By Stephen D. Bruce, PHR
Editor, HR Daily Advisor
A colleague recently suggested I read the book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t ., says business and leadership blogger Dan Oswald. Maybe I should have asked what his motives were in suggesting that I read this particular book. I didn’t. Some things you just don’t want to know!
Oswald, CEO of BLR, offered his thoughts on the worst in management in a recent edition of The Oswald Letter.
The book was a New York Times bestseller, Oswald continues, so plenty of people have read it. I’d say it has some good lessons for everyone. But, what amazed me were some of the stories the author, Robert I. Sutton, told about assholes in the workplace.
There’s the story of Scott Rudin who the Wall Street Journal estimated went through 250 personal assistants in a five-year period. Rudin claimed only 119 during the period, but admitted that his estimate excluded assistants who lasted less than two weeks!
Sutton also relays a story taken from Brutal Bosses and Their Prey
in which a boss stood in a subordinate’s doorway so that everyone in the central work area could see and hear him. He held his employee’s work in his hand and told him it was inadequate. As the boss did so, he crumpled the papers one by one dropping them on the floor. He then said loudly, “Garbage in, garbage out. You give me garbage; now you clean it up.” The employee did so, embarrassed as his coworkers watched him, a 36-year-old man, stoop before his boss to pick up the crumpled pieces of paper.
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It amazes me these people really exist! A guy who, by his own admission, averages a new assistant every two weeks for five years? Really? A boss who balls up the work of his employee, tosses in on the floor, and then requires the employee to bend down at his feet to pick it up—all while his coworkers look on?! Who are these people?
It reminds me of the line from the movie Hook in which Dustin Hoffman plays the infamous Captain Hook and Robin Williams stars as Peter “Pan” Banning. Peter’s daughter says to him about Captain Hook, “He’s just a mean old man without a mommy.” Don’t these people have mothers?
That brings me to what Sutton calls the “fundamental lesson that runs through this book.” He says, “the difference between how a person treats the powerless versus the powerful is as good a measure of human character as I know.” That works for me.
Many people are good at “kissing up” but very capable of “kicking down.” But the true leaders treat everyone the same—with respect. Here are some lessons on respect and creating a better workplace I took from the book:
- To become a better organization, reduce the differences between the highest- and lowest-status members of your enterprise. Get rid of the executive restrooms, preferred parking places, and other status symbols that divide people into classes.
- “Fight as if you are right; listen as if you are wrong.” It’s OK to defend your ideas, but you also need to listen to the other side. You might just find out there’s a better solution. But you’ll never know about it unless you listen.
- At Intel, they have a motto: “Disagree and then commit.” Again, debate the ideas but once the decision has been made to move forward in a certain way, people need to get behind it. Second-guessing, complaining, and arguing dooms a decision to failure because there isn’t sufficient energy and commitment behind it.
Nearly all human beings have “distorted, and often inflated, beliefs about how they treat, affect, and are seen by others.” Really try to find out how others see you and contrast that with your own beliefs. Some of it might be hard to hear, but you can learn from it.
I must admit, after 25 years in business, I’ve seen very few certifiable assholes. There have been people I don’t care for very much, but few that meet Sutton’s definition of offenders who consistently make people who are less powerful feel worse about themselves. And I’ve never worked with anyone who can compare to some of those represented in the book. Sure, everyone is capable of acting out from time to time, but I just haven’t seen much blatant disregard for other human beings as is portrayed in Sutton’s book. I’m thankful for that!
Of course, the problem with people like Scott Rudin is that they’re deemed highly successful–because too often “success” isn’t defined to include how you treat people. In many businesses, it’s all about the bottom line–the end and not the means.
The fact that everyone is capable of acting out from time to time is no excuse either. Why is it that people feel the need to make room for this type of behavior however small. Anything that we do that does not show respect and consideration for another is unexceptable! I know of bosses who do not have the decency to speak to their staff when they enter the office in the morning – even after they have been spoken to. But these same people are offended when their boss or someone else responds to them in this same manner. One problem I have observed is that people try to manage people. It may sound okay, but it is wrong. You manage paper and things; you supervise people. Whenever I have people working subordinate to me, I NEVER treat them like things. Some people should only be responsible for paper and things and NEVER people. Every manger, supervisor, director, etc. is not capable of even working with people, let alone supervising them. I could write a book about this myself :). Thanks for taking the time to read this post.
