Thoughts from a Management Lawyer

Congratulations to Patrick Lamb

I wanted to send along my sincere congratulations to Patrick Lamb of Valorem a legal rebel and now a published author of a new book on Alternative Fee Arrangements. 

I have been following Patrick's blog (In Search of Perfect Client Service) for many years and his thoughts and writings on billing models were extremely helpful as I was considering my decision to start off on my new venture and found my firm, Watershed LLP (the website is under construction, so cut me some slack) also built on value based billing, open pricing and alternative fee arrangements.

So congratulations to Patrick and pick up his book.

The Protection of Collective Bargaining as a Human Right

I received an email the other day from Professor Roy Adams Professor Emeritus, McMaster University, letting me know of the release of his hew book Labour Left Out: Canada's Failure to Protect and Promote Collective Bargaining as a Human Right.  Professor Adams says that "the basic thesis is that labour rights are in decline in Canada largely because our governments have failed to embrace and protect collective bargaining as a human right despite its being heralded as such in the international arena."  You can read the Table of Contents and Preface. 

There's no doubt that Professor Adams is offering an innovative and fresh approach to an important subject, irrespective of whether one agrees with or accepts the underlying thesis.  I plan on picking up a copy of Professor Adams' book, and you might want to as well.

Forced Ranking: Making Performance Management Work

Harvard Business School Working Knowledge has an  excerpt from Dick Grote's book Forced Ranking: Making Performance Management Work.  According to the description, "Forced ranking assesses employee performance relative to peers rather than against predetermined goals."  Mr. Grote says that:

"By implementing a forced ranking procedure, organizations guarantee that managers will differentiate talent. While conventional performance appraisal systems may allow managers to inflate ratings and award Superior ratings to all, a forced ranking system ensures that distribution requirements will be met. Assuming that the system is wisely constructed and effectively executed, a forced ranking system can provide information that conventional performance appraisal systems can't."

While I haven't read this book, it looks like an intriguing alternative to traditional performance reviews that have, in many organizations, fallen out of favour.  According to an article cited by author, "Results suggest that a forced ranking system of the type we simulated could improve the performance potential of the typical organization's workforce and that the great majority of improvement should be expected to occur during the first several years." (Andy Meisler, "Dead Man's Curve," Workforce Management, July 2003.)