New York Lawyer
April 27, 2006

Q:
I have read things you have written in the past about backstabbing, and am wondering if you ever feel that a deliberate effort at a sort of backstabbing is justified.

Specifically, I am a new partner in a smallish firm and have been approached by another partner about doing an informal effort to deal with a fractious colleague, another partner. This person puts a lot of people off by being difficult to deal with, dominating meetings, and generally throwing weight around in a manner that makes it hard to make progress and gives everyone a headache. Of course this person is a big rainmaker, thus the historical tolerance.

This other partner who has approached me wants to enlist me, so to speak, in an effort to help shut this difficult partner down when the person gets out of hand, and do other end-run maneuvers in an effort to neutralize or at least minimize the other partner's destructive tendencies.

Is this kosher or should I just say forget it and not get involved?

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A:

There are formal and informal ways of dealing with difficulties in a workplace. Firms with mostly informal ways of dealing with issues often feature inconsistencies and unfairness, unless they are extraordinarily lucky and feature a great collection of personalities. Thus most workplaces find they need to put formal systems into place to avoid unfairness and to keep consistent results in place for how people are treated.

That said, often (especially when it comes to sticky interpersonal dustups) people resort to less formal ways to approach situations, and if handled properly and for the right goals, it's okay. The most important question to ask yourself is why this is being done. If it is for an appropriate reason and there is no other feasible way to reach the goal, it's worth considering as a way to deal with the problem.

A worthy goal, obviously, is whether the partner's behavior is getting in the way of the best interests of the firm. If the behavior slows things down enormously, gets people so riled up they can't focus as they should, or has other identifiable ill effects, that's not in the bests interests of the firm and therefore you should seriously consider the proposed approach. A less worthy goal, as an example, is when someone simply wants to backstab in order to advance at someone else's expense. In other words, if the partner who approached you has sinister ulterior motives, then you should forget about it. Obviously I can't really tell from your question whether there is a worthy goal or not, but that's unquestionably the first thing you need to clarify for yourself.

That's not the end of the inquiry, though. Covertly planning to go after another partner isn't an easy thing to pull off and could get you into all sorts of hot water. The difficult person sounds powerful, so angering him or her may be a very bad move for you. You need to be realistic about whether this process can be managed in such a way that it actually has a chance of success. Evaluate the partner who has approached you; is this a reliable, steady person, with integrity who wants only for the firm to operate more successfully, or is the person less reliable in that regard? Don't team up with a suspect person - that approach is almost certain to backfire.

Another thought is to discuss with the other partner whether there are other people who could better accomplish this than the two of you and whether any of them could be approached. And yet another approach would be to turn down the "team" effort the other partner is advocating, but nonetheless to make efforts where appropriate to try to make some inroads against the offending partner.

Bottom line: Examine all the alternatives, carefully, before you act.

Sincerely,
Holly English
Principal Consultant, Values at Work