Category: The No Asshole Rule

Maureen Rogers over at Pink Slip has an inspired post on why, at times, there is not substitute for a well-placed obscene word.  I’ve talked about Why I Call Them Assholes here, but Maureen makes the best argument I’ve seen about the emotional wallop factor.  Don’t miss the complete post Sugar-Honey-Ice-Tea for gems like this (Maureen is someone who can REALLY write):

The thing is, when it comes to the sheer brilliant pungency of using the impolite words, the substitutes just won’t do.

He’s acting like an anus? No way.

She’s full of excrement. Yawn.

Go have intercourse with yourself. Not quite there.

As
for asshole? To quote my dear cousin Barbara who once and only
once used the word in front of her exceedingly polite, proper, and
genuinely kind mother, my beloved Aunt Margaret, "sometimes you just
have to call an asshole an asshole."

Accept no substitutes: jerk don’t work.

Good stuff, huh?  I suspect that there will be media outlets that will insist that I use the words jerks (although I was impressed to see that the Today Show labeled me as the author of "THE NO AHOLE  RULE"), and yes, we have had a few media outlets turn us down because of the dirty title.  But offending a certain percentage of people can be a good thing.  I once heard Chris Bangle — the head of design of BMW — say that if you don’t offend about 20% of your customers and potential customers with what you do, you aren’t doing something that is interesting or creative enough. And change of any kind does not happen without making a lot of people squirm.

My publisher, Warner Books, had this clever idea of making-up these erasers to help promote the book.  They sent me about 2000, and I have given just about all of them away — 150 to HR managers at Yahoo!, members of my d.school class, several hundred to people the AlwaysOn conference, 50 or so McKinsey partners,  150 people at IDEO, perhaps 500 to various participants in Stanford executive education programs, and to all sorts of random people.

The other side asks: Are you part of the solution, or part if the problem? People love getting these things  — and a good sign of their popularity is that quite a few recipients have come back later to ask for a second one because "some one stole mine."

The Today Show segment is bouncy, short, and fun, as is there style.  It did run later than planned — which is standard.   I was listed as author of the "NO A-HOLE RULE," that is progress as I figured it would be the NO A******  rule.  Unfortunately, they didn’t mention SuccessFactors — even though there
is a great shot of all 400 people shouting "No More Jerks."  And my publisher seems to be especially happy that I have called a "professional jerk-buster" on national TV.  You can see the segment at this link. Look for "surrounded by jerks" under Wednesday.

It was fun to work with the camera crew and producer, and as Chip Heath warned
me, I can’t believe how much film they shot — I’d guess three hours between
SuccessFactors and me — and used perhaps 2 minutes total of that. A weird
business.

Most of you have probably heard that great song by the Talking Heads, Once in a
Lifetime, which has that great line: And you may
ask yourself-Well…How did I get here? It sums up the way I feel today.
Am I really a Professional Jerk-Buster?  How did that happen?  How
did I get here?  I am having fun, but it is strange. 

It was a wild morning.  I was scheduled to give a speech at SuccessFactors about The No Asshole Rule because, after all, they are still the only company I know that not only has a "no assholes rule" (although they now say  "no jerks" on their website) and have all new employees agree to 14 rules of engagement before joining company, which include agreeing not to act like an asshole (and, yes, that is the word they still use).

I was already excited enough about giving the speech to all 420 or so people this morning, who were gathered in San Francisco for a company-wide meeting. And I was delighted that my publisher and 1800CEORead had worked together to overcome challenges in the supply chain, and deliver a special advance shipment of The No Asshole Rule — so that everyone in the company could have their very own copy though it won’t be available otherwise for nearly a month. Indeed, I saw the final version  of the book for the very first time this morning.

Max Goldman at the SuccessFactors blog already put-up a nice post about the talk — thanks Max!

BUT then, yesterday, the folks from The Today Show decided that they wanted to do a little segment about how to deal with jerks — not just in the workplace but in other aspects of life as well.  Those TV people move very fast, so they had a camera at the hotel where SuccessFactors is meeting, and they videotaped my speech, footage of conversations as I met Lars and signed books, and a good 45 minutes of interview footage with me about "jerks." They also interviewed Lars for the spot and I understand that they got footage yesterday of all 400+ people in the company (shot from the roof of the hotel) shouting "no more assholes" and (the censored version) "no more jerks" — I hope that gets on the air.

