by Bruce | April 7, 2016 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Recruiting, Strategy
On a cross-country flight this week, I read most of Smarter Faster Better, by Charles Duhigg, currently on the NYT’s top 10 hardcover/nonfiction list of best-selling books. It’s fair to characterize the reviews it’s gotten as “mixed,” and...
by Bruce | February 9, 2016 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
At the most straightforward (superficial?) level, the “undisciplined pursuit of more”—Collins’s stage 2 in his framework of decline—would seem to follow logically and almost inevitably from stage 1, “hubris born of success.” The logic is...
by Bruce | February 5, 2016 | Articles, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
Jim Collins has authored or co-authored six books that have sold over 10-million copies altogether. Good to Great may be the most famous (published in 2001, still the #1 best seller on Amazon in “Strategic Business Planning”), but Built to Last is also...
by Bruce | January 11, 2016 | Articles, Client Relationships, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
With the release last week of the Annual Report from Georgetown Law’s Center for the Study of the Legal Profession, the “Big Three” annual reports—Altman-Weil’s Law Firms in Transition, Citi/Hildebrandt’s Client Advisory, and...
by Bruce | December 6, 2015 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Practice Group Management
A week or so ago, I happened across a training manual offering instructions on proper behavior within organizations. Here I take the liberty of quoting extensively from it. I ask one favor of you and one element of forbearance. The favor is to kindly ask yourself as...
by Bruce | December 1, 2015 | Articles, Business Models, Client Relationships, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Leadership
A few months ago we invited you all to take a survey addressing how truly “collegial and collaborative” your firm is, and how well prepared you felt (a) to be able to knowledgeably point clients towards cross-serving opportunities and (b) to be rewarded...