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The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One that Isn't

by Robert I. Sutton
Warner Business Books, 2007

I run the risk of being labeled as “spam” or somehow obscene by reviewing this book, but the actual title of the book is The No Asshole Rule. And don’t let the informality of the title fool you. Robert Sutton is a Ph.D. professor at Stanford Business School (and one of my favorite business authors). This book is a serious study of a very serious issue in organizations: bullies, jerks, and outright mean people.

Of course, the issue isn’t just that being mean is unpleasant. The issue is that mean people drain millions and millions of dollars of productivity and profits in organizations around the world. For many years, it was simply a given that you would have people like this in your organization, and you should grin and bear it. After all, there are many celebrated CEOs who have an admitted mean streak, and their companies make millions.

Sutton does a good job at debunking this myth. There is plenty of research that documents the negative effects of assholes (jerks, if you want to avoid the profane and not end up in the spam filter), and he also challenges the long-term value of even the famous jerks that have led companies. People like “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap of Sunbeam were first revered for the results they achieved, but their companies did not see that success over the long term.

I like that the definition of jerk is based on both behavior and power/status. Jerks target other people with the intention to belittle them or humiliate or de-energize them and, equally important, the other people are typically less powerful than them. Power and status difference really plays into it. In fact, he cites research that shows that groups with smaller distances between high-status and low-status actually have fewer jerks in their midst.

Of course absence of jerks does not mean wishy-washy, polite, “yes-men.” He points out that the best and most creative organizations are ones where people “know how to fight,” but they do it without hurting people.

A large section of the book examines how to survive workplaces run by jerks. It is easy to say that you should quit a job and go find another one, but even in the short term you need to cope, and let’s face it—there are lots of reasons in our lives where we can’t leave that job, even though we know we should. It’s mostly advice on how to deal with it internally and not let the jerks’ behavior have a negative impact on you.

This is a great book and one that every CEO should read. I know that in the busy world of your organization it may seem like you don’t have time to read a book about touchy-feely niceness, but remember this: your employees spend more time at your organization than they do with their families and loved ones. It doesn’t take much to make people bitter about that decision, and once bitterness sets in, productivity moves out. Working with an asshole is a sure-fire to speed up the bitterness process, and this is something that you, as the boss, can actually impact. What do you do to assholes when they act out? What if that asshole is you? (and don’t worry, they have a test you can take online!).