Of course, this being national TV, they will cut 3 or 4 hours down to 3 or 4 minutes, so I am very curious to see which bits make it on the air.  The producer did say that she would list me as the "author of The No A****** Rule."  So that should be good fun.  They shot the cover of the book too … but I bet that never makes it on the air.  I am delighted to be following in the Heath brothers footsteps — they were interviewed a few weeks ago on the Today Show about Made it Stick.

In any event, I am curious to see what they do. Again, it is NBC’s Today Show at 8:32 Wednesday, January 24th — tomorrow!

P.S. The people at  SuccessFactors  are fantastic , warm and performance oriented.  And Lars is one of the most  energetic, smart, and downright fun CE0’s I’ve ever met. And Lars tells me that they are fastest growing software company over 30 million dollars, so it looks like their blend of intense concern about both humanity and performance is working.

It is exactly a month before The No Asshole Rule will be officially available, but there are some promising early signs. Amazon publishes a list of Popular Pre-Orders:Business and Investing and the book is currently ranked #2.  I am not sure how this translates into sales, but I am nearly sure that the nice reviews on blogs are one of the main drivers of these early sales, plus my editor believes that the Publisher’s Weekly review is helping too.  This is my fourth book and the only thing I am sure of is that publishing business is so weird that predicting and influencing what happens is just about impossible.  But these early signs do have me enjoying at least temporary state of upbeat delusion about the prospects for spreading the word about bullies and creeps in the workplace — and yes, I confess, for selling some books.

There are some other interesting things on the horizon that I will be writing about, including a speech I will be giving tomorrow to the people at SuccessFactors, all 400 or so of them, who are gathered in San Francisco for company-wide meeting.  As I’ve written about before, SuccessFactors requires all new employees to sign "rules on engagement," which include a pledge that "I will be a good person to work with — I will not be be an asshole." 

I’ve
been thinking a bit more about my last post about the volatile CEO of Mesa Air Group, Jonathon
Ornstein. Recall that, according to The
New York Times, his executive assistant reported that people would call to
see if he was in a good mood, and if he wasn’t – which she said was at least
60% of the time – they would avoid him until he cheered-up.

Ornstein’s
assistant was clearly competent and thoughtful of her colleagues. Her
competence, however, got me to thinking about some of the unintended negative
consequences of such gate keeping – which is a hallmark of effective executive
assistants. First, by keeping other
people away from the boss when he or she is in a raging mood – although it
protects others from damage – it also creates a protective bubble around the
boss. Sparing underlings from the full
force of Ornstein’s wrath likely reduces their motivation to leave the company,
press him to change, press for his firing, or for Ornstein himself to realize
that he needs to change. In other words, she unwittingly reduces the pressure
on him to stop acting like a flaming asshole.

Second,
I don’t know about Ornstein’s assistant, but I’ve seen this in other companies:
Smart executive assistants who work for
volatile bosses learn to screen visitors. They realize that people who bring the boss bad news will spark a nasty
rage; but people who bring good news will help keep the boss’s mood under
control. So they learn to make it
difficult for naysayers and truth-tellers to see the boss and to make it easy
for optimists and ass-kissers to get in the door. After all, it makes their jobs a lot easier. The
result is that – because it helps keep their boss kinder and calmer – the boss
is “protected’ from hearing bad news. So, without realizing it, many assholes
bosses create and live in a fool’s
paradise – where they never learn about bad things because their underlings don’t want to be the target
their rage.

