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The No Asshole Rule

This time Bob Sutton surprised me with his latest (coming) book - The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't - by raising a series of questions that I was not prepared for, and that I just love.

Quite a general interest read this time from the eminent business/management writer - hey my 15 year old picked it up and started reading it with great interest!

And kids should know all about assholes. Even if their "workplace" is less infested with hierarchies.

That is one of the questions that lingered all through the read - how does an asshole pick out his victims? As Sutton points to the workplace-asshole only pesters his boss in less than 1% of the cases, mostly picking his/her direct underlings. Easy prey as they are, and the asshole have little risk of retribution thanks to his/her position.

But then, what about among peers? What's common there?

Coupled that question with my own experience as I had a really hard time to remember any asshole I ever had to endure. Occasional asshole behaviour for sure (including my own I'm afraid, much obliged Bob for prodding me to give that one a serious thought!), even from nice people, good friends (still good friends) and of course the odd stressed bus/plane/train passenger - but not one certified long term asshole that I had the pleasure to know came to mind.

Hmm, first thought was of course "am I one of them?!". Ouch.
And that is a really great aspect of the book, kick your butt to think over you own behaviour - are you a certified asshole, an occasional one, do you handle assholes or do you add to the venom and stupidity? Most useful.
Luckily Sutton supplies you with a self-test (and then suggests that you better double check the results with somebody else) and many other clues - so I seem not to be a certified one at least. Hey guys out there, any other views on that?

Second thought would be that I never really had a boss. That explains a lot. OK, I did a few times prior  to and during studies, but I was so detached from the situation (never dependent on the job) I simply left if I was less than perfectly happy. Not much of a viable asshole victim I would presume.

Third is more of a question: As much/some of the certified asshole drive comes from competitiveness (the self-test questions is full of clues of that) I wonder if not some of the phenomena is a culture issue. Not armed with a single scientific proof I do have a hunch that the North American society do put competitiveness higher in all rungs of life than the European ones from where I hail. As said, it is just a question.

Still I have not known a single one. Then I remember I was never really bullied at school either, sporadically an effort was made, but nothing had to be endured.

That's when Sutton's chapter five came to my help with it's "survival tips" and the theme of "small wins" and "ignore and avoid".
Using the fact that most bullying happens downwards in the hierarchy and coupling it with the "seize bits of control" method as suggested in the book, I read between the lines that insecurity and lack of control can act as a magnet for constant bullying and certified asshole behaviour. Perhaps "control over you own life" as in reality and as displayed (dogs smell fear) would be the ultimate first line of defence.

Ahh, that's it. The few times I've been a victim for surprising asshole behaviour was when I was less in the normal control of things, actually a bad one in a board of directors situation came to mind when the winds were not exactly blowing my way, and I felt it and displayed it. A clear invitation to potential assholes, even the occasional one as in that case - and as Sutton suggest will happen over and over again, I certainly joined and enhanced the stupidity unprepared as I was.

Some of the examples in the book of companies/firms that have no asshole rule are excellent and definitely strengthens my belief that the company culture is what it's all about, no single rule will help, only a holistic, complete, no-room-for-doubt culture can work. And that applies to everything, not only keeping assholes at bay I would say.

I found two issues in the book where I have a tendency to disagree, perhaps not strongly, but still (another trait of good books in my mind):

In chapter 5 - Tips for Surviving Nasty People and Workplaces - Sutton suggests (among many methods) revenge as a viable and fair method with some hilarious examples. Still I react to that notion, for me revenge is infantile, crude and worst; an invitation to escalation of any bad situation. Sure, if it works it makes one feel good and you would have a great story to tell to colleagues, but perhaps not worthy of a highly developed culture or individual?

In chapter 6 - Virtues of Assholes. Some good examples are supplied, still I get this urge to argue that the examples given (in particular the chap who's boss of the firm that produced the thing I'm typing this on) are situational assholes, people who are so completely consumed by some ideas and tasks that combined with a definite lack of social skills it creates overwhelming asshole moments. Then I read the self-test questions where disdain, contempt and glee over the misfortune of others seems to be the driving force for the true certified asshole - and that is after all something completely different even if some of the results are similar. I think I could live with the first type, but definitely not with the last.

All in all a most enjoyable read, a source for many thoughts for a long time and even a kick in the butt to be much more aware of own (hopefully rather rare) stupid behaviour moments! And that makes it worth it, so look forward to February 22 next year, just go out and buy it.

Now I have to give the book back to my kids...

a very good read

A few months ago Bob Sutton graciously sent me his and Jeffrey Pfeffer's latest (available) book - "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management".

That it took me a few months to read is a good sign - three pages and I get ideas and become massively side-tracked - that's how it should be even if you may suspect that I am a serious slowpoke! :D

On a side note I would have loved it being in electronic form so I could travel with it, no space for heavy hard cover books when travelling hand luggage only. Perhaps that's a publisher's half-truth that he missed out on; that "serious books" have to be big and heavy?

Luckily Bob has a blog now!

In essence he picks six important business "truths" and rebuffs them nicely with quite a selection of relevant examples and much evidence. I enjoyed that, and will try to remember a few of them for future use in discussions.

Bob does the right thing when "attacking" dangerous half-truths and other nonsense; evidence has power, simple as that.
Myself I'm taking more of the "lazy" or general view to the same - as in a former post I simply use a "time-to-question-trigger-mechanism": "The more I hear that something is the truth - the more I’m convinced it’s not so" based on the assumption that we repeat for reinforcement if our intuition gnaws and signals that "hmm, it might not be that at all... but if I can get lots of reinforcement, then I can live with it."

His six points are:

1. Is work fundamentally different from the rest of life and should it be?
2. Do the best organizations have the best people?
3. Do financial incentives drive company performance?
4. Strategy is destiny?
5. Change or die?
6. Are great leaders in control of their companies?

Rounding off with a chapter on how to stay alert and flip evidence into practical use.

The interesting part for me is how we all too often choose the easy way out by accepting some old simplified summary as the "truth" instead of checking the often readily available evidence. The evidence is there in front of our noses, still we choose the chewed, digested sounds-right-but-is-probably-nonsense solutions. Guess we're intellectually lazy after all.

Not ever having been a part of any big organisation (well, once for eleven months actually) but having spent quite some time on Board of Directors on smaller firms I always found at least one Director to show the following traits during meetings: Waiting till all had talked, then offering some general and recognisable "truth" that nicely summed up the discussion. Now exhausted from much bickering and still iffy take on the reality the other directors most often uttered a collective "sigh" of relief and went with the easy-to-understand-truth and the politically-smart director was yet again the hero. A double whammy, we were trapped again in old ways and the trapper strengthened his clout.

Worst thing was that such directors soon built a reputation of being "wise". But not so, one should be better off heeding Bob's advice - "Wisdom: The Most Important Thing" - with wisdom as in "knowing what you know and knowing what you don't know" attitude enabling one to act on present knowledge while doubting what one knows.

Suspect quotes from his book will crop up in future posts herein! And I am looking forward to the release of his new one - "The No Asshole Rule : Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't".