Category: Personal Thoughts

The death of a satirist – and more

Bill Strauss, the creator of Capitol Steps died at the young age of 60 years. Not only was he and his troop fabulous satirists, Bill was also an author who focused on generational differences.  I first was introduced to the Capitol Steps at an ABA gathering in Washington, D.C. I couldn’t remember when I had laughed so hard.

Without knowing his connection to the Capitol Steps, I invited him to be a keynote speaker at my Managing Partners Roundtable’s Diversity Conference in 2006. During his presentation, he talked about his theory of “5 generations.” Paraphrasing him, he said that every 4 (5?) generations repeats itself. The first generation creates a new world, the 2nd generation sustains this new world, the 3rd generation enhances or expands or grows the world, the 4th generation destroys the world and the 5th generation starts with a new world again.  While my paraphrase clearly does not do Bill Strauss’ comments justice, the concept of “history repeating itself” is important. Bill said that one can trace and support this theory merely by looking at the history of the world.

With his theory, he drew certain conclusions about the differences among today’s generations, what we call the generation gap. His comments resonated well with the managing partners, the partners and the younger associates in our audience of more than 200 lawyers.

With increasing longevity, and therefore more generations co-existing than ever before, it’s essential that we understand these issues if we’re to cooperate and continue to grow as a society. With his death, we have lost an important contributor to this conversation.

Is pessimism prudence?

My wife would probably agree and say "yes." I have always said that she would have made a great law school professor because she can see every negative possibility, some I couldn’t even imagine, in every situation! The  "parade of horribles," as it was called in law school.

Her response is that by envisioning what could go wrong, she can prepare for it happening and be ready to overcome it if it does happen. Perhaps her attitude is where i got the title for my book Disaster Preparedness & Recovery Planning for Law Firms.

In today’s ABA email, there seems to be some vindication for her approach. An article by Debra Cassens Weiss said: 

"… Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania, who studies positive psychology, says most optimists do better in life than merited by their talents alone.

But with lawyers, the opposite is true.

Seligman’s survey of law students at the University of Virginia found that pessimists got better grades, were more likely to make law review and got better job offers.

"In law," he told the newspaper, ‘pessimism is considered prudence.’ "

Thinking beyond the norm

Sometimes, in today’s very competitive legal environment, lawyers and law firms must think "outside of the box," beyond the norm. Creating a strategy for your future is mandatory for success, for knowing whether you’ve arrived at "success." Obviously, that is not a "given," not automatic. We must first create, then implement, to be successful.

Other fields of endeavor often provide us with examples of this type of thinking. See below for one example in the art world. I’ve seen this type of approach only twice in my life, once by Salvador Dali in possibly my favorite works of art of all time and once by my sister (also an artist).

See the Cochrane Mural

For those people that live in another part of the world, Cochrane is a community just west of Calgary, Alberta . (Not the one in Northern Ontario.)

This mural was unveiled at the Cochrane Ranche House July 1, 2007. Each tile is 1 foot square, is it’s own individual picture, and each is by a different artist.  All of them together form this huge mural.   You can click on each of the tiles to see them in detail.  Check out the horse’s eye and nostril and anywhere else on the mural. Also the two below it.