Work Matters

Category: The No Asshole Rule

  • If Your Boss is an Asshole, Don’t Give Him or Her the Book

    One of the strange things about The No Asshole Rule that took me at least a year after publication to understand is that just owning, displaying, and — in particular — giving someone the book as a present (or even suggesting they read it) can have strong effects.  And they are not all good. On the positive side, a senior executive at a large professional service firm told me that at a meeting of the firm's partners, the CEO waved around a copy of the book and told them that whether or not they followed the rule would be factored into compensation decisions.  Most of them had not read the book, and didn't read it after that, but just the act of waiving around the book and suggesting something like "and if you are a chronic asshole, we are going to push the delete button pictured on the cover" was enough to get their attention and, I am told, did help a few of the most recalcitrant jerks tone down their nastiness. 

    A number of people have also explained to me that the book is a useful "defensive tool" or "protective device." An
    attorney reported that although she had not read it yet, she bought a copy and
    displayed it prominently in her office – and pointed to it when one of her
    colleagues started turning nasty.  A senior executive from a large
    technology company told me a similar story just a few weeks ago    .  He did
    claim to have liked and read the book, but argued it was even more useful as a
    protective device.  People saw it on his desk, which reminded them to be
    civil, and “When they do lose it, I hold it up in front of my face like a
    shield – they usually get the message and turn down venom immediately.     

    But there are also dangers to simply owning the book, as people are
    sometimes offended by it — especially when they are concerned that they are the
    asshole in question.  In the fast few
    years, several people have told me that when they brought the book to work,
    they were ordered to hide it, bring it home, and never bring it to work again
    because the title was in such bad taste.  An office assistant wrote me
    that her boss put a negative note in her personnel file because the book upset
    several coworkers.  This assistant added that the only person it really
    upset was her boss, because she was a certified asshole and she and everyone
    else knew it.  In a more troubling case, a woman berated me on the phone
    and over email because her sister was fired for bringing the book to work
    because her boss found the title offensive.  This cold-hearted act
    provided further evidence he was a bosshole, but that was little consolation as
    she needed the job.

    Unfortunately,
    I learned of a new example of the dangers of using the book (regardless of its
    actual contents) yesterday in a rather heartbreaking comment that “Regan” made
    in response to my question “What’s the worst advice you have ever received:”  

    The
    only management book I have ever bought was the "No Asshole Rule"
    because it was about time someone put it in writing. It was a great book, my
    whole department loved it – they advised me give it to my boss to read – he did
    not see the humour in it, and he must have seen himself clearly fit the
    definitions of "asshole" because I lost my job shortly after giving
    him the book. So, although I think The No Asshole Rule is the best management
    book ever written – I think the advice about giving it to your boss if he/she is
    a tyrant is pretty bad advice – didn't work out too well for me anyway…    ..

    I
    found it quite painful to read how much Regan liked my book and how much it
    ended-up hurting him — I didn't advise him to give to his boss, but I hope others can learn from this incident .  Although I hope
    you find the ideas in the book to be helpful, but I also hope that – especially
    if you are in a place where paranoia and mistrust run high and psychological
    safety is low – you will learn from these cautionary tales, and be careful
    where you bring the book and who you give it to as a "present." 

    A broader lesson is that – ironically – telling a person that he or she is an asshole can be an insulting thing to do, and can
    sometimes turn even a civilized person into an asshole. 
    And apparently, this is especially true if that
    person really is a certified asshole (and especially dangerous to you if he or she wields power over
    you).

  • One Answer to the Question:””What’s the Worst Advice You Advice You Ever Received?”


    An editor at Psychology Today, where I am now blogging, wrote and asked for some ideas her might use in the print edition. His question was "What's the worst advice you've ever received (Or just some really bad advice …).       I wrote him that I had received — and given — so much bad advice, that I couldn't pick a "worst," but told this story. 

