I just finished reading an interesting book called Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior by Jonah Berger (Simon & Schuster, 2017). Professor Berger is a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In this book, he explores two human tendencies that seem to be at odds with each other—the
Influence
What Can Social Science Tell Us About Ethics?
By Dr. Larry Richard on
This article originally appeared in the March 2016 Ethics Corner column of the ABA online publication Business Law Today:
Can ethical behavior be taught? Most definitely. The social sciences have yielded several principles and practices that can aid law firm leaders in shaping desired ethical behaviors.
Following are seven suggestions, based on this research, that can help:…
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Leading Lawyers: Your Most Potent Tool is Your Mindset
By Dr. Larry Richard on
This post was originally published at the Legal Executive Institute website, a ThomsonReuters site, on April 15, 2015:
Are you a practicing lawyer who is transitioning into a leadership role? Whether it’s as a managing partner, practice group leader, office managing partner, or executive committee member—in all cases, to be effective as a leader, you need to make a significant shift in your mindset in several ways.
First, many lawyer-leaders default to the role of “manager”—making sure that important things get done in a regular and predictable way (timesheets are turned in, mentoring younger lawyers takes place, work is assigned rationally, etc.). There is certainly a need for management, but today the greater need in law firms is for leadership, i.e., determining what direction your constituents should go in, and then encouraging them to voluntarily go there. So in addition to thinking like a manager, you also have to think like a leader.…
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