dealing with doughnut holes: difficult people in law firms
All of us in the law have dealt with difficult coworkers. The resulting drain on our personal energy stores can be immense. The deep holes that spates of difficult people punch in a law firm’s culture often go ignored and unfilled. In the wake of this inaction, firms lose lawyers, clients and business repute.
John Moore at Brand Autopsy sent me on a blog-a-thon of sorts with a clever post on this theme. Titled the The No Asshole Rule, the post refers to the soon-coming book by the same name in which author Robert Sutton discusses the business damage that difficult people wreak.
From Moore’s commentary, I headed over to Guy Kawasaki’s blog for his great review of Sutton’s book. I then took in a May 2004 article by Sutton called Nasty People. From there, it was on to David Maister who adds his perspective on the subject by asking us all to consider times when we might have taken the plunge and acted like the proverbial hole in the doughnut.
This ride around the Web naturally ends right here at home. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a regular contributor to an online help site called Office-Politics, which just underwent a sweet redesign. You’ll find lots of good information and insight there on navigating the toxic workplace.
