The Art of Manliness - #627： How to Deal With Jerks, Bullies, Tyrants, and Trolls

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast there are some

00:00:11.700 people in life who are more than unpleasant more than annoying they're real genuine a**holes my

00:00:17.320 guest today has written the pre-minute field guide to identifying dealing with and avoiding

00:00:21.100 all of life's jerks bullies tyrants and trolls his first book's the no a-hole rule the second

00:00:25.860 one's the a-hole survival guide his name is bob sutton he's a stanford professor of organization

00:00:30.120 and management and we begin our conversation together with how bob defines what makes a jerk

00:00:34.060 a jerk what causes their jerkiness and the cost of having such disagreeable people as part of an

00:00:38.760 organization we then get into the circumstances of when being a jerk yourself can actually be

00:00:42.840 advantageous we then turn to how to deal with all the jerks in your own life including distancing

00:00:46.760 yourself from them deciding you're going to be better than them and imagining you're a jerk

00:00:50.480 collector encountering a new species of jerk bob explains smart ways to fight back against jerks

00:00:55.040 gets into the wisdom of documenting their jerkiness why it's occasionally helpful to make an aggressive

00:00:59.020 stand and how even steve jobs learned to be less of an a-hole we end our conversation with how to

00:01:03.260 build a jerk-free workplace after the show's over check out our show notes at awm.is slash jerks

00:01:08.300 all right bob sutton welcome to the show it's great to be here so you are a professor of

00:01:25.040 management science at stanford university but because of an article you wrote and then two

00:01:30.440 books you've written you become known as the a-hole guy the first book was the no a-hole rule and then

00:01:36.600 the most recent one was the a-hole survival guide how did this happen how did you become the the a-hole

00:01:41.580 guy well there's two answers to that question one is the way i was raised which is my dad used to always

00:01:48.920 tell me uh to not be an a-hole and because if you treat people like that you do two things number one

00:01:55.180 is you hurt people and number two is uh actually in life people hold it against you and they and they

00:02:00.300 kind of lie lie in wait and stab you in the back so so there was that and then in about 2004

00:02:06.720 i got an interesting call from a woman named julia kirby who was an editor at harvard business review and

00:02:14.220 she said do you have any ideas for breakthrough ideas they used to run an annual breakthrough ideas

00:02:19.740 section and i said i have an idea i'm interested in it's not a breakthrough idea i'd heard it my

00:02:24.900 whole life and it entails using a sort of dirty seven letter word that you would never publish in

00:02:30.840 a respectable publication like the harvard business review well julia called my bluff and i sent in this

00:02:37.920 article which by the way had the word in it too many times because i thought they would cross it out

00:02:41.640 and they didn't and i got more response to that than any hbi article i've written actually before

00:02:47.800 or since and i've written quite a few of them and so to me that was a sign that maybe i should write a

00:02:53.280 book and i wrote this short book the no a-hole rule that for better or worse is sold more than all

00:02:58.920 my other books combined so so here i am right so this definitely this is a topic that resonates with

00:03:06.000 people so i mean let's talk about so what makes we'll say jerk instead of a-hole what makes a jerk a

00:03:11.480 jerk in your experience in thinking about this topic well so academics argue about everything

00:03:17.560 but this is my take my take is is that it's somebody who leaves others feeling demeaned disrespected and

00:03:25.860 or de-energized and so and there's an important distinction here that um i think is useful to keep

00:03:33.620 in mind one is they're certified jerks those are the people in our lives who everywhere they go

00:03:38.700 they leave people feeling like dirt usually that's some sort of personality defect but the fact is

00:03:45.240 and it is that all of us under the wrong conditions can be temporary jerks and perhaps wittingly perhaps

00:03:52.240 unwittingly leave others feeling bad so that's kind of how i make the distinction which is that people

00:03:57.880 who make others feel bad so like there's perma jerks right people yeah all day and then people

00:04:02.580 temporary okay so i mean yeah as you're going through this i mean are there like diagnostics

00:04:07.460 did you try to figure out if you're dealing with a with a certified jerk or someone who's just having

00:04:12.940 a an off moment yeah i well what the main diagnostics is essentially if if everybody you know says oh he or

00:04:23.920 she is a jerk and that's just how they treat everybody then to me that's sort of a sort of a diagnostic

