Category: The No Asshole Rule

Forbes.com has a nice, and slightly censored, story by Tara Weiss on The No Asshole Rule in question and answer formant, called "Are you an A$&*@?." Tara was quite fun to talk to, and was especially struck by the research on the nastiness that happens in hospitals, as her boyfriend is a  doctor (a resident as I recall).

The interview also contains a cool new story about coping with assholes that I heard from a former CEO a few weeks ago:

Often we’re trapped with them. Find little ways to avoid them. I
interviewed the CEO of a tech company who had an a——- board member
who screamed at her whenever they spoke. She never had a face-to-face
meeting with him. Instead, when they spoke on the phone, she put the
phone on mute and did her nails. She would unmute the phone every three
to four minutes to see if he was still yelling. She was trapped with
the board member, especially since they had the ability to fire her.

It amazed me to hear this in the halls of the Stanford Engineering School.  Even for a CEO, you can see the host of effective coping strategies that people use to ride out a rough time with an asshole — the use of technology to make the interaction "lower resolution" (she told me tried to avoid face to face interactions so she didn’t have to  see his nasty expressions and veins popping out),  finding small ways to gain control over the  source of  stress (hitting the mute button to stop it), and when you are trapped with an asshole — whether you work serving coffee at Starbucks or are a CEO — finding ways to distance yourself emotionally from the asshole in question (I love the mental image of her calmly doing her nails, and occasionally undoing the mute button to see if his tiriade had subsided.). Great social psychology. And as I always like to say, it is better to avoid assholes if you can, to get out, but when you are stuck with them, there are sometimes ways to limit the damage, as this clever former-CEO shows us.

Also, Forbes has re-reprinted an online version of the Asshole Self-Test, which is done well. I confess, however, to be partial to the original ARSE test because we’ve had over 13,000 people complete it and it is fun to keep track of the numbers. But Forbes did a nice job.

This Leonardo da Vinci quote came in a comment in the discussion around New Research on Bad Apples is generally wonderful — thanks so much to Kent, Rob, Lilly, Frank, Peter, Wally, and Randy. I especially wanted to thank the person who sent this quote, as it gets at one of the main reasons that the the pro-asshole rather than the no asshole rule flourishes: people pretend that they don’t see or become blind to the abuse that is happening right in front of them.   This quote appears at the top of the enlightening — and frightening — blog contributes on Bullying of Academics in Higher Education — unfortunately, as this blog shows so convincingly, academia can be a nasty place. I would add it isn’t always that way, and in fact, I’ve been a member of a group at Stanford that used the no asshole rule and I know of one very successful lab director who actively enforced the "no jerk rule" in the Stanford Engineering School — but as in any organization, things can turn ugly in academia.

Aaron Mentele of Electric Pulp just gave me a quick update about the Asshole Rating Self-Exam (ARSE), the 24 item-online test that you can take to determine the different ways that your inner jerk rears its ugly head and if in fact you are — or are at risk of becoming a certified asshole.

Here are Aaron’s numbers: Of the 27,000 ARSE visitors, 22,224 have been unique. 13,313 have taken the
entire test.

There is a lot of self-examination going on out there! And also examination of others — apparently some asshole bosses.

In addition, I have received quite a few emails from people who report that they’ve turned the test around and completed it with co-workers and bosses in mind.  I got an amazing email this morning that said:

These are the synonyms that Leigh Buchanan used for the word "asshole" in the interview that she did with me in the current INC magazine, titled "The Bully Rulebook."

You can read it online.  Her editor would let me use the A-word in the published interview, but not Leigh. I think she came up with a pretty amusing solution to the challenge.  I especially like the word "schmos," as it rare and funny.

P.S. An INC reader — Jeffrey Fry — also left this great comment:

I like to add my Universal Equine Equitation:

"In the history of the world, there always has been and always will be more horse`s asses than horses."

I wrote a post last Fall called "In Praise of Librarians," which was inspired by the experience that Jeff Pfeffer and I had working with librarians Daphne Chang and Paul Reist at the Stanford Graduate School of Business library to set-up www.evidence-basedmanagement.com.  As I said at the time, my conclusion from all this is that — because blogs and webs sometimes seem to be totally void of facts and, for that matter, skills to check facts — librarian’s skills are desperately needed.  Of course, the another great thing about librarians is that they read a lot and they are really smart!