    Here
    is one — with two pieces of bad advice. 
    When I was working on marketing my last book,     The No Asshole Rule, I first had a publisher offer me a contract,
    but they insisted that I had to change the title — in part — because people
    wouldn't buy a book with that mild obscenity in the title.      I told them that I wouldn't consider an offer
    unless they went with the title and walked. 
    Then, as I was working on marketing the book in the months prior to
    publication a fellow with more than 25 years experience in the book industry
    insisted that I was nuts to send copies of the book to perhaps 100 bloggers
    (most of whom I knew because I am a blogger too) and to see if they might write
    something about the book months before it was published.      He insisted that trying to sell a book before
    it was available was waste of time and effort. 
    I believe that, in addition to the ideas in the book, that the main two
    reasons that the book became a     New York
    Times     bestseller are because of the title, which no one ever seems to
    forget, even when they hate it.      The
    second reason is that the buzz on the web created a lot of Amazon pre-orders,
    which helped the book become the #1 Non-fiction bestseller for much of the
    first week it was out and one of the top 5 business books for several weeks (it
    was ultimately the #8 business book for 2007). 
    When the book first came out, the major bookstores had done modest
    pre-orders and I had only a couple of stories in the media.  The Amazon numbers (created by
    pre-publication buzz) led the major bookstores to put in big orders and led the
    media to do many stories on the book.     

    One
    of my mottos in life (which I first heard from a Stanford undergraduate years ago named Kathy) is "Don't believe everythingt hey tell you"  This is especially true if
    they add something like "I have been in the business for 25 years and I know what I am
    talking about."  As one of my former
    students, Andy Hargadon used to say in response to this line, "Do you have 25 years of
    experience, or have you experienced the same year 25 times?"

    I wonder, dear readers, what your answer to this question might be, what is the worst advice you have ever received?

  • The Best Asshole Buster Story I’ve Heard In a Long Time

    A reader named Kevin just wrote and told me a great story:

    A good friend of mine in college was at a busy nightclub, on
    the crowded dance floor, dancing with his girlfriend.  It was very crowded,
    to the point where you could barely dance and in close proximity to everyone
    around you.  He overheard a guy that was “hitting” on a girl.  He had
    been drinking and was pretty obnoxious.  He told the girl that he very
    much wanted to get” into her pants”.  Her response was “sorry buddy, there
    is already one asshole in these pants, and no room for another”.  The guy was
    immediately defused and left the dance floor with his tail between his legs,
    and no longer bothered anyone at the nightclub.  Thought you might get a
    chuckle from this brilliant comeback.

    Is it true? I don't know and don't care, it is the best asshole put-down story I've heard in a long time.  Another great story came from Tina a few years back on an funny moment in her MBA class — and that one is better documented than the tale above.

  • The Urban Dictionary Accepted Passhole! Please Vote for it When It is Posted

    I just got an email (it took them just a couple hours) from the Urban Dictionary that our definition of Passhole as ""someone who opts out of participating in a decision, but then complains bitterly about the outcome." has been accepted."  BUT — and I should have looked before — Passhole is already there, with 14 different definitions of the word, most having to do with driving.  The top rated one is:

    The idiot drivers that move steadily along, but suddenly increase speed
    when they wake up and realize you are passing them. If they succeed in
    blocking your opportunity to pass, they will immediately resume the
    former, annoying pace. If you pass them successfully, they will ride
    your bumper for a short time before returning to la-la land.

    Our definition will appear in a couple days. When it does, please get in there and vote for it early and often!

    Thanks again, that was fun.

  • Passhole Wins: But Don’t Use It to Blame the Victims of Broken Organizations or Bad Bosses

    Or, in the words of Steve Jobs, the journey was the reward in this case.  As most readers will recall, this all started as a little contest in response to Mozilla's Asa Dotzler: Let's
    Invent a New Word or Phrase: What do you call someone who "opts out of
    participating in something but then complains about the outcome.    "  I have been overwhelmed by the number of suggestions, and even more than that, the quality and complexity of the conversation about the various candidates.  At the moment, there are a combined 80 comments on the post above and the follow-up post that listed the "finalists."   My reading of the votes is that — although not everyone liked it –  passhole got the most votes.

