Is there more politics, less politics or equal amount of politics in consulting compared to general corporate/government workplace?I think of start-ups with a few people who all like each other and all have success of the business as top goal and the merit of the individual counts. On the other hand, I look at large corps as very political where merit and the overall good of business does not go ahead of personal relationships. likes and hates, gossip and so on. Where people think of work as a battlefield. What do you think and why?

where is the beef? sirloin or fillet?I ask why?

just a personal, and oversimplified perspective... a lot of 'politics' arises from people trying to get the edge over their competition (ie internal colleagues) for self advancement. the bigger the field of competitors the more the politics. the org structure of corporates tends to limit your field of competition to the immediate functional peer group (govt sector however is a whole different ball game). in large consultancies with very generic propositions, you have an enormous set of competitors who can potentially do the same work at the same client (or interpret the client opportunity to fit 'their' proposition...) so there is a lot of political jostling for position, and lots of politics around proposition ownership and revenue attribution. I have personally found consulting partnerships somewhat less political than corporate consultancies. overall, the clearer your personal ownership of a very tight proposition that only your team can deliver, the less you'll get embroiled...

Every consultancy I've worked at has been highly political. It tends to happen when you have a lot of intelligent, talented people fighting for a limited number of top slots.