To that point, Loren Rosson III —  a supervisor at the library in Nashua, New Hampshire — just posted a most thoughtful review of The No Asshole Rule on his blog the busybody.  Loren makes quite a few interesting points and I found the most interesting to be on what it means to be an asshole and how assholes are treated in different cultures.  I do touch on cross-cultural effects int he book. And the book is being published in a lot of different countries including France, Holland, the UK, Korea, Spain, and is has really caught in Germany, perhaps half-a-dozen other languages as well.  But I find Loren’s insights about Asia and the Middle East to be especially interesting:

In Asian and Middle-Eastern (and other) cultures, insults are fine
and frequent arts; belligerence a commendable show of machismo; public
degradation a staple of life; two-faced attacks (and backhanded
compliments) prestigious displays of wit; and "treating others as if
they are invisible" a proper way of snubbing inferiors and equals. What
constitutes being an asshole in one culture is honorable in another,
and not nearly as psychologically damaging.

Interesting stuff. And Loren reports that he is going to do a post on "the one asshole rule" next. And sets the stage by asking: "In the next post we will look at his interesting complement to the no asshole rule — the one
asshole rule. Ponder the following until then: Was Paul right about a
little bit of yeast leavening the whole batch of dough (I Cor 5:6)? Or
can the opposite be true?"

Indeed, if you look at my recent post New Research on Bad Apples, I’ve been wondering about the question myself lately.

I wrote a post a few weeks back about the forthcoming French edition, which will published by Vuibert in April and is called Objectif Zéro-sale-con.  I love the explanation from my publisher about the process through which they developed the title. As I said, Geoff Staines explained:

The literal translation of asshole is "trou du cul", a form
of endearment generously employed throughout the French-speaking world, but
during an impromptu Vuibert seminar on the subject its meaning was felt to be
halfway between sneak and jerk, besides which it is not used in relation to
women. The very commonly used "con", in many ways the natural choice, usually
means plain stupid and lacks the disruptive/destructive/mean-minded nuance. The
more selective expression "sale con", however, does it all because the qualifier
"sale" (dirty) emphasises the intentional nature of the con-ness. And as for
"zéro" instead of "règle" (rule) or "facteur" (which means factor but also
postman), we went for it because it harks back, amongst other things, to "zéro
défaut" (from the quality circles’  elimination of faults).

Vuibert  has also just launched a blog about Objectif Zéro-sale-con. It looks fantastic.  For starters, it has a translation of my post about why I call them assholes, the self-test now known as the ARSE Test, and an excerpt, with more to come. As those of you who have read my posts about the reaction to Der Arscholch-Faktor in Germany know, I’ve been quite interested to learn what it takes to be known as workplace jerk in different cultures, and the different ways that they are handled in different cultures.  I hope that those of you from France (and from other French-speaking regions, such as Quebec in Canada) will enlighten us in French on both the new Objectif Zéro-sale-con blog, as well as on this blog in English. 

Meanwhile, I will turn to one of my favorite Stanford students, Tsedal Beyene to help me translate what written in French about the book — Tsedal went to French schools when she was growing up and speaks it fluently, along with another four or five languages.

One
of my motivations for writing The No
Asshole Rule was that I am disgusted with the norm in business and sports
that, as one of my friends put it, “if you are a really big winner, you can get
away with – even be celebrated – for being a demeaning creep.” One of my little dreams is that all leaders
and their organizations will eventually treat acting like an asshole as a sign
of bad performance rather than an excuse for good performance. If you want to see a detailed and eloquent
argument along these lines, check out Pamela Slim’s post Bob
Knight: The Perfect Mascot for the No Asshole Rule.

Bob
Knight still has his job and is still bragging that “I did it my way” and Steve
Jobs (who I confess is brilliant) is so widely revered now that – short of a
jail sentence – I don’t thank that the backdating scandal will get him fired no
matter how bad it turns it to be. There
are, however, a few bright spots in recent years, where  bosses with a
reputation for being nasty were apparently shown the door, at least in part,
because of their nasty ways: Carly Fiornia at HP, Bob
Nardelli at Home Depot, and Michael Eisner at Disney.  But it seems we still have a long way to go. A
recent article in Vanity Fair called The
Trouble With Judith made me realize, as the headline here shows, that if a
person brings in a lot of money, the rules of civility that most of us must
follow still don’t apply to them (Assuming that the reports in this article are accurate). It is about Judith Regan, the famous book publisher
whose books sold millions of copies – with authors ranging from Rush Limbaugh
to Howard Stern. She did eventually get
fired late last year, but got away with apparently vile behavior for many
years.

The article suggests that her
downfall at Murdoch happened when she pushed to publish O.J. Simpson’s never
published semi-confessional book “If I
Did It,” with apparently the final straw being some anti-Semitic comments
that she allegedly made. You can see her
in the attached picture, in an interview with O.J. about the book that was
never aired.