    I just submitted Passhole to the Urban Dictionary  as a new word.  I changed the definition just slightly to  "someone who opts out of participating in a decision, but then complains bitterly about the outcome."

    In order to honor some of the other suggestions (I apologize if yours didn't make it, I picked them based on my biases, but of course, other will have different preferences), I added the following words to the list of synonyms and related words and phrases that ask for: passive-aggressive,
    Monday morning sniveler, detached dissident, douchenag, sour grapers, unconscientious
    objector, inverted  cheerleader,
    submarine, seagull, weenie-whiner, whampire, free-griper. I have never submitted anything to the Urban Dictionary, but I felt compelled given your remarkably thoughtful suggestions and comments. I understand that they reject a lot of submissions — I will let you know how it turns out. Once again, I can't thank everyone enough for making so many comments, and make such thoughtful comments.

    Indeed, as much as I love the fun of the names and all that, I was even more taken with the wonderful conversation about the dangers of labeling people passholes. Many smart comments were made, and although labeling people has advantages ( I would argue, for example, that openly talking about norms against assholes or passholes, and calling others or yourself when you violate those norms, are signs of a healthy culture), nonetheless, multiple commentors did a lovely job is calling out the risks of the label. Note these comments in particular, as I think they are especially wise:

    Bob G. makes a great case that labeling people as passholes can, at times, be a case of blaming the victim:

    If an
    organization finds itself populated with large numbers of the
    "non-participating disgruntled," perhaps a little self-examination is
    in order. Are they really all just a bunch of worthless whiners? Or is
    it *possible* that the organization has somehow attracted them, or even
    created them? Is this, in fact, a symptom of an asshole environment,
    rather than simple flawed characters? People who have been ignored,
    abused, and had their ideas twisted and/or stolen are easily dismissed
    as having a "bad attitude." Do not blame the victims, folks. This is a
    complex and nuanced problem    .

    Dave described such an asshole environment:

    I think
    you are all jumping on the trashing bandwagon a little too fast. I
    happen to work in one of those very toxic environments where you are
    pretty much discouraged to contribute, when you do contribute, your
    feedback is pretty much disregarded and the administration does what
    they want anyways (meaning they "pretend" to want feedback, but only go
    through the motions), and very often decisions made do go down south,
    affecting those of us on the frontlines. So yes, after a while, those
    like us who actually care just stop giving the feedback or saying
    anything…     I refuse
    to take the blame for asshats who make bad decisions in spite of
    getting good advice (ie they choose to ignore the good advice). So, you
    know, lay off a bit. It is not always as simple as you think.

    Thomas raised an important concern about the labeling that really made me think:

    What's
    the net effect of an exercise in this sort of "personality branding".
    Let's come up with a name for the sorts of people that annoy "us".
    Let's come up with something mean to call "them". What's up with that,
    Bob?

    And I thought that CV Harquail did a great job of wrapping things-up:


    I've
    gotten a kick out of the suggested names, but I have to chime in to
    support of Thomas's concern about the 'branding' of a person by
    applying such a label.There are several important and serious concern about labeling a
    person — one of which is that depersonalizes them and makes them all
    about the behavior, not about who they are in toto.Plus, as Maren pointed out, once we attach a label to the
    behavior/person, it can lead us to "complain about the complainers" and
    let ourselves off the hook for acting to fix i    t.


    So, let's find a good (and funny!) name to capture this
    dysfunctional behavior *and* also figure out a generous, positive way
    to respond to it when we see folks trying it    .

    I put C.V's comment in bold, because, after going through this exercise — which was more involved and educational than I ever imagined at the outset — that is pretty much where I stand.  For me, the upshot of all this is that organizations and leaders have a responsibility to remove obstacles to authentic participation and when they find that — after decision has been made — passholes surface and start torpedoing the decision, they should look in the mirror before blaming them.  On the other hand, a well-functioning team or organization will stop this kind of behavior in its tracks and in particular leaders will model the right behavior — which includes resisting the temptation to be a passhole even though they have the power to do so and calling out their own sins when they act like one. 

