Category: The No Asshole Rule

At breakfast this morning, my wife pointed out that I Hate People (which I endorsed and is a book I love) got a long and very positive review in today's Wall Street Journal.   The reviewer did a bit of nit-picking, but he clearly is a big fan of the book.  Predicting which books will be best-sellers and which will not is impossible, but my first reaction to reading this book, which persists, is that if any book in the current market deserves to be one, this is it, because business books that are both fun and useful are as rare as hen's teeth. Check out the review here, and here is a taste.

Refreshingly, the authors don't pretend to have all the answers. If
the workplace career-killer happens to be your boss, they admit,
sometimes the best you can do is hang in there and hope that he or she
self-destructs. (And don't expect any help from HR.)

"I Hate People" is at its best with specifics like the best length
of time for a meeting (half an hour, and no laptops or cellphones
allowed) and the ideal size of a project team (three to five people).
For those who dread being trapped into cellphone chit-chat with a
windbag colleague, there is a devilishly clever online service called
Slydial, which sends your call directly to voicemail without running
the risk of a time- and spirit-sapping conversation.

"I Hate People" is a bracing antidote to the management bromide that
"there is no 'i' in 'team.' " True enough, Messrs. Hershon and Littman
would say — but if you move things around a bit, there is a "me."

We are are in the middle of baseball season here in the United States, and as in any sport where people succeed and fail in public and there is performance pressure, the situation is ripe to turn even mild-mannered people into temporary assholes, and of course, to unleash the full force of certified assholes.  On that point, I got an instructive and entertaining email from Dave Coates, a senior HR manager and a guy who has served as an umpire now and then.  Here is his story:

A few years ago I was an umpire for a local
softball organization.  During the third inning in one game I blew a call
at second base.  The coach for the negatively impacted team immediately
got in my face and spontaneously hit a full-blown asshole rage.  I called
timeout and sent both teams to their respective dugouts and asked the coach to
join me in centerfield.  His rage continued until I told him to shut-up or
the game was over.  Once I had quiet, I told the coach that he was right,
I had blown the call and I was not going to reverse it.  However, my
mistake did not cost his team any runs and earlier in the game his shortstop
had made two fielding errors that has cost his team three runs.  I now
want to know why is it okay for him to get in my face and cuss me out based on
my error, but he never said a word to his shortstop when the errors had cost
his team runs.  The coach was speechless.  I then told him he had two
choices: 1) Shut the hell up and play the game with no further incident, or 2)
If the yelling at the umpire continued I would forfeit the game to other team
taking his team out of contention for the league championship.  Needless,
to say the game was finished without further incident.  To this day, the
coach is still an asshole.

One of the interesting things about this story is that Dave used the "Dirty Harry" method of conflict resolution — exercising the full powers of his position (I guess Dirty Harry went beyond the rules a lot, but Dave was fully in his rights).  I believe that, when you have the power, and people are acting like flaming assholes, it is fully justified.  Unfortunately, most of us don't have such power to deal with the assholes in our lives and must resort to more subtle methods.

Dave, thanks for the story!

In The No Asshole Rule, and in my asshole management tips, I talk about all sorts of different ways to engage with and undermine assholes, everything from direct confrontation to building coalition against them, to embarrassing them.  But I also point out that learning the art of indifference and emotional detachment, to not let them tough your soul, is at times the best thing you can do to protect yourself.  I mostly have recommended this strategy for people trapped with assholes who, at least for now, they can't escape.  But I was fascinated by a story in today's Wall Street Journal called "Are Misbehavin" about all the awful rude things that theater goers do these days — not because they do so many rude things, but because of the way that one performer dealt with a remarkably rude audience member:

Ms. Feldshuh says she typically pauses when she's interrupted. She
doesn't recall the incident, which she says may be evidence of the Zen
attitude she's cultivated onstage. "I have no negative energy about it
to even remember," she says.

I am in awe of Ms. Feldhush's ability to not let such awful behavior touch her soul, to protect her mental health and ability to perform without getting rattled.  Her comment about not having the negative energy to even remember it is just lovely, and to me, a sign of great focus and mental health — indeed, as I've discussed here before, people who ruminate over slights and remain bitter (compared to those who forgive others) generally suffer better mental health. 

Yet, part of me wonders if a better strategy is still to fight back, to not let those assholes get away with their dirty work, as in this example from the story:

Earlier this year, Patti LuPone lit up gossip blogs when she broke
character in "Gypsy" to scream at an audience member taking pictures.
Ms. LuPone says her frustration boiled over. "I had just had 10 months of pointing out to ushers texting,
pointing out to ushers videoing, pointing out to ushers somebody on a
phone," she says. "I just freaked."