Social
psychologists have documented this “shoot the messenger problem,” that people who
deliver bad news (even if it is not their fault) often are blamed for it.
Asshole bosses seem especially prone to this problem. Effective executives
overcome this problem by encouraging and supporting people who bring them bad
news.  And this isn’t just challenge for
gatekeepers and executives – learning from setbacks and bad news can’t happen
unless people feel safe enough to discuss problems with their bosses and
peers. I’ve written about Amy Edmondson’s research on psychological
safety here before, and it is especially relevant to overcoming the “shoot the
messenger” problem. Her fascinating study of eight nursing units found that
when nurses worked in units with demeaning and critical co-workers and
supervisors, they were less likely (as much as 10 times less likely) to report
drug treatment errors.  Edmondson’s research suggests to me that, when
asshole poisoning runs rampant in a nursing unit, the fear of being demeaned
and belittled can increase the chances that patients will get sicker and die,
because people are so afraid to admit and talk about mistakes.

To
return to gatekeepers, I want to close by emphasizing that even a nice boss may
end-up living in a fool’s paradise because their executive secretaries and
other subordinates want to keep the boss in a good mood – and even nice bosses
can fall prey to the “shoot the messenger” problem. I once had an executive
assistant to a nice boss tell me that, the better mood her boss was in, the
easier and more fun her job was – so she made it easy for people who left him
in a good mood to get appointments, and made it very hard for people who left
him in a bad mood to get in the door.  This
assistant was adept at “helping” her nice boss stay in a good mood, but in the
process, was probably unwittingly protecting him from bad news that he needed
to hear. So this isn’t just a problem created by the gatekeepers of asshole
bosses, although I suspect that it is worse with them because of the climate of
fear that they create.

P.S.
One of the most interesting books I’ve ever read on the auto industry is by
former GM executive John
De Lorean (famously busted for getting involved in a cocaine deal to
support his auto company – he was later acquitted) called On a
Clear Day You Can See General Motors.  It has been out of print for years. But it shows how GM executives unwittingly
created a world that led them to be out of touch with reality. I fear that De Lorean’s description of GM in
the 1970’s is still true today: “"The system quickly shut top management
off from the real world because it surrounded itself in many cases with ‘yes’
men. There soon became no real vehicle for input."

There was an article called Approach Boss With Caution in The New York Times yesterday.  It is about the CEO of Mesa Airlines.  Check out the whole thing, but these things make me wonder.  How do people get away with this kind of thing?  Even if he is effective at running the airline, I have no idea why people put up with such abuse.  The article suggests that he does have other charms — but in my book, being around people like this not only isn’t worth the trouble, people who put-up with his nonsense are enabling — even encouraging — his abusive behavior to persist.

Here is just one quote little part — Check out Frank’s comment on my last post and of course the article:

Stacy Heath, employee relations and events manager at Mesa, was
until recently Mr. Ornstein’s administrative assistant. Her tasks
included tracking his mood and warning executives away from a meeting
with the boss. “They would call and say, ‘Is he in a good mood?’ I used
to laugh, but I do it now, too.”

Mr. Ornstein, who grew up in
Scarsdale, N.Y. , said the high-decibel communication style he learned
from his family was a healthy way to deal with conflict. “Being upset
comes and goes in 10 minutes,” he said.

But upset seems to come
more than it goes with Mr. Ornstein. Ms. Heath, who spent nearly six
years as his gatekeeper, said: “Maybe 60 percent — maybe even higher
than that — he was not in a good mood. Sometimes he would come in to
the office in a bad mood in the morning and it would set the tone for
the whole office.”

P.S. Frank, thanks for pointing this out!

Jason Yip directed me to a fantastic post about Bob Nardelli — the deposed CEO of Home Depot that I blogged about last week– over at Lean Blog, called "You Can’t S**t on Your Employees"

Here is the quote from an employee that inspired the post title:

""You can’t s–t on your employees and deliver" results."

This one is also revealing:

"It’s amazing the reaction of people on my floor. People are openly
ecstatic. High-fiving," said an Atlanta store operations manager only
hours after the Jan. 3 announcement. "There’s a group talking about
going to happy hour at noon."

Unfortunately, if you look at examples like Hollywood’s Scott Rudin and Disney’s Michael Eisner, I fear that there are too many places where the lesson seems to be "you can shit on your employees so long as you deliver results." There are also other reasons that Bob Nardelli  got fired, indeed, one of the  main lessons might be that that you can’t shit on shareholders and keep your job.  But Nardelli’s firing does appear to be a solid blow for The No Asshole Rule, as it suggests that dumping on employees can get your company in trouble with shareholders too. Nardelli’s style clearly put off some of the analysts, as you can see from this post. 

