Gary Klein can tell law firms a lot about working under pressure and uncertainty. He is a research psychologist and pioneer of the field of naturalistic decision making, as well as author of (among others) the book “Seeing What Others Don’t”. People pay attention to this guy: his work is used by the US armed [...]
When I meet new people, it’s hard to explain what I do for a living so I just say “I’m a business strategist for law firms”. At that point, they either really want to know what that means, or they really don't. For the curious, I’ve recently started to explain the story of Steve Ballmer [...]
Through a recent podcast featuring 24-year-old Harvard-educated author Adam Aleksic on the influence of internet language, I was reminded of the incredible speed of change we are all now facing. Take, for example, use of the phrase “unalive” as a way of saying “dead” which might result in algorithmic censorship. Similarly, a watermelon now represents [...]
I’ve noticed an interesting trend in current law firm activity. It’s slowed down, almost to a crawl. But it’s not the results of a change in markets for law firms. It seems to be a reaction to the tumultuous world around us. Trump’s on again, off again tariffs and uncertainty about their ramifications. The Canadian [...]
I’m a fan of CBC. I think the national communications platform plays an important role in our country. I see them as informative, insightful and strong in exploring information of importance to Canadians. And I love my podcasts, especially CBC’s weekday Front Burner. But today’s episode threw me. It speculated on how easy it might [...]
I live in Canada, but as a strategist, I’m fascinated by the lessons arising from the recent election down South. Specifically, I was shocked by how divided America is between two radially different ideologies. Honestly, they couldn’t be more different. And we’re facing the same thing in Canada. In BC, where I live, we recently [...]
I recently listened to a podcast called “Fail Better” featuring actor David Duchovny interviewing accomplished individuals and talking about how important failure can be. In this episode, he was interviewing Freakonomics writer and podcaster Steven Dubner and they posed the question: why is it that failure is the best lesson; why do we seem to [...]
Biden held onto leadership as long as he could. But when it became apparent that he had lost the faith of his party, and that he couldn’t possibly beat Trump in the Presidential election, he was convinced to step down. There can be tremendous strength in quitting a strategy, and trying something different. Lawyers, and [...]
Currently, Prime is running a documentary on this famous flight demonstration team from the US Navy and Marine Corps. You might have seen them (or their Canadian counterparts, the Snowbirds) perform at an airshow. The documentary highlights the selection process, training, and performance pace of the team over a one-year period. Around the same time [...]
Years ago, when I served as the President of the Legal Marketing Association, I would get antsy if I looked around the table during board meetings, and all 12 of us were completely on-side with a new idea or project. I knew it probably meant that we weren’t being critical enough. So, I would stop [...]