I was taking a group of new associates from a major New York City law firm through an experiential team-skills session, when one of them turned to me and said, “If we really wanted to do things like this, or to work with other people, we would have gone to business school instead.”
This remark caused me to stop and think. Was a law firm really different from other business organizations? Were team skills truly unnecessary? Did something in the nature of the work, or the structure of the firm, preclude the need for people to work together as efficiently, smoothly and effectively as possible?