This
article is written by a former friend Michael Wolff, an author who had known
Judith since college. Perhaps Wolff has
an ax to grind, but if his reports are accurate, this is a rather frightening
illustration of how much abuse successful people are permitted to heap on
others. Wolff starts out:

Somehow Judith
Regan—the most famous book publisher of her generation, and the would-be Nancy
Drew ready to finally close the O. J. Simpson case—has always gotten away with
her obscene, grotesque, often funny, Jewish-obsessed, not just politically
incorrect but reprehensible, probably slanderous, not necessarily truthful
monologues (definitely monologues—she doesn’t really engage in conventional
conversation). Neither corporate America  nor upwardly mobile society
objected, or, even, seemed to blanch. Her diatribes were part of her charm—or
at least part of the forcefulness of her nature (if you didn’t find her
charming, you certainly found her forceful).

A
few paragraphs later, he adds:

Anybody who’s ever come in contact with her has been exposed to
the bilious, vitriolic, manic, gynecological,
anti-everybody-and-every-propriety conversation—if not awed by it.

But
what really struck me was this line:

She’s got an 800-pound chip on her shoulder. And the chip is
part of how she’s made money—she’s tapped into a vein of American resentment
and victimhood, plus she’s been able to bully her way into the market—and
making money gives a pass to even the worst manners.

The No Asshole Rule has plenty of examples of
people who have succeeded without bullying others. And I show ways to build
teams and companies where demeaning people aren’t hired in the first place, and
if they do get in the door, either change their behavior quickly, or are
expelled. BUT it seems there are too
many places where (apparently… perhaps the press reports are wrong about her behavior) leaders like Judith Regan get away with – and even seem to be rewarded and
applauded – for spewing out their venom, because they are WINNERS.

My
view is that letting people like this do their dirty work not only leaves them
free to damage a host of victims, it demeans all of us as our silence lends
support to a system that allows asshole poisoning to flourish and spread. That is a nice sentiment, of course, but it
means nothing unless it is backed by effective action. So, here is my question:

HOW
DO WE CHANGE THINGS SO THAT ASSHOLES ARE TREATED AS FAILURES EVEN WHEN THEY
BRING IN BIG BUCKS?

This
isn’t an easy question, but it is one worth fretting over and trying to solve.

In chapter 3 of The No Asshole Rule, I suggest that –based on theory and research on deviance and conformity to norms — it might be better to allow one or two token assholes to survive in an organization (especially if they have little power), as they will provide living proof of how not to behave. This idea is based partly on interesting studies of conformity to norms and deviance, especially studies on littering.  These studies by Robert Cialdini and his colleagues show that people are less likely to throw garbage into a parking lot or walkway that has ONE piece of litter than NONE, because the a single vivid violation reminds everyone of the norm and the costs of violating it.   In fact, in Kent Blumberg’s review of The No Asshole Rule, he wondered if I should have called "The One Asshole Rule" instead, which I thought was a reasonable point given the evidence presented.

Well, if you read this blog, you know that I am committed to evidence-based management, and that means that I reach conclusions based on the best theory and research I can find, but update when new information comes along.  This means I try to act with knowledge while doubting what I know, or to steal a phrase from The University of Michigan’s Karl Weick, "arguing as if I am right, listening as if I am wrong."

A new article just published in Research in Organizational Behavior challenges my "one asshole rule" theory. Research in Organizational Behavior of the most respected publications in the field of organizational behavior, which has been co-edited for over 25 years U.C. Berkeley’s Barry Staw — I edited with Barry for a few years in the late 1990’s. and he currently co-edits it with Art Brief.  There is a new article in ROB by  William Felps and Terrance Mitchell, who are the University of Washington.  Their analysis of 20 published studies suggests that "one bad apple" is enough to push a group into a downward spiral, as a Science Daily put it,

"Felps and Mitchell define negative people as those who don’t do their
fair share of the work, who are chronically unhappy and emotionally
unstable, or who bully or attack others. They found that a single
"toxic" or negative team member can be the catalyst for downward
spirals in organizations. In a follow-up study, the researchers found
the vast majority of the people they surveyed could identify at least
one "bad apple" that had produced organizational dysfunction."

Co-author Terry Mitchell is one of the best in the business,  so I suspect that this research done carefully. I will read the original paper closely, but  based on the report in Science Daily, it seems that the authors focused on small groups, where bad apples are especially like to have powerful effects. So perhaps a bad apple in a bigger group might still help crystallize "no-asshole" rather than  "pro-asshole" norms. And another factor might have to do with the power of the "bad apple," so if the nasty person widely seen as behaving badly and plays a marginal role in the group, then perhaps they do less damage.

