No law department avoids the undertow of “office politics”

In all my consulting engagements, the members of the law department have views about the degree to which their department is “political.” No one defines the term, but “politics” is uniformly described as an undesirable feature. People try to ingratiate themselves and they try to land responsibility for high-profile projects. They want to work with senior executives

Everyone assumes there is a shared meaning of “political.” Not true, and my few ventures into office politics and its many manifestations have not mounted a definition (See my posts of Oct. 10, 2005 on politics and succession planning; and May 2, 2007 on political fights as stress for the newly promoted on competition vs conflict; Aug. 2, 2006 on stress management for Scottish lawyers; June 5, 2006 on conflict as a cause of stress; and Jan. 20, 2007 on task and relationship conflicts.). In retrospect it is odd that there is not more on this blog about this ubiquitous phenomenon.

Tongue in cheek, “office politics” as what others do to get ahead that wrongs me and is not based on merit. Weeds in the garden of work, wherever people are employed there is politics (See posts of Oct. 24, 2006 on rumors; and April 13, 2007 #4 on gossip.).