I very much liked the interview of Prof. John Kotter in the Harv. Bus. Rev., Oct. 2010, at 129. He outlines lessons from his latest book about why good ideas suffer withering attacks and often succumb. The short piece made me realize that a creative idea popping up in a…
An article in the Sloan Mgt. Rev., Fall 2010 at 51, contrasts what it calls the “frequentist” method for risk management (also called “objectivist”) with the Bayesian method (also called “subjectivist”). Frequentists predict risks based on probabilities obtained from repetitive historical data. For example, in a legal department an objectivist…
A thoughtful article in Wired, Oct. 2010 at 66, praises drawing pictures (or exploiting other forms of visualization) to convey complex ideas – exactly the sort that in-house counsel often deal with when multiple considerations bear on a takeover, a tax restructuring, a licensing decision, or an investment in software.…
My former colleague at Hildebrandt, Mark Sirkin misrkin@hildebrandt.com, published a clear and useful article about the human brain – “a user’s guide” – in the NYSBA J. Sept. 2010 at 38. How well in-house lawyers understand the brain and effectively use their own makes an enormous difference. Sirkin demolishes the…
MIT Sloan Mg. Rev., Summer 2010 at 73, extols the benefits that accrue when companies match an experienced person with software that helps their decision making. “Evidence-based decision making,” as the article refers to it, can contribute even in unstructured decision contexts. The day will come when in-house counsel routinely…
All of my definitions are efforts to create constructs (See my post of July 19, 2010: comparing the constructs of risk and value.). For the past five years I have assiduously explained what various terms mean and collected those attempts (See my post of April 8, 2009: five metaposts and…
Richard Ogle, Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas (Harv. Bus. School 2007) at 15, cites research that surprises me. “Beyond the level of 115 [IQ], there is no observable correlation between intelligence and creativity.” I have assumed that smarter people, whatever being smart entails, are more…
A recent article lists more than 40 software tools claimed to be able to support and manage innovation. The article is in the MIT Sloan Mgt. Rev., Summer 2010 at 45, and it breaks the software into four broad categories and 14 types thereunder. Being ignorant about many of the…
Attorneys in corporations often feel under stress so it is useful to understand more about how stress affects decisions. A number of points come out of an article in Acad. Mgt. J., July 2005 at 497. Time pressures seem to alter the behavior of decision-makers by narrowing how much attention…
Posts on outside counsel predominate but a chunk of the selected posts have to do with thinking. (Email me rees@reesmorrison.com if you would like the entire 28-page collection.) That a dozen of the topics cluster that way set me thinking. First, the most core of core competencies for in-house lawyers…