management is something we can unearth. Some traits, like avoiding punishment and martial arts, lead to success, by Jove, but the saturnalia of managing people is neither that simple…
A paper recently published by three academics, in the Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research (2005), 57, 196-209 can answer every question imaginable about this method of assessment. Drawing on 28 published papers, the three authors arranged their findings under 27 questions. The questions include “Does it work?,” “Why does…
A false dichotomy, for sure, since the wise manager addresses a report’s above-normal and below-normal characteristics. Still, how pragmatic is it to lean toward one pole or the other? I favor pushing someone’s stronger traits. What good will we see from raising everyone to average? Aside from voicing that bias,…