00:04:30.160 sign i mean just you know to to give you an example of of one of my uh my favorite ones is there's there's

00:04:37.980 a hollywood producer named scott rudin and he was actually written up on wall street journal as boss

00:04:44.080 zilla and just as an example he went through literally an executive assistant every two weeks

00:04:51.460 and apparently did fire one for bringing him the wrong breakfast muffin and was just sort of famous for

00:04:57.060 that and chris rock even said that scott rudin isn't racist he just hates everybody so i i think

00:05:03.000 somebody like that who just sort of leaves a trail of everywhere they go just sort of like raging and

00:05:08.620 burning people i i think that that's a diagnostic question so we know these people are right but in

00:05:15.340 a point you make in a whole survival guide is when you are trying to figure out if someone's an a-hole

00:05:19.820 or a jerk like you want to be slow to give you don't want that to be the first answer you go to

00:05:24.980 the guy that guy's just a jerk because it might not be yeah so that's that's also really true

00:05:30.520 because one of the first things that happens is is that we as human beings tend to have negative

00:05:35.220 reactions to people who are different than us who have opinions we dislike who look funny so yes

00:05:41.360 there's all sorts of reasons and and in fact there's another side to this which is really important to

00:05:46.520 talk about that there's all sorts of evidence that show that we're really fast to label other people

00:05:52.640 is is jerks and really slow to label ourselves and if you look at the bias biases it should probably

00:05:59.520 be the opposite that you should be fast to label yourself and slow to label others yeah that's a

00:06:05.360 good point i've often asked myself when i'm having like there's a conflict right between someone i'm

00:06:09.060 always asking like am i the jerk here like is this right is this me or like am i because i i never know

00:06:15.080 i'm like and i'm i'm curious i'm always i don't want to like go to like immediately oh that guy's

00:06:19.840 a jerk when it could be me so so so there's both evidence and stories here that the best thing in

00:06:25.640 life is to have people who love you and trust you it will tell you when you're blowing it and and i i

00:06:32.420 even talk about in the book i had this boss peter glenn my former department chair who i wrote a nasty

00:06:39.160 email to one of my undergraduates i don't think i'm routinely nasty but like everybody else i sometimes

00:06:44.340 lose it and he called me into my office and said you do not treat students that way and you will

00:06:50.320 apologize to him and you know he was right and so having people there's a difference between people

00:06:56.080 who say bad things to you just because they want to hurt your feelings but peter was doing that out

00:07:00.520 of caring for me and caring for the student and he was right and i also talk about this notion that

00:07:06.700 winston churchill his wife clementine that was one of the functions that she served is that when he

00:07:12.700 was nastier incompetent she'd tell him so for those of us who have partners in life who will tell us

00:07:17.480 the truth they're actually quite valuable yeah so it sounds like there's there's sort of like a

00:07:22.120 dunning-kruger effect for jerks like sometimes jerks don't even know there are jerks but they think

00:07:27.140 they're less jerky than and everyone else is just a jerk right so it's like dunning-kruger is like you

00:07:32.260 don't think you're dumb you think everyone else is dumb right yeah and and the other the other part

00:07:36.280 about dunning-kruger is the dumber and more incompetent you are at something the more that you tend

00:07:41.360 to overestimate your skills and abilities and that does turn out to be true for social skills too

00:07:46.520 so yeah there's definitely a dunning-kruger effect for jerks and i think that sometimes

00:07:50.820 some of the nicest people worry the most about coming across as jerks and maybe even worry too

00:07:56.560 much because then they start being afraid to tell the truth if you will so this might be you know

00:08:01.780 we're going to go into psychology here like what makes a jerk a jerk i think we understand like

00:08:06.000 temporary jerks sometimes you just have an off day you're in a bad mood whatever we and you

00:08:10.280 understand that but like we're talking about like the perma jerks what what do you think is going on

00:08:14.320 there so to me well first of all there's a whole bunch of genetic ways that people are raised that

00:08:20.620 have some sort of effect but to me if you look at somebody who tends to be a jerk over time and look

00:08:26.340 at the situation they're in they tend to be in situations where they're under constant time pressure

00:08:32.060 they're really competitive so if you see everything is i win you lose game that's going to make you a

00:08:39.280 jerk because your job is to is to sort of crush them sleep deprivation if you are consistently

