If Lisa J. Damon has a bridge to sell, I’m buying it.  And, it’s not because I’m all that gullible.  However, over the course of one hour she changed me from an admitted Lean Six Sigma skeptic into a person willing to consider the possibilities of that approach for every law firm. I had previously [...]

He thought they were going to have a quiet dinner, but she arrived apoplectic.  Some of the folks who worked with her had dropped the ball on a project that was routine and should have been foolproof. She thought they were going to have a quiet dinner, but he arrived apoplectic.  Someone had asked his [...]

We’re told that we should not watch anyone make sausages or laws. These are messy (and, in the view of some, stomach-churning) processes that can produce wonderful results. Unfortunately, many have extended this aversion from the making of laws to the providing of legal services. So we go through our days doing whatever the client [...]

In Tom Davenport’s terrific post, Microdecisions for Macro Impact, he reminds us that fortunes can be won and lost in the little decisions we make every day. As he astutely notes, What many companies don’t realize is that microdecisions — small decisions made many times by many workers at the customer interface — can have [...]

We were touring Kings Landing, the historical Loyalist settlement outside Fredericton, New Brunswick in Canada, when a child in our group asked, “What’s that?”  “That” turned out to be a little white octagonal building in the pretty gardens outside the Ingraham House (visible in the picture above).  Upon closer inspection, we discovered that it was [...]

Here is a brief recipe for sanity that should make next week better than this week. As you go through your work today, look for Just One Thing that meets any of the following criteria: – it is a drag on your efficiency- it does not contribute to the revenue of your firm- it could [...]

The destruction of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 was one of those events that seared the nation. After the inquiry into the accident was complete, we learned that a small defective O-ring seal had led to the disaster. Similarly, when the space shuttle Columbia exploded in mid-air in 2003, we learned that a piece [...]

Large snowflakes are falling steadily outside my window, temporarily veiling the urban landscape. We heard breathless warnings this morning on the radio and TV of impending commuting disasters. We’ve been asked to stay home, but if we must travel, please use public transportation. New York City was winding up for one of those rare (but [...]