by Bruce | November 13, 2013 | Articles, Business Models, Compensation, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Partnership Structures, Strategy
The other week I had the chance to sit down with Ted Burke, outgoing chief executive and global managing partner of Freshfields. I’ve known Ted for years, consider him a friend, and with the announcement a month or so ago that he would be stepping down at...
by Bruce | November 7, 2013 | Articles, Leadership, Marketing, Practice Group Management, Strategy
For years, I’ve been hearing firms describe their cultures as “entrepreneurial,” and I hardly paid the slightest attention. Like “collegial” or “collaborative,” it just seemed like so much white noise. Then finally I heard it...
by Bruce | October 25, 2013 | Articles, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
The other week the redoubtable George Beaton launched what turned into as wide-ranging an online discussion as I can remember, under the title The rise and rise of the NewLaw business model, Since its publication, it has generated 65 comments over nearly three weeks...
by Bruce | October 23, 2013 | Articles, Branding, Business Models, Cultural Considerations, Leadership, Marketing, Practice Group Management
If you’re like me, you travel a lot. and you almost certainly have your own views of, and preferences among, the familiar roster of hotel brands, Hilton, Marriott, and Sheraton, but also at the high end Fairmont, Four Seasons, J.W. Marriott, and Ritz Carlton....
by Bruce | October 13, 2013 | Articles, Business Models, Finance, Globalization, Leadership, Strategy
Don’t worry; this is not going to be about what’s “trending on Twitter,” which I used to think was merely amusing but which I’m coming to believe is borderline evil. (Topic for another day, or on second thought, a topic for never.) No,...
by Bruce | October 6, 2013 | Articles, Leadership, Strategy
When you’re facing hard problems, sometimes the best answer is to discard what you think you know to be true, and to think differently. Three hundred years ago the Royal Navy and the British Merchant Marine were facing a very hard problem: How to determine a...