Who deserves to be branded an a**hole? Many of us use the term
indiscriminately, and apply it to anyone who annoys us, gets in our way or
happens to be enjoying greater success than we are. But a precise definition
is useful. It can help you to distinguish those colleagues and customers you
simply don’t like from those who deserve the label. It can help you to
distinguish people who are having a bad day or a bad moment (“temporary
a**holes”) from persistently nasty and destructive jerks (“certified
a**holes”). Researchers who write about psychological abuse in the
workplace, such as Bennett Tepper, define it as “the sustained display of
hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviour, excluding physical contact”. That
definition is useful as far as it goes. But it isn’t detailed enough.
An experience I had as a young assistant professor is instructive. When I
arrived at Stanford as a 29-year-old researcher, I was an inexperienced,
ineffective and nervous teacher. I got poor teaching evaluations in my first
year on the job. I worked to become more effective in the classroom and was
delighted to win the best teacher award in my department (by student vote)
at the graduation ceremony at the end of my third year.
My delight lasted only minutes. It evaporated when a jealous colleague ran up
and gave me a big hug. She secretly and expertly extracted every ounce of
joy I was experiencing by whispering in my ear in a condescending tone
(while sporting a broad smile for public consumption): “Well, Bob, now that
you have satisfied the babies here on campus, perhaps you can settle down
and do some real work.”
This painful memory demonstrates the two tests that I use for spotting whether
a person is acting like an a**hole.
Test One: After talking to the alleged a**hole, does the “target” feel
oppressed, humiliated, de-energised or belittled by the person? In
particular, does the target feel worse about him or herself?
Test Two: Does the alleged a**hole aim his or her venom at people who
are less powerful rather than at those people who are more powerful?
After that interaction with my colleague — which lasted less than a minute — I
felt worse about myself. I went from feeling the happiest I’d ever been
about my work performance to worrying that my teaching award would be taken
as a sign that I wasn’t serious enough about research (the main standard
used for evaluating Stanford professors). This episode also demonstrates
that although some a**holes do their damage through open rage and arrogance,
it isn’t always that way.
People who loudly insult and belittle their underlings and rivals are easier
to catch and discipline. Two-faced backstabbers like my colleague, who have
the skill and control to save their dirty work for moments when they can’t
get caught, are tougher to stop — even though they may do as much damage as
a raging maniac.
There are many other actions that a**holes use to demean and deflate their
victims. I’ve listed a dirty dozen. 1 Personal insults. 2 Invading one’s
personal territory. 3 Uninvited physical contact. 4 Threats and
intimidation, both verbal and non-verbal. 5 Jokes and teasing used as
insult-delivery systems. 6 Withering e-mails. 7 Status slaps intended to
humiliate their victims. 8 Public shaming. 9 Rude interruptions. 10
Two-faced attacks. 11 Dirty looks. 12 Treating people as if they are
invisible.
The thing that my colleague whispered helps to demonstrate the difference
between a temporary a**hole and a certified one. It isn’t fair to call
someone a certified a**hole based on a single episode like this one; we can
only call them a temporary a**hole.
We all have the potential to act like a**holes in the wrong conditions — when
we are placed under pressure or, especially, when our workplace encourages
everyone, especially the most powerful people, to act that way.
Some people do deserve to be certified as a**holes because they are
consistently nasty across places and times. One candidate is the film
producer Scott Rudin, known as one of the nastiest Hollywood bosses. The
Wall Street Journal estimated that he went through 250 personal
assistants between 2000 and 2005: Rudin claimed that his records show only
119, but admitted that this excluded assistants who lasted less than two
weeks. The online magazine Salon quotes a former assistant who
received a 6.30am phone call from Rudin asking her to remind him to send
flowers to Anjelica Huston for her birthday. At 11 that same morning, Rudin
called her into his office and screamed: “You a**hole! You forgot to remind
me to get flowers for Anjelica Huston’s birthday!” As reported, this former
assistant added: “And, as he slowly disappears behind his automatic closing
door, the last thing I see is his finger, flipping me off.”
The damage that a**holes do to their organisations is seen in the costs of
increased staff turnover, absenteeism, decreased commitment to work and the
distraction and impaired individual performance documented in studies of
psychological abuse, bullying and mobbing. The effects of a**holes on
turnover are obvious and well documented. There is even evidence that
employees steal from their companies to even the score. Jerald Greenberg
studied three nearly identical manufacturing plants in the Midwestern United
States; two of the three plants (which management chose at random)
instituted a ten-week-long 15 per cent pay cut after the firm temporarily
lost a major contract. In one plant where the cuts were implemented, an
executive announced the cuts in a curt and impersonal manner. In a second
plant, the executive gave a detailed and compassionate explanation, along
with sincere apologies for the cut and multiple expressions of remorse. The
executive then spent a full hour answering questions. In the plant where no
pay cuts were made, employee theft rates held steady at about 4 per cent
during the ten-week period. In the plant where the pay cut was done but
explained in a compassionate way, the theft rate rose to 6 per cent. And in
the plant where the cuts were explained in a curt manner, the theft rate
rose to nearly 10 per cent.
