Excessive leaking & gossiping scream law-firm dysfunctional culture

All that drama recorded in Abovethelaw.com and Bitterlawyer.com screams the dysfunctionality of the current law-firm culture.  Daily, both sites communicate the leaks and the gossip coming from tipsters at BigLaw.  Sure, a moderate amount of leaking and participation in the grapevine is healthy.  As we communications pros know, both serve as bonding mechanisms and release valves.  Often management may be manipulating those forces in order to trial-balloon a policy or exhaust mob emotion before an official announcement.  The power-brokers Inside the Beltway do that all the time.

However, when those activities become excessive, leaders might want to explore how and why the organizational culture is feeding the momentum.  Forbidding them will, of course, only trigger a surge, plus maybe some lawsuits and defections of talent. 

In healthy cultures, that is those with a normal level of aberrant behavior, the majority focus on the tasks.  The miscreants and muckrakers are in the minority.  In fact, they may be isolated and even punished by the majority.  When the workforce was gung-ho during the Chrysler Iacocca-led turnaround, we unmasked the agitators to the powers-that-be.  They were blackballed not only internally but when they went hunting for jobs outside.  A loyal workforce can be a priceless asset.

Comments

[Jane Genova]

That's exactly why those who create the values of BigLaw organizational cultures have to take a look at them. Most of them need to be changes. One which seems to be working is Jones Day. Somehow the powers that be at Jones Day have figured out how to motivate great accomplishments without completely alienating the workforce.

[jenny]

Loyal work force? There is no loyalty in Biglaw when partners treat workers like crap. I don't believe that partners, who mistreat their associates, are in the minority but rather in the majority. These partners think that $160K a year gives them the right to treat their associates badly. What they, and the other partners who otherwise treat their associates with respect, do not understand (or refuse to accept) is that moral can't be paid. And bad moral affects profits.