Lawyer Monthly - Women In Law Special Edition

WOMEN IN LAW EDITION LAWYER MONTHLY 99 Jim Collins is one of the most important leadership writers of our time. You can pick up any of his books and find important principles to implement in your leadership journey immediately, including “Built to Last”, “How the Mighty Fall” and “Good to Great.” The reason I selected “Great by Choice” as my top recommendation is that 5 ‘Great by Choice’ by Jim Collins Collins takes his research from earlier books and outlines specific action items that leaders can take to build truly great teams, companies and enterprises in unpredictable and rapidly- changing times. Collins states that “greatness is not primarily a matter of circumstances; greatness is first and foremost a matter of conscious choice and discipline.” I continue implementing regularly the concepts and research he describes in this book such as “10ers”, “20 Mile March”, “SMaC Recipes” and “Level 5 Leadership.” As leaders, we must each make the choice to grow and improve to help those we lead achieve greatness. This book will definitely help you progress towards become a Level 5 leader. Gardner, a Harvard professor, has done more to influence my thinking on leadership among teams of people over the last decade than any other author or speaker. She has studied and written for years on collaboration in professional service firms. In this book, she notes that collaboration “is a means toward achieving the There is no dispute that business is changing more rapidly than at any prior time in our history. Informed leaders have to stay ahead of the innovation curve to successfully navigate their teams or organisations through the rapid disruption characterising industry today. Govindarajan is a professor at Dartmouth’s Tusk School of Business who has taken various theories and practices around innovation and 4 Three Box Solution by Vijay Govindarajan penultimate goal of solving complex, interesting problems- and the ultimate goal of giving firms a strategic, sustainable and profitable platform.” She notes that effective collaboration enables teams and companies to be more successful in the “war” for clients and for talent. As you would expect, there are often high obstacles to getting compressed it to a “three boxes to innovate” concept. He notes in this book that for “more than a decade, innovation has been practically synonymous with the latest cool gadget. In the new era, innovation will not be about cool. It will be about profound change…and will convey breakthrough solutions . . . [in] facing the realities of a crowded and constrained [marketplace].” I found Govindarajan’s approach disparate professionals to collaborate. Gardner works to provide practical approaches to overcome these barriers. This has become a critical handbook to me in understanding and shaping strategy for groups based on the vital importance of collaboration and overcoming the engrained obstacles to collaboration. beneficial to ensure I was spending the necessary time implementing his structure of (i) managing the present, (ii) selectively forgetting the past, and (iii) creating the future. This book serves as a hands-on manual to implement processes and procedures to ensure you are continually evolving and staying ahead in business. 6 Smart Collaboration by Heidi Gardner