If a company chooses as its new general counsel a lawyer from outside, so-called first-order consequences of that management decision might include morale changes in the law department, departures of the disappointed lawyers who were passed over, and whatever changes in policies and practices the new top lawyer institutes. Second-order…
A PsyMax study of 240 presidents, CEOs and chief operating officers “found creativity to be the one trait most common to highly successful executives.” This finding, cited briefly by USA Today, June 7, 2006 at 2B, also noted that people who are Meyers-Briggs introverts are among the most creative (See…
“The term attention density is increasingly used to define the amount of attention paid to a particular mental experience over specific time. The greater the concentration on a specific idea or mental experience, the higher the attention density.” (David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz, “The Neuroscience of Leadership,” Strategy + Business,…
“Cognitive scientists are finding that people’s mental maps, their theories, expectations, and attitudes, play a more central role in human perception than was previously understood,” as explained by David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz, “The Neuroscience of Leadership,” Strategy + Business, Summer 2006 at 76 (See my posts of Sept. 10,…
In pop psychology terms, a person’s left brain rules logical, linear, sequential thinking. The right brain nourishes creativity, vision, intuition. By the lights of some advocates, much rides on this cerebral split (See my post of March 16, 2006on dednah-tfel lawyers.). For instance, some view “management” as left brain and…
(1) The 8-Q filing incurred all sorts of extra review costs that were different from the typical once-over-lightly and small fee. (2) The 8-Q filing incurred all sorts of extra review costs, not the typical once-over lightly and small fee. (3) The 8-Q filing incurred all sorts of extra review…
How a general counsel and his or her direct reports position and scope a problem – how they frame it – goes far to determine how effectively they cope. If you don’t wisely frame a problem, the rest of your decision making will be handicapped (See my post of Dec.…
Karen Cottle, the general counsel of Adobe, responded to an interviewer’s question about how to empower subordinates, inform: Life Law, & Business, Issue 1 at 9. She said that general counsel need to make sure those lawyers understand the business and that the general counsel should “giv[e] them the tools…
Corporate lawyers get advice and give advice, so what precautions can they take in light of the research findings of Francesca Gino, reported in the Harvard Bus. Rev., March 2006 at 24-25? “[P]eople tend to overvalue advice when the problem they’re addressing is hard and to undervalue it when the…
The best way to make good decisions is to ignore what you have invested to date, say for example in your matter management system or the furniture or the library. Set aside thoughts about what you have poured into the hole; think only whether going forward, if you were starting…