00:08:45.160 sleep deprived that's a great way to turn into a jerk and maybe the most powerful and consistent

00:08:50.740 effect is it turns out that negative emotions nastiness anger disrespect they're incredibly

00:08:57.000 contagious so if if you are offered a job um or get into a relationship with a bunch of people who

00:09:03.900 are jerks the odds are that you are going to start acting like them so yeah i mean that was a so it

00:09:09.780 sounds like environment can have a big impact on on whether you're a jerk or not yeah i think you

00:09:14.000 quoted some person who was talking about like before you you know you decide or diagnose yourself with

00:09:18.520 depression just make sure you're not surrounded by a bunch of jerks yep yep and and so and one thing

00:09:25.340 that i think we should talk a little bit about about the evidence here is that so so i wrote

00:09:29.900 we're calling it the no a-hole or no jerk rule in 2007 and then and then i wrote the next book the

00:09:35.660 jerk survival guide or a whole survival guide in 2017 there's been an absolute explosion in academia

00:09:42.180 of of all things about jerks and if you just look at the weight of the evidence being around people

00:09:48.540 who treat you like dirt it's bad for your physical health it's bad for your mental health it's bad for

00:09:53.180 your relationship with your partner in life on the other side there's all sorts of evidence that it not

00:09:58.560 only drives out the best people it makes them less productive it makes them more likely to steal

00:10:03.080 we can talk about some of the advantages being a jerk there's one or two i can think of but on the

00:10:08.160 whole it's not a pretty thing for our physical or mental health or for our productivity right

00:10:14.520 going back to your you're coming at this from a management perspective so you're focusing

00:10:18.060 particularly on how being jerk or how jerks affect organizations and businesses i mean what are

00:10:23.360 the costs like what are the productivity costs etc for of jerks well well so so we can show over and

00:10:30.580 over again in in the laboratory and field studies that that for example there's a great study of some

00:10:35.960 250 fast food chains and if the boss was nasty and treated the employees in a disrespectful way

00:10:42.840 the best ones would quit they'd steal more food they'd waste more food they'd be less satisfied with

00:10:48.020 their jobs there's all sorts of effects but perhaps my favorite example and this is one that goes way

00:10:53.980 back there was a i gotta still disguise this firm some but it was a firm that sold very expensive

00:11:00.260 stuff so imagine very expensive software and the way that firms like this work is that the star sales

00:11:05.380 people get paid an action an absolute fortune they can get over a million dollars easily so they

00:11:10.460 had this star salesperson and we're going to call him ethan and ethan was such a jerk that he would

00:11:15.900 just flame everybody he'd treat everybody with disrespect and and so what happened was that

00:11:21.740 finally the folks in hr got so mad at him by the way after his wife screamed at them about a copay for

00:11:27.440 the health insurance and swore at them and and said you know my husband's the most important person

00:11:31.720 the firm blah blah blah so the the folks in hr got mad and and they they calculated what i call the tcj

00:11:39.640 the total cost of jerks and essentially they figured out that this guy's jerkiness between

00:11:44.040 all the lawsuits they had to settle all the new assistants they had to keep um hiring all the time

00:11:49.560 they wasted on him it was costing 160 000 a year and to me that's just like wow and they and they

00:11:57.540 to their credit they did sort of pay him less the next year with a bonus but so you can see specific

00:12:03.240 examples like that and you can also you can also see uh the academic literature as well we could talk

00:12:10.660 about the upside too because that's always kind of fun yeah we'll get to the upside in a bit but i

00:12:14.800 want to we're gonna we're gonna hit this a little bit harder okay but but but like it also it's not

00:12:18.600 just co-workers where people can be jerks it's customers and there's like lots of research that

00:12:22.560 shows that people who have to work with jerky customers or clients like that can also be a big

00:12:27.400 downer on productivity and well-being at the at the at work oh oh all sorts of negative effects and in

00:12:33.060 fact when people face nasty customers and clients it does make them physically sick they are more

00:12:38.660 likely to quit and there's another just for those of your listeners who might be jerky clients there's

00:12:44.100 another side to this which is there's all sorts of evidence for example with consulting firms that

00:12:50.960 if you treat people badly who are when you're the customer that you get a whole bunch of things

00:12:57.280 happen one is you tend to get charged more and the other thing that happens and i hear this from my

00:13:01.260 students over and over again who go to the fancy sort of blue ribbon consulting firms is that if a

00:13:06.820 client is known to be a jerk they tend to get the consultants who are least good because you know

00:13:12.520 the consultants who are in demand and are great they can go to whatever clients they want so you

00:13:17.640 got to be really careful if you're treating other people like dirt you're going to have problems and

00:13:21.780 sometimes you also might get fired one of my favorite examples is there's this guy named rob fry so

00:13:28.240 rob fry is a hero in new zealand he turned around and saved new zealand air and if you know about new

00:13:33.540 zealand there's not many ways off the island well now there's like no way off the island with them

00:13:37.540 covid but there's just a few airlines and so there was a really rich guy in new zealand who abused his

00:13:44.240 staff and so so what rob fry did and i was at a conference i saw him read this letter to all of us

00:13:49.700 it was hysterical and and what he did was he wrote this guy and he said you are not allowed to fly on our

00:13:56.440 airline any longer and he cc'd the email to his entire staff now that i thought that was absolutely

00:14:02.300 brilliant yeah standing up for his staff there yes so let's talk about so we've been talking about

00:14:06.580 so the the downsides of being a jerk you mentioned there are some upsides sometimes of being a jerk

00:14:10.560 what are those well well so let's start with the the uh kind of the temporary part so it is sort of

00:14:17.040 interesting and i don't know it's being a jerk but sort of losing your temper treating people with

00:14:22.160 disrespect there's actually some interesting evidence that especially if you're not a jerk all the

00:14:27.340 time that having strategic temper tantrums may actually work to motivate people when they're

00:14:32.760 feeling complacent or they're being incompetent and in particular there's this really interesting

00:14:37.220 study done by a berkeley professor i i know well named barry staw and what he did was essentially he

00:14:43.240 put a tape recorder in the locker room at halftime during college and high school basketball games

00:14:49.160 and he recorded the coaches speeches across the season he did this for a bunch of teams and what the

00:14:54.900 finding was was that the coaches who yelled at the teams all the time that didn't work but coaches who

00:15:00.540 usually didn't yell if they occasionally had a temper tantrum and gave them grief about how lazy they

00:15:05.780 were being and and how disappointed that he or she was in them and so on that they would do better in

00:15:10.560 the second half of the game so so the lesson there is kind of interesting is that being all jerk all the

00:15:17.220 time might not work for motivating people but if it's somebody where who it's usually somebody who's

00:15:22.600 reasonable and they lose their temper at you it actually might work occasionally so that's that's

00:15:27.640 one we can talk about some other examples but that that that sort of fascinated me i know that's

00:15:33.480 true i'm if i think back to when i played football there was like coaches yelled at you all the time

00:15:38.180 and when they yelled at you at halftime nothing but there's really the coach who's really cool

00:15:41.460 and you just you liked him a lot and then he came in and just reamed you at halftime i paid attention

00:15:46.620 and then you yeah yeah yeah so yeah that that's kind of the so we used to have uh jim harbaugh as

00:15:51.560 as our coach here at stanford and then he went on to the 49ers so i had a lot of students who had

00:15:56.460 jim harbaugh and that's kind of the problem that jim harbaugh has is he just yells at everybody all the

00:16:00.640 time and eventually it sort of it sort of gets old so so yeah that i that sounds right we're gonna take

00:16:07.800 a quick break for your word from our sponsors

00:16:09.300 and now back to the show so what are some other examples of where being a jerk could be beneficial

00:16:16.660 so anytime you're in a so if you think about it anytime you're in a situation where it's a zero

00:16:22.720 sum game it's kind of i win you lose sort of game then leaving people feeling demeaned to de-energize

00:16:29.100 it probably works and and that sort of the kind of michael jordan sort of effect and just actually

00:16:35.380 you know the series about michael jordan and everything is is that well he was he was sort

00:16:40.540 of in the situation oh maybe he should have not been so nasty to his teammates but if you're in

00:16:44.940 this sort of situation where by making other people feel like dirt you do better and you don't have to

00:16:49.780 cooperate with them then it it actually probably works and i'm not necessarily recommending it but

00:16:56.140 it actually can be effective in those situations if you have multiple interactions with people it

00:17:01.760 doesn't work though or and or you ever need to cooperate with them right so i think like the

00:17:06.680 tit for tat studies right that that kind of that that sort of stores that if you know you're not

