by Bruce | February 7, 2008 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management, Strategy
It’s been nearly a decade since McKinsey published the seminal article, The War for Talent, but many of its abiding observations remain true today and indeed are worth revisiting. What they found ten years ago started from the implacable demographic reality that...
by Bruce | January 24, 2008 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Practice Group Management
A potentially important new book has been published—don’t worry, I’ve already asked the author for a review copy—but it’s just now been featured on Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge. Titled When Professionals Have to Lead:...
by Bruce | January 21, 2008 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
On the wonderful landscape of economics, several highly visible landmarks are in the form of "laws:" The law of supply and demand, of economies of scale, of diminishing marginal utility, of the downward stickiness of wages, of decreasing returns to factors...
by Bruce | January 9, 2008 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Strategy
Text #1: "He was recruited as a very senior director in a very large City law firm. His work went well but the thing that really bugged him was the pass he had to show every time he went into the staff restaurant. The words ‘non-lawyer’ were printed...
by Bruce | December 31, 2007 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Innovative Managing Partners, Leadership, Strategy
"You’re too smart for your own good." How quickly we dismiss that snide accusation as revealing the ignorance and probably the intransigent know-nothingness of the accuser. But could there be a grain of truth in there? If you believe in the...
by Bruce | December 26, 2007 | Articles, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
Our text for today, Dear Reader, coming from The American Lawyer, is as follows: "There’s nothing like a fund-raiser at a private school in Manhattan to define your social station. Time was, lawyers were near the top of the heap. Investment bankers...