Executive Times
		2007 Book Reviews
		The No Asshole Rule by Robert I. Sutton
Rating:			***
		(Recommended)
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	Intolerance Sutton summarizes his new book, The No Asshole Rule: “The essence of this little book is pretty simple: We are all given only so many hours here on earth. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could travel through our lives without encountering people who bring us down with their demeaning remarks and actions?” (p. 186). Sutton’s prescription: don’t be tolerant of asshole behavior: throw them out or go someplace else. Despite the title, Sutton suggests that there be one asshole in each workplace as an example of the behavior that should not be emulated. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 4, “How To Stop Your ‘Inner Jerk” from Getting Out,” pp. 95-99: The last chapter was about applying the rule to organizations. This one is about applying it to yourself—about keeping your “inner jerk” from rearing its ugly head. Some people act like assholes no matter where they go. They can’t keep their disdain and rage from polluting even the most peaceful, warm, and loving places. If you are all ass-hole all the time, you probably need therapy, Prozac, anger management classes, transcendental mediation, more exercise, or all of the above. The combined contributions of coworkers and loved ones, therapists of all stripes, and the pharmaceutical industry help many of us keep our nastiness in check. Yet most of us, even the most “naturally” kind and mentally healthy, can turn caustic and cruel under the wrong conditions. Human emotions, including anger, contempt, and fear, are remarkably contagious. The prevalence of bullies in most organizations, plus the pressures of most jobs, makes it difficult to get through the workday without (at least occasionally) igniting or becoming trapped in episodes that turn us into menacing creeps. Yet there are ways to quell your contempt. The first step is to view acting like an asshole as a communicable disease. Once you unleash disdain, anger, and contempt or someone unleashes it on you, it spreads like wildfire. “Emotional contagion” researcher Elaine Hatfield and her colleagues concluded, “In conversation, people tend automatically and continuously to mimic and synchronize their movements with the facial expressions, voices, postures, movements, and instrumental behaviors of others.” If you display contempt, others (even spectators—not just your targets) will respond in much the same way, igniting a vicious circle that can turn everyone around you into a mean-spirited monster just like you. Experiments by Leigh Thompson and Cameron Anderson show that even when compassionate people join a group with a leader who is “high-energy, aggressive, mean, the classic bully type,” they are “temporarily transformed into carbon copies of the alpha dogs.” Evidence that nastiness is an infectious disease that you can catch from your boss isn’t confined to laboratory studies. Dr. Michelle Duffy followed a sample of 177 hospital workers to see the effects of “morally disengaged” bosses who were insensitive to others and who condoned teasing, put-downs, and coldness toward colleagues. Duffy found that six months later, people who worked for a nasty boss often became jerks, too. As Duffy told the New York Times, “This moral disengagement spreads like a germ.” Contagion studies also show that when people “catch” unpleasant expressions from others, like frowning or glaring, it makes them feel grumpier and angrier—even though they don’t realize or deny that it is happening to them. So being around people who look angry makes you feel angry, too. Hatfield and her colleagues sum up emotional contagion research with an Arabic proverb: “A wise man associating with the vicious becomes an idiot.” A swarm of assholes is like a “civility vacuum,” sucking the warmth and kindness out of everyone who enters and replacing it with coldness and contempt. These dangers are reflected in some wise advice that I heard from the late Bill Lazier, a successful executive who spent the last twenty years of his career teaching business and entrepreneurship at Stanford. Bill said that when you get a job offer or join a team, take a close look at the people you would work with, not just at whether they are successful or not. He warned that if your future colleagues are self-centered, nasty, narrow-minded, unethical, or overworked and physically ill, there is little chance that you will turn them into better human beings or transform it into a healthy workplace—even a tiny company. If you join a group filled with jerks, odds are that you will catch their disease. Unfortunately, I learned this lesson after joining a group led by a renowned management guru. It was during the height of the dot-corn boom in Silicon Valley, a time when arrogance, selfishness, and the unstated belief that if you can’t get rich now, you must not be very smart rippled throughout the region. Our little group met several Sundays in a row to talk about starting a business strategy Web site. About seven or eight people attended these meetings, but the bad behavior was confined to only four of us—the guru, two other management experts, and me. We each vied to establish our position as the alpha male. We also did nearly all the talking; the women and younger men at the meeting rarely spoke, and when they tried, we ignored or interrupted them and went back to our pathetic game of status jousting. There was a veneer of civility, but it barely masked our intense and obnoxious one-upmanship. We were allegedly coming up with ideas for the company (which never got off the ground), and instead, we spent the meetings showing off our knowledge, bragging about our accomplishments, and using interruptions and rapid-fire talk to battle for airtime. One management consultant whom I know describes meetings like these as “like watching apes in the zoo throwing feces to assert dominance.” That pretty much sums up what we did. I felt like an asshole at the end of each meeting, and that feeling was well deserved. My wife, Marina, pointed out that when I came home from each gathering, I acted like an overbearing and pompous jerk there, too. As she put it, I was suffering from a bad case of “testosterone poisoning.” I eventually came to my senses and realized—to put it another way—that I had caught and fueled an epidemic of “asshole poisoning.” So I quit the group. I like to think of myself as such a good, moral, and strong-willed person that I am immune from mimicking the mean-spirited morons around me. You probably do, too. Unfortunately, as mountains of evidence and Bill Lazier’s advice suggest, asshole poisoning is a contagious disease that anyone can catch. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we are not powerless pawns who—as soon as we find ourselves knee-deep in assholes—are condemned to become caustic and cruel clones. If you don’t know the asshole in your workplace, perhaps it’s you. Read The No Asshole Rule and think about your approach to hiring, to assembling work teams and to behavior at work. Steve Hopkins, April 25, 2007
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	2007 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for this book appeared in the May 2007 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The No Asshole Rule.htm For Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 Phone: 708-466-4650 • Fax: 708-386-8687 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com www.hopkinsandcompany.com