legal sanity

I am a regular contributor to Office-Politics, an online help site where a panel of professionals responds to reader inquiries about dealing with workplace dilemmas. I really enjoy being part of this real-world dialogue. Some of the questions and answers fielded through the site inspired its originator, Franke James, to create an innovative board game - also called Office-Politics - that aims to teach us how to play, and laugh, at our everyday office challenges.

In my recent Web wanderings, I came across a few articles that touch on the topic of navigating office politics. The first, from CareerJournal.com, shares pointers on The Right – and Wrong – Way to Deal with a Lousy Manager. According to the piece, a baseline tactic is to ask ourselves: “Is this a bully, or simply a case of two personalities that don't get along?” To lend some clarity to this query, we’re given an expert depiction of a “bad boss” as someone “who's sadistic, completely indecisive, cruel, gives no feedback, treats you like you're a bad smell, [and] takes credit for everything you've done.” In addition to helping us distill the conundrum we face, the article highlights an assortment of possible recourses, such as getting a transfer, quitting, talking it out or going to a higher up.

Offering a different perspective on the players in our office dramas is this interesting USA Today article [tipped at the Worthwhile blog] discussing how many CEOs are introverts by nature. As part of the coverage, we learn that introverts “are not shy by definition, but they become drained by social encounters and need time alone to recharge.” They also “prefer to know a few people well, which fits many CEOs who often say that it's lonely at the top and that they confide in a small circle of friends.”

I’ve previously posted on different aspects of the lawyer generation gap and its effects on law firm dynamics. The conversation continues in the June 2006 issue of the ABA’s Law Practice Magazine, which features a number of articles addressing this important component of law office politics today.