On the other hand, perhaps Felps and Mitchell are right.  They do have 20 studies and Felps story about the "bad apple" that his wife worked with rings true to me:

Felps’ wife was unhappy at work and characterized the environment as
cold and unfriendly. Then, she said, a funny thing happened. One of her
co-workers who was particularly caustic and was always making fun of
other people at the office came down with an illness that caused him to
be away for several days.

"And when he was gone, my wife said
that the atmosphere of the office changed dramatically," Felps said.
"People started helping each other, playing classical music on their
radios, and going out for drinks after work. But when he returned to
the office, things returned to the unpleasant way they were. She hadn’t
noticed this employee as being a very important person in the office
before he came down with this illness but, upon observing the social
atmosphere when he was gone, she came to believe that he had a profound
and negative impact. He truly was the "bad apple" that spoiled the
barrel."

In short, perhaps The No Asshole Rule is the right title after all.  And as a practical matter, it is so hard to keep demeaning jerks out of organizations that it is likely wisest to aim to hire none at all, as odds are one or two are likely to slip through the cracks anyway! 

Finally, I should add that the the negative effects of assholes suggested in Felp’s story above and the 20 studies reviewed in this article provide further support for the vile effects of workplace jerks:

For example, in one study of about 50 manufacturing teams, they found
that teams that had a member who was disagreeable or irresponsible were
much more likely to have conflict, have poor communication within the
team and refuse to cooperate with one another. Consequently, the teams
performed poorly. 

Sounds like like asshole poisoning to me!

I guess it is no surprise that lawyers are interested in The No Asshole Rule.  As I mentioned earlier in the week, there is a long excerpt in the American Lawyer and Julie Fleming Brown just posted a very nice review on her blog Life at the Bar.  As Aric Press — Editor of the American Lawyer — has written, part of law firm firm management entails keeping overbearing and at times nasty attorneys under control, and if necessary, expelling the most destructive of the bunch even if they are billing a lot of hours. And as I like to say, one of the keys to law firm management is figuring out how to turn your assholes on and off, because after all, one of the reasons that people hire lawyers to be tough and nasty –to do their dirty work.  But people who are best suited for such work aren’t always capable of turning off their venom when they deal with staff members and fellow attorneys.

The No Asshole Rule also has implications for client work.  Certainly, people who engage in sexual harassment and in physical abuse are properly labelled assholes, but I am starting to learn that there is growing concern about what I would call "equal opportunity assholes," people who demean people routinely regardless of race,gender, age and so on. Indeed, check out this article about the risks of relying on the "nasty but neutral" defense that I found on Littler’s web site (they are a national employment law firm). 

As the summary warns:

While intuitively appealing, the nasty-but-neutral defense has limited
utility. Employers should be fairly cautious about relying on evidence
of non-biased behavior to defend litigation or to dismiss internal
complaints. One missed racial epithet or sexually suggestive remark may
convert nasty-but-neutral evidence into a plain nasty verdict. Littler
reviews recent verdicts and the instances where this defense is best
used.

The upshot is that Dr. House might be in trouble!  And for the rest of us, being an equal opportunity asshole may not longer be a defense. Indeed, as I’ve written about before, there are some countries that already have legislation about workplace bullying and there have been some bills introduced recently in the United States.

Mark Fortier is a book publicist who is working with me to promote The No Asshole Rule. Mark recently set-up shop on his own after developing a reputation as one of the best in the business at the respected firm Goldberg McDuffie.  Mark is not only persistent and knowledgeable; he is also creative and funny. You can see Mark’s talents on display in the e-mail brainstorm list that he sent me last week, where he makes suggestions about how the press might best censor the title in radio interviews and in print:

Here are my suggestions for how the book can be described on air:

Censored style: THE NO BLEEP-HOLE RULE

Semi-censored style: THE NO A-HOLE RULE

British style: THE NO ARSEHOLE RULE

Animal style: The title’s third word ends with "hole " and begins with "another name for a donkey."

Confessional style: The title’s third word ends with hole and beings with a cussword beginning with A.

Royal style: The title’s third word starts with the letter A and sort of rhymes with "castle".

Hard sell style: Tell listeners to log on to Amazon.com and search Bob’s name to see the title that they can’t mention.

Here are suggestions for how the title can be described in print:

THE NO A**HOLE RULE

THE NO A–HOLE RULE

THE NO A__HOLE RULE

I think these suggestions are both useful and pretty funny. And now they are online, I can send journalists to this post to spark their ideas. My personal favorite is the "Royal Style– starts with the letter A and rhymes with castle". I also thought this article in the Philadelphia Enquirer on "Expletive Deleted" was pretty clever too — I reproduce the picture that went with it to give you the full effect.

If you have any other ideas, send them along — this is challenge that I now face constantly! Thanks.