Thinking differently with books
- publish258
- Aug 27
- 2 min read
Michael Burne, founder of Carbon Law Partners, discusses why Robert Flint’s Working with Strangers has joined his all-time list of business books
Books are part of how Michael Burne has grown his business, Carbon. ‘They fire the imagination and give you the neural connections to think differently. That’s what we want here,’ he says. ‘Want different. Think different. Be different.’
Founded in 2014 and now billing £8 million a year, Carbon takes its name from the most adaptable element in the periodic table. ‘It's the basis of life and the ultimate bond format. When you join something to carbon, you get something completely new, which is the antithesis of most law firms. So we are creating a deliberately organic environment. When someone comes in, we like them to stand out.’
Burne is in the habit of giving new recruits a book and, like his grandfather, likes to inscribe it. ‘It always remains special that way.’
As the founder, he sees himself as the custodian of the firm’s pioneering culture and its belief in transforming the model of how law is practised. So what books does he favour giving?
In the past, he has chosen Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, Seth Godin’s Purple Cow, Jonah Berger’s Contagious, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, Dave Trott’s One Plus One Equals Three, Joseph Jaworski’s Synchronicity or, as a wild card, Jim Doty’s Mind Magic.
For him, many of the classics of business literature are too academic and distant. ‘When I say that I like writers who make the complex simple, it’s the highest compliment. They are giving me ideas that I can follow up and act on.’
‘It’s why I rate Robert Flint’s Working with Strangers so highly and why we’ll be circulating it to our team in the autumn. It’s exceptional to read and really easy to follow.’
‘It’s partly about how you can make external connections to build your flow of work, but it’s also about becoming an internal ecosystem where everyone breaks free from their silos and trusts each other enough to find solutions together. The days of hunters feeding off one transaction after another are passing. It’s now more about harvesters who reap what they sow.’
‘It would have been easy to write a complicated book about it, but Rob interprets a set of thinking into language that is understandable and actionable. It’s a rare skill.’
• ‘Working with Strangers: Build your career and grow your business through referrals’ by Robert Fllint, Novaro Publishing, 15th January 2025, ISBN: 978-1-7398640-9-5. See here for further details.