I wonder what thoughts people have about when it is best to "go Zen" versus fighting back, and if there is a constructive middle ground (perhaps going Zen during the rudeness, but then having a system where the asshole is not allowed to buy a ticket again, much like the "blacklist" that some major airlines use to ban asshole passengers). 

P.S. Also check out this story on LA Theatre Etiquette — good fun.

The discussion of baboons in Harvard Business Review, as well as here and at the HBR site, reminded me of some intriguing work by anthropologist Christopher Boehm about whether humans (and other apes) are "prone to dominate or live harmoniously with each other."  The puzzle that Boehm tried to untangle was why, given that chimps, gorillas, and Bonobos (with which we share over 98% of the same genes) are so distinctly hierarchical and dominated by alpha males; yet studies of human hunter-gathers show that they are so distinctly egalitarian. Boehm studied 50 small, non-literate cultures to see how egalitarian they were, and why. He found that they were quite deliberately egalitarian- – and believed so strongly in maintaining political parity among adults, that males who turned into selfish bullies or who just tried to boss around everyone too much we were treated as "moral deviants."  Their peers responded aggressively by shaming, ostracizing, and ejecting them from the group. 

Boehm's interpretation of this intolerance for bullying and self-aggrandizement is fascinating, both in terms of the evolutionary basis of the no asshole rule and the tug of war that you see constantly in society between the numerous people prone to grab power and goodies for themselves and the numerous people that fight back to stop them (think of the current battle over executive pay).  Boehm's interpretation is that human hunter-gathers were actually quite similar to their fellow apes in that "they were prone to dominate each other," and thus "if these people had not so vigilantly worked against inequality, they would have soon turned hierarchical."  To put words in Boehm's mouth, people in these tribes aggressively enforced the no asshole rule as a deterrent against excessive dominance.

Boehm goes on to make a fascinating statement about we humans and our closest relatives that I think explains a lot about the behavior we see in so much of society: "We must ask, then, why a species so inclined to domination has been motivated to insist that power be shared so equally. And here, I believe, is the answer: Just as all four of the aforementioned species have strong propensity to domination and submission, so do they naturally resent being dominated."  In other words, we are both attracted to power (and to the powerful) but hate being pushed around and have a desire to parity (or more egalitarian relationships). 

I've been thinking about this a lot this morning because these tensions — which clash the point of being irreconcilable– help explain why there is so much inconsistency in human social behavior.  It also explains why being a leader requires walking a tightrope. On the one hand, people want a leader who they see as strong and in control (and leaders want to dominate their followers), but followers also want a leader who is unselfish, benevolent, and egalitarian.  Striking just the right balance here, day after day, isn't easy for any leader — and as I wrote about in the HBR article, the dynamics of power make it even tougher because of the toxic tandem (people in power tend to become oblivious to their followers; while followers tend to watch their leaders actions very closely).  Yet to walk the tightrope, leaders need to be especially in tune with how their people react to every little move they make.

P.S. You can read Boehm's article here in Greater Good or if you really want to dig-in, check out his book Hierarchy in the Forest.

Writing a business book that is funny and useful is REALLY tough to do.  The Peter Principle qualifies, so does Up the Organization, and so does my all time favorite business book on anything, Orbiting the Giant Hairball.  But most books that attempt this trick end-up as big flops. A brand new book is coming out this week that is so funny and useful that belongs in the esteemed company of such masterpieces.  I  Hate People: Kick Loose from the Overbearing and Underhanded Jerks at Work and Get What You Want Out of Your Job presents a compelling recipe for navigating through the kinds of people in the workplace that make us all miserable.  Authors Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon call these jerks, losers, and time-suckers "The Ten Least Wanted." Examples include "Stop Sign," "Flim-Flam," "Bulldozer," and one of my least favorite "Smiley Face." The book is filled with all kinds of testsfor assessing how much you hate people, how many of these difficult people you must deal with, and more important, it is filled with great advice about how to survive and thrive among these creeps and losers.

They are also doing a host of funny and effective stuff to give readers a taste of the book, or to help people who read the book dig into the ideas more.  Check out their blog, I Hate People… But It's Nothing Personal, especially check out their silly conversation about how "Smiley Face" bosses express insincere passion as they screw-up people's lives. I also loved their post on Brits Have the Shortest Fuse.  And if you are really lucky, you can get an "I Hate People"  Do Not Disturb sign from them somehow.. I brought them home to my three teenagers on Friday, and now one hangs from each of their doors. 

Jonathan and Marc have written a great book, I believe, because they have different skills, but see the world in the same way. Jonathan is an experienced writer and author, notably joining Tom Kelley to write their IDEO-inspired books The Art of Innovation and Ten Faces of Innovation, and Jonathan has done a lot of serious journalism too,.  In fact, he has spent a great deal of time over the past couple years writing about steroid scandals in sports.   Marc is a wildly creative guy, perhaps most well-known for is work inventing the names of famous things such as the BlackBerry and Swiffer, but he also does and teaches stand-up comedy, produces cartoons for newspapers, and writes screenplays for movies, especially for the Hallmark channel… to name just some of the creative stuff he does.  The book is written in a consistent and persistently funny voice that reflects the quirks and skills of these two very talented people.