00:17:11.480 going to interact with someone then it's it's in your interest to just be like i'm going to go after

00:17:16.000 this person and not be cooperative but if you know you're going to have to interact with them you

00:17:19.560 know over and over again on the long term then you want to cooperate you know by the way that's

00:17:24.200 why selling cars just is terrible because it's like i and i feel sorry for car sales people is

00:17:31.120 there mostly in in situations where they're never going to see the customer again and ah so uh yeah

00:17:37.560 so there's some occupations where that does happen right and then i mean this can also that can lead

00:17:41.720 to some situations where if you're getting taken advantage of and you feel like you're in a zero-sum

00:17:46.220 game you might start doing things that you know just to you know cut off the nose to spite

00:17:50.480 yourself and right like just so you send out a message right even though you know you might not

00:17:54.320 get back to the guy you want to send out a message to everyone else like don't mess with me because

00:17:59.500 i'm willing to like just nuke myself yep just to get back at this person right so so to me that so

00:18:05.380 that's one of those downward spirals of human conflict where if you will our worst angels or our

00:18:10.740 worst selves come out and and to me that's kind of the problem with situations where there's sort of

00:18:16.580 a-hole poisoning is is that everybody sort of races to the bottom just to sort of think about

00:18:22.920 this a little more one thing i've thought about is well what are some of the hallmarks of uh successful

00:18:27.120 jerks steve jobs was one of them by the way i mean and you can even argue whether or not he's a jerk

00:18:32.960 if you want to go there but but if you look at some of the things that he and some other successful

00:18:36.860 jerks do first of all they're not all jerk all the time they're somewhat strategic about it

00:18:41.760 some of the people who love steve jobs the most were the tech writers he never was nasty to them

00:18:48.240 and so so that's one because because if you're all jerk all the time people just sort of give up on you

00:18:53.660 and then the other thing that smart jerks do is they have we call them toxic handlers they

00:18:59.340 essentially have people who after everybody's all upset to go sort of clean up the mess and calm down

00:19:04.520 everybody so larry ellison was sort of famous and he's calmed down in his old age but sort of famous

00:19:10.080 for having people who kind of if you will cleaned up the mess behind him so so if you're going to be

00:19:15.300 a jerk there are certain things you can do and and one is to be all not be all jerk all the time the

00:19:21.160 others have a toxic handler and and the third thing is to be careful because one thing that happens and

00:19:27.680 you see this in politics i'm going to stay out of politics and in business too is that when people

00:19:33.080 are powerful and they treat other people badly very often those people won't fight back but when they

00:19:39.260 start losing power then boom it's amazing how quickly they come down because their weak enemies

00:19:45.400 are lying in wait and then boom when the moment comes everything comes it's very machiavellian right

00:19:50.960 let's talk about this so we know being a like jerks aren't great but we have to deal with them

00:19:56.980 so how do we do that what's the first step of dealing with the jerk so so the question of how you

00:20:01.900 deal with jerks that's that's uh essentially why i wrote the a-hole survival guide which is that i wrote

00:20:08.000 this book that i thought was kind of a management book about how to lead to create a jerk free

00:20:13.540 workplace but then i got 8 000 or more emails and they were different but they're also all the same

00:20:19.140 which was essentially i've got a jerk in my life what do i do and and i'm a psychologist but i'm not

00:20:24.140 a therapist so i started digging into this and for me one of the first things to do is to sort of assess

00:20:31.300 the situation and if you are in a position where you are encountering either for a short period of

00:20:38.760 time or a long period of time somebody who is abusive my first bit of advice is if you can get

00:20:44.360 out get out of there and and there's big ways and there's small ways the big ways is quitting your job

00:20:50.980 moving your seat anything you can do to sort of get away from them because if you look at the evidence

00:20:56.060 it's like a toxic substance so that's one is is just simply leave the scene if you can it's not

00:21:01.620 possible for all of us to quit our jobs or to leave this situation the second thing and and there's great

00:21:07.700 evidence that it's unfortunately almost too good which is essentially is that if you get within 25 feet

00:21:15.780 for your job sitting near a jerk and this was done in open offices the odds are you're going to sort

00:21:20.880 of catch that contagious poisoning so if you are sitting near a jerk try to create physical distance

