Stop assholes from infecting your organisational culture at all cost
The No Asshole Rule by Robert Sutton is one of my favourite books on organisational culture. Its core message is very straightforward: do not allow assholes into your teams. Individuals can have a negative effect that permeates through the whole department.
Key points:
- Assholes are people who belittle, denigrate, and make other people feel worse about themselves
- Almost always behaviour towards people below them (in the organisation) more than those above
- Everyone can be an asshole sometimes but to qualify as an ‘asshole’ usually takes the form of chronic low level negative actions
- This is independent of performance. I.e. we must challenge the notion of brilliant but horrible
- Assholes have ripple effects throughout the company
- It encourages toxic/bullying (‘asshole-like’) behaviour in other individuals
- Strongly related to hierarchy so flattening difference between the top and bottom (especially with regards to pay) is important
- Also related to competition – particularly making people of the same level compete against each other
- Encouraging a idea meritocracy and challenging individuals constructively against asshole behaviour
- Assholes proliferate both by recruiting others like them and infecting others who would have not previously shown that behaviour
- Contrary to belief about passionate workplaces, the best way to survive is to detach yourself, not take it personally, and just ride it out until it’s over.
- If you are low down in the organisation, you are unlikely to be in a position to have the asshole(s) removed. Even harder if the whole organisation is infected
- Look for small ways to take control and take every opportunity to minimise impact of these people
- Very occasionally people have been successful and been assholes (e.g. Steve Jobs) but the author strongly feels it is in spite (not because of) them being a jerk
- It is easier to stop these individuals from being hired than to get rid of them once they’re there
Sutton does discuss that other terms (e.g. bully, toxic culture) could be used to describe this behaviour but none really captures what he wants. I agree that the term ‘asshole’ perfectly encapsulates certain individuals. It is said that almost everyone in an organisation will be able to tell you who the assholes are (unless they are one themselves).
More books like this:
- Principles: life and work by Ray Dalio
- Dare to lead by Brené Brown
- Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace
