by Bruce | April 28, 2016 | Articles, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Innovative Managing Partners, Knowledge Management, Leadership, Strategy
Having spent last week in London, where every firm worthy of its PR news feed has at least mentioned “agile working,” it’s worth spending a few moments reflecting on what’s behind that shorthand. The phrase clearly embraces the notion of being able to work (well,...
by Bruce | March 18, 2016 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Recruiting, Strategy
When an especially provocative and ingenious piece is published analyzing a noteworthy aspect of the sea BigLaw swims in, one may feel an obligation to one’s readers to weigh in on the conversation. Particularly when the original piece was published under...
by Bruce | March 11, 2016 | Articles, Compensation, Finance, Partnership Structures, Practice Group Management
A few years back, as exceptionally studious and faithful readers might conceivably recall, I wrote two pieces on the lateral hiring frenzy, Our Arms’ Race and Our Arms’Race (2), which took an almost across-the-board stand against lateral partner hiring....
by Bruce | February 12, 2016 | Articles, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
Collins’s (and our) third stage, “Denial of Risk and Peril,” is, yes, about denial, but it’s really about how to decide whether to go forward in a world of ambiguity, incomplete and contradictory information, and inconsistent advice. In other...
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...