The Waste of Talent

This is an older post, but I was reminded of it this week when I was at SuccessConnect, an event for SuccessFactors customers, and was talking with a group of HR executives about how many ways that workplace assholes cost their organizations lots of money.  In addition to the cases in this post, there has been subsequent research showing how working with assholes — especially asshole bosses — saps the motivation out of people. Anyhow, here is the post I wrote about the waster for talent right after the book came out.

Like
any author would be, I am pleased with the success of my book. The No
Asshole Rule has sold well at places like Amazon
and Barnes
& Noble.com since it first appeared about a month ago, sitting among
the 12 books overall and among the top 3 non-fiction books at Amazon much of
the time. It is also is doing well in
book stores, especially during the last two weeks (this is clearly a book that
“started” on the web and then moved other places). And it continues to receive attention from the
press, notably recent stories in BusinessWeek
and Newsweek and a long Associated
Press story called He Wrote The Book On Jerks.

 I
confess that the book is selling better than I expected given its mildly
obscene title. But the part that keeps surprising me most is that –- although I
received a deluge of email after writing about the no asshole rule in Harvard Business Review in 2004 and received
a lot of mail before the book was published –  I am getting far more email than ever and it
seems even more emotionally intense than before.

 The
recent round of emails has made especially clear to me that enforcing the no
asshole is not only humane, it is wise from an economic perspective – as an
economist would put it, the rule leads to efficient use of human capital. I am confronted with one case after another of
how pervasive nastiness drives skilled people out of their jobs and
occupations, and short of that, massively undermines their performance.

 Consider these excerpts from notes that I received in just that last few days:

 A woman
who wrote:

 I am a 50 year old woman who was
recently propelled back into the work force simply part-time once my children
left the nest.  My first experience was horrific,
worked for a Dean [at a major university] who was rude, verbally abusive
and made demeaning comments in front of other colleagues.  I went to HR on
numerous occasions and was told Dr. Dean had been with [the school] for thirty
years and had a history of not being able to keep his admins …so, where
did that leave me? I walked out one day, never returned, and simply went to HR
and said goodbye… I will never forget the days with the
Dean as I actually became physically ill and the bullying episodes which I
could not control nor stop. 

The
physician who wrote me about her experience as a surgical resident and beyond:

 We were overwhelmed
with the sickest patients and unfortunately had some less than optimal outcomes,
not because we didn't try our hardest, but because we were often abandoned by
the attending staff.  Of course, the Friday morning morbidity and
mortality statistics were not about learning from our mistakes, but seeing who
could be the meanest bully to the resident physicians.  Some were
crucified more than others.  One felt triumphant if one was able to escape
fairly unscathed. 

 The
former aerospace worker who wrote:

I once worked for an aerospace company and my immediate
supervisor was a BIG asshole. She used to belittle me in front of my co-workers
(all of them at once or whoever was present) by yelling loudly, abruptly
snatching papers out of my hands, giving me dirty looks, interrupting me &
any number of other rude behaviors. She seemed to really enjoy dressing me down
whenever possible, especially in front of her favorite salesman, whose office
was directly behind my cubicle. There was little in the way of my work
performance to justify treating me this way. I wanted to quit many times and
there were many days I would end up crying at my desk.

 And
an ex-schoolteacher wrote:

 I wish I would have known about you two years ago.  I was
in the middle of my seventh year of teaching elementary school and living in a
nightmare.  I was being bullied, harassed, demeaned, etc., but I could not
find any support in this hostile working environment. I took a leave of absence
at the end of the school year, eventually quit, and landed my current job at a
local university.

 We
need administrative assistants, aerospace workers, doctors who are educated
rather than terrorized, and of course, we need skilled schoolteachers. When organizations
are serious about enforcing the rule, they not only stem the human damage, they
stop wasting human capital and organizational resources. And it isn’t all bad news
out there, as the book shows, and so does this note from a school principal in
the Midwest:

 I just finished your book, "The
No Asshole Rule" and I found it funny but factual.  In my position as
a principal, I have to work with a variety of personality types and of course,
the parents who also come in all varieties.   As I began this year, I told my staff [and the
parents] via newsletters, conversations, etc. that poor relationships, gossip,
etc., would not be tolerated.  I feel that because of this attitude, the
atmosphere at my school has improved 100% (and I've heard this from teachers,
parents, and students).

I appreciate all the emails that people
send me, the sad ones, funny ones, and everything else. But I would especially
appreciate ideas about good things that leaders and organizations can do to
build civilized workplaces, as I believe that is one of the most powerful
solutions to the problem. What practices do you use – or are thinking about
using – to screen out, reform, and chase out demeaning people?  Thanks.