00:21:26.920 from them and and to engage with them as infrequently as possible so i talk about in the book one of my

00:21:32.880 friends so she had a really nasty dissertation advisor who would call her and send her nasty emails

00:21:38.820 at all hours of the day and night and what she started learning to do was to slow down the rhythm so

00:21:45.180 she'd wait a week and she wouldn't answer any of them she'd give a polite answer and then she'd wait

00:21:49.600 another week just to sort of slow the rhythm of the interaction so so i guess that's one a third one

00:21:56.680 which is really useful is if you're in a situation where you can't get out and you're stuck with it

00:22:02.200 that in this is kind of in the domain of cognitive behavioral therapy finding ways to sort of reframe

00:22:08.980 the situation so it doesn't hurt your soul quite so much that's another solution one of my favorites and

00:22:16.480 maybe we can stop here after i'm done with this one one of my favorites is is one of one of my heroes

00:22:21.840 and friends her name is becky margiata so she went to west point one of the early women at west point

00:22:27.560 and she described how when you're a first year plebe at west point you have somebody in your face

00:22:32.680 an inch from your nose scream at you all the time the upperclassmen and so what she started doing was

00:22:38.280 just seeing them as the funniest comedian she ever saw in her life not taking them seriously

00:22:42.480 so sometimes reframing something is being funny rather than threatening that's one of the ways to

00:22:47.420 deal with it but this challenge of reframing something is not being quite so threatening we

00:22:52.760 can talk about fighting back a little bit too because i'm talking about these more passive ways

00:22:56.540 yeah well let's dig into this passive stuff because i thought that was really interesting

00:22:59.240 some of the studies that you you've uncovered with this stuff so like just avoiding the person in

00:23:02.920 the first place i think you highlighted a study you know you don't necessarily have to quit your job

00:23:07.000 it could just be like if you're in a company like moving teams and that can make all the

00:23:11.060 difference in the world just like all right i'm gonna go to this team instead of working with this

00:23:14.360 guy yeah yeah so i mean so there's a whole bunch of research that shows once you get about 50 feet

00:23:20.300 away from somebody in in a sort of old-fashioned office when we used to work in office as many of

00:23:25.320 us once you get 50 feet away from them you're hardly ever going to see them if you in fact if somebody

00:23:31.080 works on a different floor of the same building very often it's as good as having them in another

00:23:35.340 country so so yeah so that so that's one thing you can do some of the other stuff that i think is is

00:23:42.940 really quite interesting in terms of this kind of coping stuff is is this notion of sort of framing

00:23:49.660 yourself is better than the person so there's there's a coffee chain out here called phil's coffee and

00:23:56.720 jacob jabber who's the ceo of phil's coffee what he teaches his folks and they have really do have

00:24:02.680 great baristas is that when a customer treats you badly what you do is you say to yourself i'm not

00:24:09.120 going to settle to their level i'm going to kill them with kindness to show that i'm a better human

00:24:13.160 being than they are and he said that does two things one is it actually it actually calms down

00:24:18.420 the customers and and he doesn't want baristas who are nasty but the other thing is is that it makes

00:24:24.080 the employee feel as if they have control over the situation and then the last one and i didn't come

00:24:29.020 up with this but one of my colleagues at stanford who is he's so good at dealing with nasty people

00:24:35.120 what he does is he pretends that essentially he's instead of being an insect collector he's sort of

00:24:40.580 like a jerk collector he collects different categories of jerks and when somebody's treating

00:24:45.540 him like dirt he says to himself i'm so lucky i've got such an interesting specimen here so he's got

00:24:51.240 this sort of weird reframing and oddly enough even though i write all these books on jerks i can't do that

00:24:56.520 but he can so that's just i mean some of the weird things we do to our minds to get through difficult

00:25:01.880 situations just amaze me as human beings yeah with this reframing stuff i think we've all done that

00:25:06.280 before where you okay you you try to find the humor in the situation or you just sort of tune out and

00:25:11.180 kind of sort of turn into a robot almost just to protect your soul but what's i mean i get one of

00:25:18.080 the dangers with reframing is that it can allow you to be abused more than you probably should

00:25:22.960 like so how do you how do you avoid that so as i as i've already said get out if you can but it is

00:25:32.200 interesting so if you look at this both studies and cases of people who successfully fight back

00:25:37.760 against those who are abusing us there are certain things that they do that are quite consistent one

