One of the lessons from the pandemic is that professional firms need to re-tune every aspect of their operations. Episode 42 of the popular weekly show welcomes regular Francesca Lagerberg and three guests: Tim Vorley on advancing innovation through design sprints; Rupprecht Graf von Pfeil on culture as a hard economic factor; and Andrew Mayo on developing leaders and leadership. Richard Chaplin is your host.

A top item on the agenda at most firms is property strategy, in particular how much space is needed and how the space is best configured. The sums involved are astronomical. Which activities and tasks benefit most from face-to-face interaction, and which are best performed solo? How best to sustain a firm's culture when everyone is working from home for a significant part of the week. The roundtable will be informed by the findings of polls conducted on the weekly 'Re-tuning your Firm' show

The underperforming or misbehaving partner is hard to ignore. It can be costly in addition to the risk of a potential time bomb regarding client relationships. The underperformer may be a once high achieving partner, now floundering. The misbehaving partner can be anywhere in a firm even amongst the star billers. Other partners are expecting leadership to deal with the bubbling animosity. Overall it creates an interesting challenge for firm leaders, firm values and firm cultures.

Design sprints (derived from design thinking) are a very useful and practical way to re-think and resolve business challenges. That is the core finding from a multi-disciplinary Government-funded research project. This Conference will share the knowledge with leadership teams on where and how best to deploy design sprints, within the context of an overall innovation roadmap.