I don’t know why you would be amazed. Verbally abusive bosses existed every place I worked until I found my recent job. I truly thought they existed everywhere! Of course that was during a period of time before there were laws protecting employee rights and there was no such thing as being politically correct. Staff members were verbally abused, sexually harrassed, etc. on a regular basis. Of course, those bosses only abused those who would take it. Basically they are just bullies with power.
It is a different world now, thank goodness.
When systems/organizations reward only the ‘bottom line’ and are not concerned with who or what was stepped on to get there, then they are only going to get what was measured.
If you ask for numbers, then you will get numbers; not integrity, humanity or satisfied customers. There are probably a lot of borderline %#*holes out there. The good leader’s job is to create and monitor a system that will push them towards the better side of the line, while making mission, expanding opportunities and creating workforces that can come together to meet the needs of our end users, now and in the future.
I have to say, I have worked for extremely demanding bosses, both men and women. I also have to say I have never worked for someone like Scott Rudin, and for that I am truly grateful! However, having said that, one of my bosses was extremely close and sent me to the “executive bathroom” in tears! Those days are long past, but I have to say, I took away something from him – I learned that I did NOT want to ever allow myself to be treated like that again. I also grew professionally at that very time. The kicker is, he valued me to no end, gave me VERY nice raises, and when I wanted to leave his “executive suite” he stated, “You have to train someone to be exactly like you before you can go as well as train on your own time” (this meant after hours and on weekends.) This was one of the reasons why I wanted to get into HR, maybe to make a difference. My point is, success is not only the bottom line, but think how much more the bottom line would be increased had Scott treated his people with respect – the sky would be the limit – to me, that truly defines “SUCCESS.”
How can a person like Rudin be successful? The cost and time to recruit and trained assistants is costly. Making this NOT cost effective for the bottom line. His entire staff has been compeletly and utterly stripped of self-esteem, moral is certainly NOT there. I’m also pretty sure that everyone is ready to throw each other under the bus for any reason, just so they can keep this degrading, unfullfiling job. How does management not see this.
I blame management for allowing this to continue. And in so doing this, the company’s reputation is being questioned. Have they considered what clients and suppliers see and feel? Some day soon, someone will break and stand up to him and it may be a very bad situation. Let’s hope management does something before this ever happens.
How about this “boss”: female, Harvard grad, Senior Legal Counsel and newly appointed SVP of Administration & HR (a self-proclaimed “assertive” leader and “mentor” for the organization): Our HR Director had scheduled a half day of team building for our HR department which included community volunteering combined with team building exercises and an employee appreciation luncheon. Result: The “boss” waited until the last minute, cancelled the event and announced to the HR staff, “We have a morale problem in the organization – so, until we solve the morale problem, there will be no team building.” She then announced her own employee appreciation exercise to help build morale – which consisted of assembling all the employees and listening to her speak for 45 minutes about her love for the company as her “family” followed by a picnic lunch in the parking lot. She then decided to re-organize the HR department and insisted that the HR Director terminate our hearing impaired staffing manager – because her disability made her appear “unprofessional”. The HR Director refused and was terminated, followed by the stafffing manager. Their replacements started the next day. A married senior company official whose sexual appetite for younger women is well known was charged with sexual harassment by an HR staff member. The HR staff member left the company out of fear and the senior company offical was promoted and then his office was moved into the HR department. The “boss” personally handled the investigation. The senior official continues his sexual predation. The “boss” then decided to “engage” with the company employees by sending out an employee survey via the company intranet. The survey responses from employees were so toxic she cancelled and removed the survey from the intranet. As unbelievable as this sounds, it is absolutely true. I will leave as soon as I can find another job.
Leadership requires being successful at both managing the task and managing the relationship with both internal and external customers. Many organizations only measure and reward on the task side. So, certifiable a–holes are rewarded and the culture of the organization is established, breeding more and more certifiable a–holes who have learned by example. Sad, isn’t it.