00:25:43.120 thing that they do document i'm not a lawyer but every lawyer will tell you the more that you document

00:25:49.140 the better case that you have and then the second thing to do is to get allies and just one of my

00:25:55.960 favorite examples actually from animal control officer who wrote me years ago and she writes me

00:26:01.260 she said so we had this really really abusive and by the way racist co-worker who was flaming all of us

00:26:07.580 and so she said i went to my boss and i said it was a the the abuser was also a woman i said she's

00:26:13.480 treating us like dirt she's terrible and my boss said i can't do anything about it and what they did

00:26:18.520 was they put together what they called the a-hole diaries so these five or six co-workers they just

00:26:23.720 sort of kept a book where they wrote everything she did for two weeks and then they brought it to

00:26:28.460 their boss and then that jerk was gone within about 24 hours and that's it's not always that easy to do

00:26:35.520 it but to me you've got the bonding together with other folks in the documentation and then going to

00:26:41.800 people with power that won't always work but sometimes it will be effective right so that's a way of

00:26:47.020 fighting back so you haven't you weren't able to avoid the reframing is not working so you fight

00:26:51.200 back and so this is a smart way to fight back document and develop allies but i think typically

00:26:55.660 when they think about fighting back at a jerk like you're thinking like the george costanza thing like

00:27:00.100 the jerk store called and they ran out of you and like that right that typically doesn't work

00:27:05.760 that typically doesn't work especially if when people have more power than you

00:27:10.780 uh it usually it usually doesn't work although so there's a guy named bennett tepper who studies

00:27:18.200 abusive supervision and he does have some interesting evidence that when people have

00:27:22.560 abusive bosses and they publicly call out the boss and fight back that it actually is better for their

00:27:29.200 mental health which actually kind of surprised me but and it surprised him as well but there does

00:27:34.520 seem to be some evidence that people who fight back aggressively that in some situations it can be

00:27:40.040 better for him it's a case where i think we need some more research and that's something that if i

00:27:44.500 was going to advise somebody i'd say be really careful not to do that to somebody who has more power than

00:27:49.500 you but sometimes that that it might be effective oh there's one thing we really should talk about

00:27:55.160 here too which is that we're assuming at least i'm assuming in this conversation for now that the

00:28:00.860 person who's being abusive knows that they're being abusive on average most of the time when people

00:28:07.080 leave others feeling bad they aren't aware of it so one of the best and most effective ways to fight

00:28:13.320 back is to at least try to have a backstage conversation with the person where you say to

00:28:18.840 him or her you are making me and others feel badly and here's what you are doing could you please work

00:28:25.020 on your behavior and and that turns out to actually work in a lot of cases and then something else

00:28:32.980 that that all and i've already talked about this that's that's really important is that for people

00:28:37.580 who are jerky or leaving others feeling bad if they can have mentors or people in their life to help

00:28:42.620 turn them around that can be very effective in in fact that's that's what happened with steve jobs

00:28:48.680 we hear all the stories about what a jerk he was but and i have this i i'm very good authority

00:28:53.460 there's a guy named ed catmill president of pixar for decades who worked with steve jobs for 25 years

00:28:59.140 and one of the things that ed argues is that as steve got older he actually got nicer and nicer

00:29:05.080 he would still be aggressive when necessary but he got much more strategic and and on average

00:29:10.240 treating people better but he said the press hardly noticed because all the old stories were out there

00:29:15.020 so and and and and what he had was was he had a coach he had a guy named bill campbell who was on his

00:29:20.620 board at apple and was a dear friend of his who helped steve become a better person so

00:29:25.880 so even you hear the steve jobs story it's it's a sign that's possible for all of us to change

00:29:32.040 i think that's a good point so instead of making your immediate thing i'm going to fight back

00:29:35.980 aggressively do the backstage thing so i think we've developed this culture now where you've seen

00:29:40.420 like instead of doing that people just want to go public with it and get back at the person then

00:29:44.720 it just it backfires nothing nothing gets improved because like the person who's getting you know

00:29:48.620 trounced on or whatever they dig in their heels because they get defensive which is understandable

00:29:54.340 i'm sure if they would have just had a private conversation they could have fixed all that stuff

00:29:58.660 yeah so so ironically so this is a great point one of the best ways to turn somebody into a jerk

