Review: The No Asshole Rule

Slowly getting back up to speed with my reading schedule, the first book I completed from my reading list was Robert I. Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule: Building a civilized workplace and surviving one that isn’t. Kind of a refreshing title to see on a business book, isn’t it? Similar topics have usually been handled very cautiously under terms such as bullying, but somehow the word “asshole” has a much better ring to it than a socially handicapped individual, bully, jerk, antisocial person, tyrant or whatever.

Now, we all know assholes. And while we can often steer clear of them in our personal lives, workplace assholes are another matter. While most of us probably agree with Sutton that life is just too short to put up with assholes, do we know how to deal with them if needed? The book begins by providing some guidelines on how to tell a permanent asshole from a temporary one – an important distinction to make since we’re all temporary assholes from time to time. It then goes on to surveying the damage assholes cause, shows how companies can implement a “No asshole rule” teaching the assholes to act better or ousting them. Some personal advice is also offered in terms of how to keep your own inner jerk from getting out too much and some coping strategies are offered if you are forced to work with assholes and you can’t just leave.

Decisions in any company are often taken purely based on the impact on the company financials – what’s more, you have to have an estimate of the financial impacts, even if it were a useless estimate. Given that, it’s comforting to know assholes actually cost you money. Do you ever wonder just how much damage they are capable of doing? How do you even begin to measure that? Sutton gives some rough guidelines to establish your company’s TCA – Total Cost of Assholes – through a checklist. The checklist includes a number of items from damage to the victims, time lost, impact to management, legal and HR costs etc. Armed with a financial estimate of how damaging these individuals are can be the first step to recognizing the problem and getting rid of it. One interesting thing to note is that the so-called “sales superstars” who are often assholes are, in fact, a financial liability – sales teams overall often do better without these so-called “superstars”.

One of – if not the – key lessons of the book is that it doesn’t really matter, per se, what your company values purportedly are. It doesn’t even matter that leaders talk about them. What matters is consistently treating the person right in front of you, right now, in the right way. Walking the talk, eating your own dogfood, call it whatever you want – but if a company says one thing and does another, it’s called hypocrisy and it would’ve been better to not have such a policy in the first place that you know you’re going to violate.

Another important point in the book is that not being an asshole doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any confrontation – the best groups and organizations are places where people know how to fight. But the key concept here is people shouldn’t fight on a personal level. Not always an easy thing to accomplish but something that can be taught.

There are plenty of real-life stories and quotes in the text, which are an excellent way to bring the topic to life. One nice quote comes from the CEO of Mission Ridge Capital:

For most of my professional career, I have been telling anyone who would listen that I can work with just about every type of person, with one glaring exception – assholes. In fact, I have always used that very word. As much as I believe in tolerance and fairness, I have never lost a wink of sleep about being unapologetically intolerant of anyone who refuses to show respect for those around them.

One chapter towards the end of the book, on virtues of being an asshole, makes sure the book provides a balanced view on the subject. It clearly shows that there are certain situations and cases where it pays off to be an asshole, but those are few and far between. In some cases throwing a temper tantrum is warranted and a useful course of action – just be careful you don’t get sucked into the role of being an asshole for longer than is absolutely required.

The No Asshole Rule is a great book and I can highly recommend you read it even if you’re not suffering from assholes at this point in time. At under 200 pages it’s a quick read, not to mention a fun and informative one. I’ll borrow the words of the author to wrap up the review:

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?

This book is aimed at weeding out those folks and teaching them when they have stripped others of their esteem and dignity. If you are truly tired of living in Jerk City – if you don’t want every day to feel like a walk down Asshole Avenue – well, it’s your job to help build and shape a civilized world. Sure, you already knew that. But isn’t it time to do something about it?

Ps. The author, Bob Sutton, is also writing an excellent blog at http://bobsutton.typepad.com/.