outside lawyer | advisors | Executive

How many third opinions should people solicit? When you do it well, it's a network. A senior leader will generally have two or three people.

Some people find one person they're really great with, and they latch on - which is great, but it has some problems. For instance, if you're only talking to one person, over time that can become habitual.

What do you do if your colleagues are telling you one thing and your third opinion is telling you something completely opposite? The goal of the third opinion is to help you broaden your own thinking. The last thing you do is walk in and say, "Well, guys, you've all been telling me this, but I've been talking to Saj-nicole and she says this, and I'm going with her." That's a recipe for disaster. Great leaders know how to take their teams through a process similar to the one they've been through with their third-opinion advisors.

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case study
fire prevention or firefighting?

matt, the top u.s. executive of a multinational financial corporation based overseas, read in the wall street journal about a company that had used a series of investments to fraudulently hide debt. one of the transactions described in the article was familiar: his company had done a similar deal, albeit in a way that was perfectly legal.

concerned that his company would be lumped in with those that had acted inappropriately, matt pondered the bad press - not to mention a fall in stock price and even the loss of his own job - that could result. unsure of what to do, he called on his third-opinion network.

first, he called an outside lawyer he'd known for years, one who had deep experience in financial transactions, and asked him to review what matt's company had done. the lawyer verified that the transaction was aboveboard.