Finally, I Hate People has one of the funniest endorsement's I've ever seen. Comedian Dana Carvey says "Ironically, I hate the people who wrote this book."  I would also add that much as Arthur Bell's blurb suggest, this is the rare book that is clever and funny — as you laugh along with Jonathan and Marc, you realize that their analysis and solutions are actually deeper and more useful than the piles of management books out their that take themselves far more seriously — indeed, when I read it a few months back for the first time when they asked me to do a blurb, I was just blown away by how clever their ideas were for dealing with, coping with, and triumphing over the parade of creeps and idiots who populate too many workplaces.

Amazon just started shipping it today, you might want to grab a copy. 

Thanks to some great work by the people at Electric Pulp, now, when you take the ARSE Test (Asshole Rating Self-Exam), you can posted your score on Facebook or Twitter with just one click.  As regular readers of this blog know, the ARSE is my 24 item self test to determine if you are a certified asshole or not.  I just took it again for the first time in about a year and got 4 out of 24 (now posted on my Facebook profile), so I am not a certified asshole, but have my moments. Also, Emily from Electric Pulp reports that, as of today, 192,431 people have completed the test, with a mean of 6.9.  So, the self-examination continues!

The No Asshole Rule has had many, many reviews by now, most positive, and a few negative.  And I have by this point seen all sorts of weird reactions, and have learned to laugh about them.  One just went up at Amazon this is especially weird — and funny — because it provides not even a hint that the reviewer read the book. I guess that having such a strong title provokes this kind of thing, but most people who write a negative review of a book usually actually say something about he content of the book!  I guess he didn't like the title. Here it is:

A**HO** survive due to bigger A*ES, May 5, 2009 By  Kaleem "kevin9984" (Atlanta, GA USA) – See all my reviews My personal experience is when ever there is an ahole who seems to survive no matter what damage he does, it is because this ahole licks a bigger ahole, his boss. Then this ahole boss does same to his ahole boss. Even if one normal person exists in hierarchy – the ahole chain breaks and aholes are gone. I guess being an aggressive person I never had anyone intimidate or threaten me. But my rule of thumb is simple – If someone bothers me, I talk to them right away – privately, then immediately to the HR and immediately to their boss. This happens mainly though email for a record. Then when that horrible colleague comes backs at me, I humiliate it publicly. Even if the ahole boss wants to fire you, you have a record. Worse they will move you in a different team. We all only live once, it's something we owe to ourselves, then if someone acts like an ahole, put them in their place. Be bold and be confident.

I tried quite few viral tools related to The No Asshole Rule, ARSE Mail (an e-card for someone suffering from an asshole or to apologize for being an asshole), The ACHE (Asshole Client for Hell Exam — to assess of your client is a certified asshole) and The Flying ARSE (to assess if you — or perhaps someone on your flight — is an asshole airline passenger).  But none have been nearly as successful as the original ARSE (Asshole Rating Self Exam), a self-test to determine if you are a certified asshole.  It is closing in on 200,000 completions and the other day I got a quite strident request from a reader who wants to be able to post his ARSE score on Facebook and Twitter. And as a sign of international impact, I got a request from a book store in Romania the other day to translate it into Romanian for their website. 

Although I study and teach about what spreads and what does not, I still am not very skilled at predicting which viral tools will take off and which won't — like much of innovation, there is a lot of "throwing it against the wall and seeing what sticks."  But If anyone has any ideas about why the ARSE persists and the other tools have attracted brief and modest interest (although the ACHE does OK), I'd be quite curious.

I have written both here and The No Asshole Rule about the persistent nastiness that nurses face.  There is quite a bit of research showing that they face insults, glaring. and insensitivity of all stripes at higher rates than most other occupations — for example a 2003 study in the Journal of Orthopaedic Nursing found that 91% of 461 nurses surveyed had experienced verbal abuse int he past month — mistreatment that left them feeling attacked, devalued, or humiliated.  Note that doctors are the main culprits in this research, but nurses experience nastiness from a host of others: supervisors, administrators, patients, patient's families, and so on.   I've also written here about the "Dr. Gooser" incident that Dan Denison I observed years ago when we were studying surgical nursing teams.  And I've discussed how, in the United States, The Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals, has recently implemented new guidelines where hospitals that condone or don't stop persistent hostility can lose their accreditation.

