Mark Gluck, gluck@pavlov.rutgers.edu a PhD researcher on memory, gave a fascinating lecture a few nights ago. As I am riveted by how our brains work and what enhances their operation, I will share three of the points he made about sleep, stress, and exercise. Point one is that sleep helps…
A knee-jerk reaction for some general counsel who face a management challenge is to set up a team to study the challenge and recommend what to do. It is engrained in all of us that a group does better than an individual. That may be an urban myth. “Groups are…
When people in law departments try to solve a management problem, they can succumb to the seductions of the “availability bias.” We grab first for the data that is most easily at hand. For example, if the problem is that you think you are paying law firms too much, the…
A fascinating article in MIT Sloan Mgt. Rev., Vol. 50, Winter 2009 at 38, explains network analysis as a tool to elucidate decision-making. One case study describes a company that had abnormally high levels of collaboration on decisions. Why? “The network analysis and follow-up interviews revealed that the company’s legal…
Social scientists could trace a series of decisions as they work their way through a law department. They could record each decision maker’s involvement – the nature and duration of their input and the result. The resulting process map would show whether many decisions involve too many people, demand too…
Humans are subject to a raft of common irrationalities when they make decisions. This post covers two of those shortcomings. Way back in November of 2001 I published an article in Legal Times about several of these flaws in our reasoning. Exaggerating the Influence of Available Data. If you know…
An article in the Harv. Bus. Rev., Vol. 85, Nov. 2008 at 121, offers a number of techniques that will improve decision-making on law department teams or committees (See my post of Jan. 4, 2009: four ways to make decisions.). The author is Bob Frisch of the Strategic Offsites Group.…
Picture this. Some lawyers think visually, so software that graphically depicts ideas and their relationships to each other might be useful. I ran across an example on a blog called “Tools for Thought.” All kinds of concepts would become clearer if they were presented as images (See my post of…
“General intelligence (the extent to which specific, measurable aspects of intelligence, such as linguistic facility, mathematical aptitude and spatial awareness are correlated in a given individual) is measured by psychologists using a value called Spearman’s g.” Moderately interesting, to some, that there is an over-arching measure of intelligence. Unfortunately, if…
“In 360-degree surveys, managers typically rate themselves higher than their colleagues do on most measures of performance.” We all flatter ourselves. More specifically, based on a survey of over 4,000 US managers reported in the Harv. Bus. Rev., Vol. 86, April 2008 at 22, the gap is widest when it…