In corporate life, acting [or being] crazy is an underused strategy for management. But not in law firms. Actually, it seems to be be the standard management tool - and an effective one.
See, craziness has the advantage of unpredictability. That's why we from crazy families usually do so well in life: We are prepared for the volatility and carry within us myriad coping strategies. As we say: "You never knew what was behind that door." Those who had the bad luck to grow up in normal households are thrown by partners's bizarre patterns, at least for several years. Once they figure out the game, it's no fun for the partners to play and they will act sane around those who deconstructed this management tool.
Other advantages of craziness, real or feigned, in managing include the lengths others will go to avoid it. They will do just about anything, such as complying with demands for serial all-nighters, to put distance between them and the nut or nuts. Incidentally, the more nuts supervising, the greater the impact. Conventional norms collapse and any rules can be made standard. In fact, we come to internalize that way as, well, normal.
In addition, human beings become frightened by lunacy. That's exactly the goal of nuttiness. Victims of it will think three or four times before asking for a raise, a day off to bury their dad, or a candid evaluation of the odds they will not be cut from the team.
Case study: My mother deterred her landlady from demanding her to move. Among other grievances, the landlady was concerned about my mother's not getting rid of her trash. Fearing that someone was going through it, mum waited until one of us three daughters came to visit and hand-carry the 10 or so hefty bags in our cars to the Jersey City dump. Yeah, my mother kept her eyes peeled out the window to ensure we didn't pull a fast one and deposit the trash in the landlady's garbage cans. A week after my mother died, having lived on Clerk Street for two decades, the landlady told us off about mum's high crimes. At the time, I took that as a positive sign: I wasn't perceived as crazy. Now, I know better. Nuttiness is a most efficient and effective way to navigate life, professional and personal.