    Once again, a big thanks to all of you for individual and collective wisdom.

  • What a Mess: The Tenure Appeal Meeting at Ohio University

    I got a comment this morning about the outcome of the the appeal meeting at Ohio University for Bill Reader's tenure case.  You may recall that I wrote about this in detail in my post on The No Asshole Rule Versus Compassion for the Mentally Ill. The meeting appears to have been an ugly scene.  According to the report in the school paper:

    "A
    standing-room-only crowd of students and faculty members in Baker
    University Center 219 heard Dean Greg Shepherd and Director Tom Hodson
    defend their decision to deny Reader tenure, calling him a
    non-collegial bully incapable of working with current tenured faculty."

    Reader and his supporters offered a much different perspective:

    Reader painted
    a drastically different picture in which professional jealousy and
    personal disagreements motivated Hodson and three tenured professors to
    conspire to ruin his career.

    Toward the end of the nearly
    three-hour hearing, Assistant Dean Eddith Dashiell said she's
    considered the school a "hostile work environment" since 1997.

    "The
    school of journalism has had a history of bullying," Dashiell said,
    adding that the behavior of the school's tenured faculty during her 18
    years in Athens has made her feel threatened and uncomfortabl    e.

    It is impossible to know the truth based on the facts in this report.  But it is possible for all of us to take this as a cautionary tale.  When you as a boss let things fester and don't deal with "asshole problems," be it among a single colleague or many of them, you risk having things degenerate into a a total mess like this one.  When everyone starts calling everyone else an asshole, as is happening here, then it is a sign to me of an asshole infested place.  As I wrote in The No Asshole Rule, when you are embedded in such a situation, it is very difficult to avoid becoming an asshole both because emotions and norms are so contagious, and if you spend your days confronting one asshole after another, often the only way to survive is to throw the crap back at them.   Again, I don't know how much of this is true of the School of Journalism at Ohio University, but regardless of what happens after this case, it seems to that the leaders — probably at the School level– need to step and figure out what is going on and how to stop it.  In such situations, a change in leadership is usually necessary even if particular bosses are not to blame, they are so entwined with old destructive patterns and perceptions that replacing them is necessary for starting  anew.

    Finally, to repeat my main advice about asshole infested places like this one seems to have become (I hope I am wrong, but if you read the above story, it sure seems like a reasonable inference), the best thing you can do is to figure out how to get out as fast as you can if you are trapped in such a human cesspool.

  • Robert Baird Moves Up to #11 on Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For List — And Still Touts It’s No Asshole!

    Fortune just released their 2010 list of the "Top 100 Companies to Work For" and I was pleased to see that SAS Institute tops the list this year.  In large, part, I was pleased because — as I have used SAS as an extreme and successful example of putting people first — one of the critiques I often hear form executives and students is "it works for now, but it doesn't seem sustainable."  Well, they have kept their commitment to people through the best times (when the lure of getting rich quick challenged their model during dotcom boom) and now through the meltdown.  Nothing lasts forever, but you have to give CEO Jim Goodnight a lot of credit for keeping things rolling.  And his firm also presents a compelling case that going public isn't always a great thing.

    Speaking of privately held companies, I was even more delighted to see that Robert W. Baird moved-up from #14 to #11.  I have blogged about them in fairly massive detail — see here and here. And I pleased to see that they have continued to do well financially during the downturn and still tout their no asshole rule!  As Fortune reports:

    Rank: 11 (Previous rank: 14)

    What makes it so great?

    No Wall Street blues here. Investment adviser
    continued to hire throughout 2008 and 2009, screening applicants via
    rigorous interviews to ensure that they passed the firm’s "no asshole"
    r    ule.