Millions of people feel trapped in places where the Pro-A**hole Rule rather
than the No-A**hole Rule prevails. Employees who face and witness constant
bullying leave their jobs at higher rates than in civilised places. But most
of the afflicted hunker down and take it. They have no escape route to
another job, or at least to one that pays as well.
Yet there are ways to make the best of a bad situation. Consider the strategy
that one Silicon Valley executive used to survive her mean-spirited
colleagues. Let’s call her Ruth. Earlier in her career, Ruth became
entangled in a nasty political battle with “a slew of a**holes” who
routinely put her down. They repeatedly criticised what she did and shot
down her solutions while offering few constructive ideas of their own. They
proposed tough solutions (such as firing poor performers), then lacked the
courage to implement their macho talk, leaving her to do their dirty work.
Ruth tried to fight back and was beaten down. Although she kept her position,
she emerged with her confidence eroded and was physically and emotionally
exhausted. Ruth lost weight and had a hard time sleeping for months.
Three years later, the same creeps started using the same tricks again. This
time Ruth went in with her eyes open, determined to get through it all.
Ruth’s coping strategy was inspired by advice she had received as a teenager
from a river-rafting guide: if you fall out of the boat in rapids, don’t try
to fight it, just rely on your life vest and float with your feet out in
front of you. That way, if you are thrown against rocks you can use your
feet to push off, and you will protect your head and conserve your energy.
As it turned out, Ruth had fallen overboard, in a stretch of the
American River in California known as Satan’s Cesspool. The guide’s advice
worked perfectly: after an amazing trip through the rapids, with her feet
out in front of her, Ruth came to a smooth stretch of river and swam over to
the boat, which was waiting for her by a beach.
Ruth remembered this strategy when she was trapped in a meeting — the first of
several — where she and a few others were subjected to personal attacks,
dirty looks and excessive blame. Ruth stretched out her feet in front of her
under the table — and then the river-rafting image came into her mind. She
realised that if she didn’t panic and just “floated with her feet out in
front” she would come out of the mess in one piece and with her energy
intact for whatever lay ahead.
And that is exactly what happened. After that meeting, she shared her strategy
with a fellow executive who was also being bad-mouthed and bullied — and it
worked for that executive, too. It became empowering, and they sent regular
reminders to each other to “just stay feet first”. Both made it through this
ordeal with their energy and confidence intact. They found subtle ways to
“out” the most toxic of these a**holes, to expose the damage that they had
done to their victims and to the company.
Ruth’s Satan’s Cesspool Strategy contains two key ingredients that help people
to keep their mental and physical health intact. First, she learnt to
reframe the nastiness that she faced in ways that helped her to become
emotionally detached. Secondly, she didn’t struggle against larger forces
that she couldn’t control.
Ruth also picked small battles that she could win and took small steps to
undermine the worst of her tormentors.
I wish I could say that I’ve never been an a**hole, but it would be a
barefaced lie. If you want to build an a**hole-free environment, you have to
start by looking in the mirror.
When have you been an a**hole? When have you caught and spread this contagious
disease? The most powerful single step that you can take is just to stay
away from nasty people and places. This means that you must defy the
temptation to work with a swarm of a**holes — regardless of a job’s other
perks and charms. It also means that, if you make this mistake, get out as
fast as you can.
And remember: admitting that you’re an a**hole is the first step.
Power corrupts
Leaders in most organisations are not only paid more than others, they also
enjoy constant deference and false flattery.
My Stanford colleague Deborah Gruenfeld has spent years studying the effects
of putting people in positions where they can lord it over underlings. She
shows how rapidly even tiny power advantages can change the way that people
think and act. In one experiment, student groups of three discussed a list
of contentious social issues (such as abortion and pollution). One member
was randomly assigned to the higher-power position of evaluating the
recommendations made by the other two members.
After 30 minutes, the experimenter brought in a plate of five cookies. The
more “powerful” students were more likely to take a second cookie, chew with
their mouth open and get crumbs on their face and on the table.
© Robert Sutton 2007: Extracted from The No Asshole Rule,
published by Little, Brown, RRP £9.99. Available from Times
BooksFirst at £9.49, including free p&p
Is your boss a**hole - or would YOU like to confess . . .