Well, as we are in a time of layoffs and other moves associated with tough economic times, nurses are of course suffering the results along with millions of others.  As every boss out there already knows (but all don't do), when it comes to  implementing these tough decisions, there is an important difference between what you do and how you do it.  Layoffs are hard enough, but when they are implemented with a lack of compassion and with insensitivity, they do further damage to the target, magnify fear and anger that spreads among both "survivors" and other potential targets, and undermine the humanity of bosses who implement them poorly.  Unfortunately, there was recently a nearly perfect case of how not to do a layoff reported by the Wisconsin State Journal. Alas, a nurse was the victim of such incompetence. Here is the lead:

A Dean Health System manager removed a nurse from a minor surgical
procedure last week — in violation of medical protocol — in order to
lay her off, a spokesman for the company confirmed Monday.

The abrupt removal, which spokesman Paul Pitas said posed no danger
to the patient, came after the Madison-based health care provider
announced Wednesday that it planned to “immediately” lay off 90
employees.

The Dean Health Care system did admit that this was an error in judgment and admitted it was also a violation of operating room procedure:

“There was a period of time in which an RN was not present during the
procedure,” Pitas said. “While there were other clinical staff present,
including a physician, the absence of an RN goes against established
patient-care procedures at Dean Health System.”

The manager who hauled the nurse out of the operating room was described as follows: "This person is very upset and is extremely remorseful over this,” Pitas
said, adding that the layoffs created “extraordinary circumstances.” 

In contrast, note the statement from a senior executive: 'Of the layoffs, Craig Smitty, Dean Health System president said last week, “We do not feel patients will notice.”'  My reaction was that, even if I didn't notice that my nurse had removed from the operating room when I was receiving surgery, I would be most unhappy if I discovered this had happened.

Certainly, patients should not receive inferior care even if they don't notice it.  But that is just part of the story. Given these are extraordinary circumstances, it seems to me that extraordinary care is required by management to assure that the layoffs are done as humanely as possible — for everyone's benefit. Indeed, take a look at the article, and you can see further descriptions of how waves of fear rippled through the hospital the day the layoffs were done because excessive fear and uncertainty were introduced in the process. My hunch is that it is senior management who dropped the ball on this one.  When layoffs are done, orchestrating the process so it does as little additional damage as possible is their responsbility — HR usually gets blamed when things like this are botched…. but everyone in senior management should help with the process.

I suggest that any boss who is planning layoffs take a look at the story.  It is a lot less painful to learn from someone else's mistakes in this case than to be that seemingly insensitive manager or president.

P.S. Nathan, thanks for sending me this story.

I found Scott's post to be quite thoughtful. He actually lists 11 reasons.  My favorite is this one, although all are on target.  The mental health of managers is something that people don't think about enough (and it is especially tough to be a boss these days, and perhaps those of who encounter an asshole boss who is usually civilized should cut them slack):

Their life sucks. What percentage of people are
miserable in the corporate world? I think 20-30% is a safe bet. If
you’re miserable, you tend to inflict your misery on those who have
less power than you do. If your life sucks badly enough you won’t even
notice how rude you are to waiters, assistants, and sub-ordinates. It
may be nothing personal, or even work related, these people simply have
a volcano of negative emotions that must escape somewhere, often in
eruptions that they can not control. Just be glad you’re not their
spouse or offspring.

In addition, as I talk about in The No Asshole Rule  another reason that managers become assholes is that — as a growing pile of studies shows, see here and here — just giving people a little power can make them more focused on their own needs and wants, and less focused on the needs, wants, and actions of others. 

I would like to see some research on this, but I am hypothesizing that more employees have asshole managers than just a year ago or so.  If you think about the economy, people are stuck with an asshole boss have a much harder time leaving for another job.  Those who are stuck are more afraid to fight back against an asshole boss because they are afraid that they will move to the head of the layoff or "performance based" firing list (See this Dilbert cartoon — people who complain or fight back are among those who make bosses 10 squirm), and finally, on the life sucks theme, if you as a boss are getting your budgets cuts, being ignored and abused by your own boss, facing the stress of laying-off people, and so on, these are all things that drive even the most upbeat manager into a nasty mood.  So I fear that the asshole are on the rise and the power to fight back is plummeting in too many workplaces. In fact, I would be very curious to hear from those of you out there in real jobs of examples that refute or support this hunch of mine.

Finally, I have a little reminder for both asshole bosses and their victims.  For victims, this too shall pass, it may be unwise to fight back now, but it is a good time to patiently gather the facts and weave together a coalition of fellow victims and supporters.  Bide your time and protect yourself as much as you can — the day may come when things change, when you have more options, or your boss losses power, and you can fight back.  As for you asshole bosses out there: You may believe that your nasty style is helping you maintain control via intimidation,  and perhaps it is (for now), but your enemies may by laying in wait — and you may reap what you are sowing right now.