    Congratulations to CEO Paul Purcell and his colleagues. I remember, when I interviewed him a couple years ago after the first time they appeared on the list (at #39 in 2008), I asked Paul what kinds of jerks he especially tries to screen out — to get at how he defines a workplace asshole.  He said the most toxic people were those who consistently put their own needs and wants ahead of their colleagues and the company.  Unfortunately to many firms on Wall Street reward exactly those kinds of people  — see how things at least used to be at Merrill Lynch in this article by the Heath Brothers. I wonder, as all those Wall Street firms insist paying big bonuses to top performers — what kind of behavior are they rewarding?  The stars who stomp on others on the way to the top — or the one's who help everyone around them succeed. 

    I don't know about you, but I've got a feeling that a lot those firms we bailed-out are handing wads of cash and stock to their selfish superstars.

  • Croatian offer / THE NO ASSHOLE RULE

    That is what just came in my email.  The No Asshole Rule has been published in a lot of different languages now, I should compile the list.  The last offer was for a Polish translation — not exactly a huge market compared to other countries — but the market for Croatian translations is a lot smaller.  They apparently will publish a first run of 1000 copies sometime in the next 18 months.  I can hardly wait to see the cover and title — I will post it when it arrives.

    P.S. A big thanks to J.S.W. for spreading the word about the book in Poland.

  • The Asshole: John Van Maanen’s Classic Article on Police Officers

    New Picture

    This the opening page of MIT Professor John Van Maanen's delightful and insightful article  It is about the meaning and power of the word "asshole" among the police officers he studied during his now classic ethnography of police officers, which he did for his dissertation research in the 1970s. John didn't just talk to cops, he went through the police academy, rode along with them on patrols (and got involved in all sorts of crazy things like chases), and was otherwise embedded with them for a year or so.  He has since gone on to become among the most renowned organizational researchers.  John had a huge impact on my generation of organizational researchers because, when we first started graduate school, qualitative methods were generally treated as unscientific, obsolete,  and so biased as to be enticing but not anything that should ever be published in a top academic journal.  Due in large part to John's example and leadership, by the time many of us had graduated with our PhD's, there were many corners where qualitative studies had become acceptable and encouraged.  And even once exclusively quantitative researchers were starting to do qualitative studies.  There is still controversy about them in my field, but also a fairly widespread acceptance now that such methods are useful for describing organizational life in rich detail and for generating theories and hypotheses that can be tested with quantitative methods.  This is an oversimplification as academics get very emotional and anal about little differences, but I think it is as close to the truth as I can get without delving into a very dull and very long rant.

    To return to John's article, the thing that strikes me is how compelling the opening and the language are — it is impossible for me to read this, although I have many times before, without getting excited about reading the rest. That opening sentence still cracks me up, "The asshole — creep, bigmouth, bastard, animal, mope, rough, jerkoff, clown, scumbag, wiseguy, phony, idiot, shithead, bum ,fool, or any a number of anatomical, oral, or incestuous terms — is part of every policeman's world."  He then goes onto to turn the corner (with the help of that great opening quote) and show the reader that this language reflects sense-making and guides action in a police officers world.  I discuss this article in The No Asshole Rule, and, no doubt, it was one factor that encouraged me to write the book and have the courage to use the title. 

    John's other work is equally fascinating (and even sometimes uses cleaner language). He has had a big positive effect on my field, and I appreciate it. I also love the opening line of his bio at MIT "John Van Maanen studies groups of people the old-fashioned way: by living with them."

  • Quote of the Day: Roaches and Assholes

    I want to thank everyone for the great comments on my last post, which raises the question: Is the only effective way to deal with an impossible boss to suffer in silence until you can escape? 
    Every comment so far is extremely thoughtful. I was especially taken taken with how John described how he had learned to deal with impossible bosses as he traveled through his career.   My favorite line, however, comes from Jason, who comments:

    "Since I
    read your book I've been watching at my firm and my observation is that
    asshole bosses are like roaches–there is never just one."

    As I've written here many times, being an workplace asshole is often a malady that you catch from other people.  But the roaches analogy is a lovely way to out it.