In 2007, Dr. Robert Sutton wrote the classic book titled “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t”. It can all be summed up in a few simple statements. Basically, avoid assholes at all costs, no matter how rich or powerful they might be. That being around an asshole is contagious. That chronic exposure to such nastiness will eventually rub off.
Because such behavior is an “emotional contagion” – the odds are that if a company hires assholes, the corporate culture will become toxic. If a corporate culture becomes toxic due to assholes, it can be very difficult if not impossible to change.
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Unfortunately, the “no asshole rule” falls down somewhat on social media. We can’t fire the trolls and disagreeable personality types. On twitter and other spaces, the internet “bullies, creeps, jerks, tyrants, tormentors, despots, backstabbers and egomaniacs” abound. Even worse, they can behave in this way and build an audience as well as make money by attacking others. This feeds into a mob mentality, where many people get their little dopamine hit by participating in various on-line “stonings”. They allow their inner asshole to come out, and have found a certain perverse and evil power through these interactions.
I think everyone has witnessed someone getting attacked by a mob on social media. It is no fun. It is hard not to want to strike back.
This is why I don’t tolerate assholes on the comments section of these Substack essays. This is one place on the internet that I can control. Note – I can’t say for sure how many people I have “unsubscribed.” However, I have been writing this Substack for almost 1.5 years, and the number is less than ten people. By not allowing assholes to make comments, I have not had a contagion issue.
When I worked at IBM in the early 1990’s, someone wrote a book called Nasty People. It sounds like there was more meat in the 2007 book.
1 out of 25 people in the USA has a severe personality disorder called psychopathy. Read Martha Stout’s book to get the nuance. It’s really good (www.alibris.com)
I can’t stop thinking about all those Boards of Health calls I was on in 2021 where US citizens politely told the BOH members all over the country that they were hated, needed to resign, would not do what they said, wanted them to imagine what they were doing to people, and on and on.
We’re talking hundreds of people with the same 100% uniform message for HOURS… demanding that these BOH members STOP what they were doing and BACK OFF.
Sometimes, after the comment sessions ended, those still on the calls were treated to hearing the BOH committee members blow off every single comment as irrelevant and inevitable public frustrations that really don’t matter in ‘the real world.’… And then chat calmly about how they were just going to keep on doing what they were doing.
Nevermind those thousands of pesky citizens trying not to use cuss words. It was incredible… they had no fear of being shot whatsoever and I gotta say -- now I think they were psychopaths.
Sutton. Not Malone. Not trying to be an asshole.
Sure you are. If you click on the link to the original article, you will see the title from Dr. Malone. I added Dr. Malone to the title to make sure people would not think that he wrote the book, only the article referencing the book.