Legal Ops Books

Our Ops Squad has been reading books together for a little over a year.  Here are a few of our favorites:

Beyond the Prototype: Design Thinking by Douglas Ferguson

We like Ferguson's emphasis on getting all necessary players in the room and importance of a well-balanced team, on upfront information collection and roundtable prioritization before launching a project, and importance of communications and visual representation of success. 

The Credibility Code by Cara Alter

With QR-code access to videos demonstrating each of the core skills for credibility in professional speaking, no one teaches better than the incomparable Cara Alter.  I keep coming back to this book to brush up on posture, gesture, vocal skills, eye contact and identifying and eliminating derailers.

The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right

Pretty much anyone who has worked with me since 2009 knows how much I love this book.  Please see the blog post ode to this book.  He demonstrates with hard data how checklists help professionals get the stupid stuff right, while giving a buffer for craft, judgment and the ability to respond to unexpected difficulties.

What should we add to our "up next" list?  A few candidates are: Mitch Kowalski's Avoiding Extinction, David Maister's Managing the Professional Services Firm, and William Ury's Getting Past No.