The hot-stove league of law department management – would that there were one! – could jaw forever about the All-Stars of concepts. Here I nominate a third group: accountability, competency, competition, expectations (perceptions), diminishing returns, experience curve, power, satisfaction, scope of responsibility, and trade-offs.
I would add these to the twenty central concepts discussed previously (See my post of Feb. 1, 2009: ten most important concepts: client, risk, quality, productivity, talent and then structure, information flow, decisions, value and objectivity; and April 5, 2009: collaboration (teamwork), delegation, empowerment, knowledge management, priorities, processes, professional development (CLE), technology (software) and recognition and rewards.).
Some of these important ideas have accumulated sufficient material on this blog to form a metaposts (See my post of May 23, 2008: core competence with 12 references; and Nov. 19, 2010: departmental core competencies with 12 references and 1 meta; June 20, 2007: happiness with 10 references, employee satisfaction, morale, engagement; and Jan. 29, 2009: role, scope and functions of legal departments with 8 metaposts and 19 references.).