The next book should highlight the truly successful executives and bosses.
I had a boss like the ones mentioned, so I know they do exist. I knew the assistant he had prior to me and he made her cry every single day. I told them during the job interview that I would probably hollar right back at him and would not stand being treated that way (I am sure that comment is what got me hired). He once screamed at me “No one tells me no, why do you think you can &%$#*&! tell me no?” I told him everyone else was afraid of him but I wasn’t, his reply was “Well you knew I was an A$$hole when I hired you so you just have to deal with me now.”
I knew what I was in for though, the first day on the job he asked if he could buy me a treadmill. He knew I was fat in the interview so I don’t know why it would matter after the fact but he asked me that question every month until the other partners bought him out.
Couldn’t there be a better name for the article/book? In a society where respectfullness is fast disappearing, those in positions of leadership and power should take the high road and be better examples.
I once worked for one of those so called A##holes. He rose up the ladder on the ideas and sweat of others. He never gave credit to those that deserved the recognition and frequently complained that his subordinates were minimally equipped to do their jobs. He was promoted into a position that he was ill prepared for and when his new subs failed to carry him it wasn’t long before his true abilities came to light. Several months had past when one of his lowly subs was promoted above him and found himself accepting a demotion or jioning the ranks of the unemployed. Moral of the story; be careful who’s ass you kick on the way up…it maybe the ass you have to kiss to stop your free fall to the bottom.
I absolutely loved this article!! I especially liked the part about creating less division in the workplace by getting rid of executive bathrooms and parking spaces. Also, there are times when “front line” workers may have excellent ideas to make an organization increase productivity and improve morale. However, they may feel that there supervisor is not approachable or a bully. So, a really smart, intelligent employees will fly under the radar or go unnoticed.
Thankfully I have never worked directly for anyone like this however; I have seen the damage that a person like this can do to employee morale. The Manager at a company I was with constantly degraded and ridiculed his subordinates and questioned their intelligence (just short of calling them stupid). He separated employees into “unofficial groups – bad and good. He rewarded employees who he liked and punished those he didn’t. Rewards were in the form of allowing employees to leave early (and still get paid for the hours), taking extended breaks, and as much overtime as they wanted to do (even though the company had a written policy forbidding working more than a set number of hours per week). Some punishments were in the form of no overtime allowed and denial of time off requests. These employees also got the toughest jobs on a daily basis. Unfortunately this did not stop at the manager – it eventually trickled down. Supervisors directly underneath this manager and on his “good” list began to take on this method of management – separating employees into good and bad. Employees began to not care about the quality of their work, workplace accidents increased significantly, and tardiness and absenteeism was rampant. Morale was so bad, that upper management decided to create a committee to address the problems. The first step was to beginning training for everyone in a supervisory position. It took over 2 years to try to correct the damage this manager had done. In the end this manager’s methods and he unsaid motto of “it’s my way or no way”, cost the company a tremendous amount of money.
This article is a conversation starter but does it help us as HR professionals to resolve the problem. How do we identify when there is a problem? How do we deal with it? How do we prevent it? That’s what I’m looking for from my subscription to BLR.
One of the owners of the company that I work for is like Scott Rudin. Morale is so bad at this company. He berates and screams at people right in the middle of a floor that houses many cubes so everyone can not only hear him but can feel the anger he spits out. It doesn’t matter who you are, he screams at anyone in his path if a mistake was made. He told me one of my direct reports was f*^&^*g stupid. I was horrified. The worst part about this behavior is allowing it makes others think they can treat others unkindly as well, and they do. It’s a very sad state of affairs and it makes for a very stressful work environment. Everyone plays the blame game because no one wants to be screamed at. We’ve had people leave because of him yelling at them and we’ve tried to get him an assistant to reduce his interactions with other staff but they all left so Management gave up on that idea. In the past, we weren’t even allowed to speak of this individual in meetings because they were so tired of it taking up the whole meeting. All Executive management says is that there is nothing they can do as he’s an owner. And that we can only control our own reaction. The only thing that is going to force a change in this bad behavior is if more people start leaving. So be it, I’m currently looking and long for the day that I can leave…