People process the effects of inflation poorly, which gives rise to what economists call the “money illusion.” According to Scientific Am., Vol. 301, July 2009 at 78, as our brains have evolved we are not able to process effectively the dilutive effect of inflation. If billing rates of partners shock…
One problem with brainstorming is that it forces the process of creating new ideas. “Here we are, it’s 9:30 AM, so get wild!” Few minds do breakthrough somersaults on demand (See my post of Feb. 20, 2007: sleep on it to make a good decision.). Reverse brainstorming takes a different…
The Rotman Mag., Winter 2009 is devoted to “wicked problems.” One article (at 19) sets out six characteristics of wicked problems, all of which together suggest that for managers of sizeable internal legal functions wicked problems abound. “You don’t understand the problem until you have developed a solution. Every solution…
Two previous posts outlined five suggestions for how best to conduct brainstorming sessions (See my post of Oct. 30, 2006: rules, facilitator, preparation; and Nov. 25, 2006: private ideas before and mull afterwards.): Have rules, such as an agenda and guidelines for how to participate Engage a trained facilitator from…
If you have a large meeting, perhaps a Town Hall or an off-site gathering, it may be useful to break the plenary group into smaller groups. The smaller groups can push the discussion ahead and then report back to the larger group. Here are some suggestions for how to succeed…
The subject of knowledge, the most important asset of an in-house lawyer, ultimately reduces to philosophical ruminations. Ruminations on my part have sometimes resulted in posts on this blog. A few draw on ideas from individual philosophers (See my post of Aug. 27, 2008: John Rawls’ original position; March 19,…
Management concepts are broad ideas I chose and ranked ten of them in one post (See my post of Feb. 1, 2009: ten most important concepts: client, decisions, information flow, objectivity, productivity, quality, risk, structure, talent, and value) and then bit off the next ten (See my post of April…
Any blogger who uses hendiadys (a rhetorical figure in which a complex idea is expressed by two words connected by a copulative conjunction) is a blogger after my heart and soul (1). Willem Wiggers, on his blog WeAgree, started a post with this unusual word, so I picked up the…
Brainwriting 6-3-5 alters classic brainstorming in ways that encourage equal participation from all team members by having them write their ideas rather than say them. The technique is described in David Silverstein, Philip Samuel, and Neil DeCarlo, The Innovator’s Toolkit: 50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth (Wiley 2009)…
A portion of the 4,200 posts on this blog are cerebral. For example, the ones I picked for this collection touch on deep and deeply significant ideas. Perhaps the most intellectually significant idea dealt with by this blog is neuroscience (See my post of June 22, 2008: neuroscience with 32…