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
Motivation
Leading Like a Psychologist
This post was originally published at the Legal Executive Institute website, a ThomsonReuters site, on September 16, 2015:
In my conversations with law firm leaders, I am hearing more and more concern expressed about their partners failing to meet expectations. Here are some examples:…
Making Your Law Firm a Great Place to Work
By Dr. Larry Richard on
This post was originally published at the Legal Executive Institute website, a ThomsonReuters site, on May 13, 2015:
The Great Place to Work Institute publishes an annual list of the “100 Best Places to Work”. This year, 20 of the companies on the list are in the “Professional Services Firms” category. And of these, five are law firms. This is the first time that law firms have represented fully a quarter of those spots, and from my conversations with law firm leaders, this is a trend that will only accelerate.
It’s smart business to transform your law firm from a mere conventional law practice to a great law firm in which to work. Benefits of doing so include:…
Accountability 101 – Part four
By Dr. Larry Richard on
Posted in Accountability, Change Management
In three previous posts, I’ve discussed the psychology of how to hold partners accountable. I focused primarily on approaches that work well with individuals.
In this post, I want to introduce you to three approaches that are more strategic, and work well with teams, groups or an entire firm. As a consequence, they have broader…
Accountability 101 – Part three
By Dr. Larry Richard on
Posted in Accountability, Change Management
In a previous post (Accountability 101 – Part two) I mentioned that to achieve accountability on the part of partners, you need to:
- Use a buy-in approach. Avoid either coercive or “incentivizing” approaches.
- Be proactive, not reactive.
- Use multiple interventions, not just one.
In this post, I want to address the third point, “Use multiple…
Accountability 101 – Part two
By Dr. Larry Richard on
Posted in Accountability, Change Management
This is part two of a series of posts on partner accountability. To recap, in order to achieve accountability, you need to:
- Use a buy-in approach. Avoid either coercive or “incentivizing” approaches.
- Be proactive, not reactive.
- Use multiple interventions, not just one.
In a previous post (https://www.lawyerbrainblog.com/?p=198), I explained the importance of the…
Accountability 101 – Part one
By Dr. Larry Richard on
Posted in Accountability, Change Management
How do you “hold partners accountable?” It’s the beginning of the year, and many law firm leaders are still struggling to get their partners to complete some of the non-billable tasks that are vital to the firm’s success.
In the past several weeks, I’ve spoken to a number of law firm leaders who have raised…
Losing Weight and Keeping It Off
By Dr. Larry Richard on
Posted in Self-Management
Although I usually write about leadership, change and resilience, today I want to address weight loss. I know it seems unrelated to the preceding topics, but there’s actually a connection, which we’ll get to in a minute. My main reason for writing this post is to respond to all of my clients and colleagues who…
Getting the structure right is only half the battle
By Dr. Larry Richard on
Posted in Leadership
Recently I was working with a group of leaders in a mid-size law firm who were wrestling with the issue of how to make the “income partner” role more attractive so as to stem departures. Much of the conversation focused on how to “structure” the role of income partner in the right way–Should this category…