This excerpt from The No Asshole Rule provides another example of how dumping on employees can drive down the stock price, although the CEO kept his job and seemed to learn something from the experience:

Neal Patterson, CEO of the Cerner Corporation,
learned this lesson in 2001 when he sent out a “belligerent” email that was
intended for just the top 400 people in this health care software firm.
According the The New York Times, Patterson complained that few
employees were working full 40 hour weeks, and “As managers — you either do
not know what your EMPLOYEES are doing; or you do not CARE.” Patterson said
that he wanted to see the employee parking lot ”substantially full” between
7:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. weekdays and “half full on Saturdays, and that if it
didn’t happen, he would take harsh measures, perhaps even layoffs and hiring
freezes.  Patterson warned, ”You have two weeks,” he said. ”Tick,
tock.” 

Patterson’s e-mail was leaked on the internet, provoking harsh criticism
from management experts including my Stanford colleague Jeff Pfeffer who
described in it The New York Times as “the corporate equivalent of whips and ropes and chains.”
Pfeffer went a bit overboard for my tastes.  But investors weren’t pleased
either, as the value of the stock plummeted 22% in three days. Patterson
handled the aftermath well.  He sent an apology to his employees, admitted
that he wished he had never sent the e-mail, and the share price did bounce
back.  Patterson learned the hard way that, when CEO’s who come across as
bullies, they can scare their investors, not just their underlings.

Michael Malone has a great opinion column in today’s Wall Street Journal called iGenius, which digs into the question of why Apple under Steve Jobs continues to produce such great new designs, now the iPhone that — at first blush — will change what it means to carry a portable device. I too am constantly impressed with parade of products that have come out of Apple since Jobs returned, but also, let’s face it, Jobs has a track-record of demeaning others and taking credit for their work. 

Malone — who once wrote a book about Jobs and his company — points out "there will always be things about him that are unforgivable — cruelties and manipulations (especially to Steve Wozniak), early crimes (illegal telephones, ironically), megalomania, and an unquenchable need to take credit from others (Do you know who led the original Mac team? Invented the iPod? Devised the new iPhone? I don’t think so) — and that no achievement will ever erase." And, as Malone concludes, despite all the smart people out there, competitors seem incapable mimicking Jobs’ ability to pull one rabbit after another out of the hat, and so, "For all his demons, thank God for him in this age of cookie-cutter CEOs. For a decade now (and for another decade at the beginning of the PC age) he has run the most enthralling and rewarding show in high-tech."

I agree with Malone and, in fact, when I was writing The No Asshole Rule, one Silicon Valley insider after another after another argued to me "What about Steve Jobs, doesn’t he show how being an asshole make leaders and their companies more effective at times?  Doesn’t he show that assholes are worth the trouble" which led me to write a chapter on "The Virtues of Assholes" that starts out with the curious case of Steve Jobs, and goes onto make an empirical case for the upsides of assholes. BUT I also make clear that I still don’t want to work with assholes — there are plenty of other successful companies that aren’t led by assholes. Jobs is famous for saying the "the journey is the reward," and for my tastes, even if the journey ends well, it still sucks when you have to travel with an asshole, or worse yet, a pack of them.  If you are successful asshole, you are still an asshole and I don’t want to be around you.

Der Arshloch-Faktor is still hot in Germany.   It is currently the top business book and #22 overall on Amazon.  I am also getting a fairly constant stream of VERY emotional e-mails from German readers. Most contain troubling stories about acts of oppression and how people are fighting back. A couple are from people who worry that they are assholes — one asked me how he can go about finding out if he is an asshole. Most are supportive of the book, but I’ve received a couple from people (who I don’t think read the book based on the content, but I could be wrong) that just blasted me and argued that the book was going to make the problem worse  ather than better in German organziations.  I confess to be a bit overwhelmed by so many emotional emails. If German readers have any insights into both why they book seems to have struck a chord in your country and why the German’s who are writing me are even more vehment in their reactions than elewhere, I would be most grateful.

Thanks and I thank all of you who bought Der Arshloch-Faktor.