Leigh Buchanan

Joan Mungo sympathized with the contents of her trash compactor. The crowd in Denver’s Civic Center Park was packed so tight that if she fainted—“and if it gets any hotter I will faint,” Joan silently threatened the weather gods—there was no place to fall. “I’d check the time,” she told her friend Maria, who was wedged in beside her on the grass, “but I can’t raise my arm high enough to read my watch.”

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Reprint: R0410A 

The Denver office of the Clarion Company, a $30 million full-service marketing firm, has always been a politics-free zone. Nonwork conversations revolve around families, romances, and the state of the powder at Aspen. If the office sometimes seems detached from the wider world, no one cares.
But that changes with the arrival of Marcus Lippman. A senior project manager hired away from a rival firm in Chicago, Marcus is both charming and aggressive about meeting his new colleagues. During morning encounters in the mail room or kitchenette, he often alludes to the day&#8217;s headlines. In particular, Marcus follows the presidential campaign with an avidity his colleagues reserve for the fate of contestants on American Idol. Those informed enough to respond generally do so. Over time, others join in.
Politics soon enters the office bloodstream. Employees sense a new energy, a feeling of engagement that intensifies as the campaign season progresses. Many employees make contacts in the business community as they pursue extracurricular political activities. But there are downsides as well. Out-of-control e-mail debates sap productivity. Feelings get hurt. And general manager Joan Mungo discovers that political views play an important part in determining who rises to power in the company. As tensions mount, Joan wonders: Should she do something to stanch political debate, and if so, what?
Commenting on this fictional case study are Brian Flynn, the CEO of Schlossberg:Flynn, a business-development consulting firm; Frank Furedi, a professor of sociology at the University of Kent in England; Paula Brantner, the program director at Workplace Fairness, a nonprofit organization; and James E. Rogers, the CEO of Cinergy, a diversified energy company.

Civics and Civility

Reprint: R0410A The Denver office of the Clarion Company, a $30 million full-service marketing firm, has always been a politics-free zone. Nonwork conversations revolve around families, romances, and the state of the powder at Aspen. If the office sometimes seems detached from the wider world, no one cares. But that changes with the arrival of Marcus Lippman. A senior project manager hired away from a rival firm in Chicago, Marcus is both charming and aggressive about meeting his new colleagues. During morning encounters in the mail room or kitchenette, he often alludes to the day’s headlines. In particular, Marcus follows the presidential campaign with an avidity his colleagues reserve for the fate of contestants on American Idol . Those informed enough to respond generally do so. Over time, others join in. Politics soon enters the office bloodstream. Employees sense a new energy, a feeling of engagement that intensifies as the campaign season progresses. Many employees make contacts in the business community as they pursue extracurricular political activities. But there are downsides as well. Out-of-control e-mail debates sap productivity. Feelings get hurt. And general manager Joan Mungo discovers that political views play an important part in determining who rises to power in the company. As tensions mount, Joan wonders: Should she do something to stanch political debate, and if so, what? Commenting on this fictional case study are Brian Flynn, the CEO of Schlossberg:Flynn, a business-development consulting firm; Frank Furedi, a professor of sociology at the University of Kent in England; Paula Brantner, the program director at Workplace Fairness, a nonprofit organization; and James E. Rogers, the CEO of Cinergy, a diversified energy company.

Civics and Civility

Summary.

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