The No Asshole Rule Goes to Work: A Round-up of Uses and Reactions

I received at
least 50 diverse emails about The No
Asshole Rule in the last week, and gave talks about it to three (also diverse)
groups: A group of about 20 Chief Information Officers in Dallas, an audience of
200 lawyers and 300 of their clients in Phoenix, and about 150 or so Stanford
volunteers on the Stanford campus. Along the way, I’ve learned some
fascinating things about how people are using and reacting to the book. I
thought it would be fun to do a round-up.  Here
are seven ways:

1. An anonymous message to an asshole. A distraught San  Francisco police captain both wrote and called
me, as he was given the book anonymously, and it contained an inscription that
said something like "Read this book, you need it." He didn’t seem
very happy. He also seemed to think that I had written it, or perhaps sent it
to him myself. I didn’t.  

2. A protective device against assholes. An attorney reported that
she was going to display a copy of the book on her office because she thought it might cause clients and
colleagues to be nicer to her.

3. A training tool. I have had notes from people from several
organizations (including a law firm and a financial services firm) where HR people
held workshops where they used the book. Also, check out how
C.K. Gunsalus is using it in the MBA classroom.

4. An asshole management
tool. The
head of HR at one university was given the book by his boss (a dean) to help
both of them think about how to deal with the “ speed bumps” they have hit from
“the same bullies, creeps, jerks, tormentors and egomaniacs that you describe
in your book.”

5. Banned by an asshole boss. An office assistant had the book on her
desk; her boss told her to take it off her desk and bring it home, because it
was making people uncomfortable. She suggested that the real reason that her boss wanted
her to get rid of it was that he is an asshole — and didn’t want to face the fact.

6. A source of confusion: Is it hypocrisy, a
confession, or an attempt at a personal and organizational change? An HR executive told me yesterday that her
boss — a total asshole — had three copies of the book on his desk. She couldn’t
figure out if it indicated a complete lack of self-awareness about his effects
on others, an admission of his problem, or even the start of a change effort. Perhaps
he just bought them for the chapter on "The Virtues of Assholes."

7. As affirmation for a firm that already has
(or had) the policy. I got a very nice note from Joshua de Koning, the
Firm Administrator of Lloyd Gosselink Blevins Rochelle & Townsend, who
reports that their firm has used the policy for years. And I also received multiple emails, and had
a charming conversation with Lou Pepper, who when he was CEO of Washington
Mutual in the 1980’s, also applied the policy (they used “A word,” internally, although
they used more polite words for public consumption). he said that they used the policy, in part, because "If
we are nice to each other, we will be nice to customers."  It makes sense to me, and is  also  consistent with what  is done at Southwest and JetBlue Airlines.