00:30:04.880 is to call them one so so so it not only is a jerky move to call them one it actually even if they're

00:30:12.380 not being one you end up with you were talking about the sort of tit for tat it ends up the situation

00:30:16.740 where everybody escalates and and so that and that's one of the the ironies is you know i i i write

00:30:23.040 these books about you know about um a-holes and jerks and stuff but one of the worst ways to deal

00:30:28.500 with them is to call them one so there so there's a yes i agree with what you're saying so i mean i

00:30:33.440 guess the idea would be like instead of saying you're a jerk say hey just in site specific behavior

00:30:38.960 actions and say that's you know it's it's doing it's having this effect and they'll be like oh i

00:30:43.720 didn't realize that thanks for bringing that to my attention or they might be a just like certified

00:30:47.960 sociopath and just like i don't care and at that point you realize okay well i have to escalate

00:30:52.440 this or just get out of here yep but so so to me when you say that you're sort of uh describing the

00:30:59.040 attitude and by the way i mean this this is is evidence-based most people who treat others badly

00:31:05.080 aren't doing it intentionally and aren't realizing the impact they're having on others there might be

00:31:10.320 sometimes and we talk about you know in sports that that essentially that there is uh strategic

00:31:16.260 intimidation and that does work in certain situations it works in the military it may work in

00:31:20.980 some litigation but most of the time in life collaboration and cooperation and treating

00:31:25.600 people with respect is the most strategic move to make all right and again this is this something i

00:31:30.640 guess it's a skill to figure out when to do what it's it's a skill that takes practice i agree with

00:31:35.100 that completely and there's no substitute for for doing it and and i see this because now teaching at

00:31:41.380 sanford for 37 years i see some of my most interesting students sort of go through periods

00:31:47.280 where they they come out and they're really successful and they just think that they're so

00:31:51.780 great and then they kind of go through a bit of a struggle where the world starts bringing them down a

00:31:58.280 little bit and they grow over time it doesn't happen with all of them i'm when we when we look at

00:32:04.060 sports we see some people who become more and more mature over time and then we see some people who

00:32:09.000 don't get any better at all so so it doesn't work for everyone but it's certainly as you say having

00:32:14.220 having coaching and having mentoring and experience does make a difference so we've talked about

00:32:19.580 surviving jerks so you know just get away from them might mean quit your job just distance yourself

00:32:24.880 fire clients if you need to give the client to the the bad the bad person on your team reframing

00:32:31.640 the situation so it doesn't just affect you as much kind of practice and cognitive behavioral therapy and

00:32:35.780 then you know be strategic about fighting back when you do but let's talk let's talk about this like

00:32:40.560 how let's be positive here how can we develop how can people create organizations where it's just

00:32:45.820 naturally like jerk free like it's jerk free and it's anti-jerk free or anti-jerk well i love that

00:32:51.760 and by the way that's how i originally got into this topic i said well can't we have like a

00:32:56.220 relatively jerk free site so how do you build a jerk free workplace to me it starts with the behavior of

00:33:03.860 the senior executives in the managers when they treat other people with respect it becomes contagious

00:33:09.580 so that's kind of one solution to me another solution that i think is important is to be

00:33:16.060 explicit when you're hiring people that we don't bring in people who are who are jerks so i've actually

00:33:22.300 one of my favorite companies and unfortunately um he passed away is that there's this this uh guy paul

00:33:30.060 purcell who was a ceo of baird and baird had they did not use the censored version they had a no jerk

00:33:36.220 rule and they mentioned in hiring and paul purcell one time i'm talking to him on the phone and he said

00:33:42.180 so i tell them during an interview if they act like a jerk i'm going to fire him and he does fire people

00:33:47.320 and very successful company the other thing that i think is probably the most important thing when i think

00:33:54.600 about having a no jerk culture is that when somebody treats others with disrespect that there's not only

00:34:01.900 permission it's essentially almost required to call people out for acting like jerks and i think a good

00:34:08.700 summary is that so one of one of my students one of my wealthiest and most successful students

00:34:14.200 her name is shona brown and so she was number four at google for about 10 years the highest ranking

00:34:20.400 non-product person and so i'm interviewing shona for the no a-hole book and i said so tell me about

00:34:26.000 google and she said well so one of the reasons i think the culture works here is that it's not

00:34:31.200 efficient to be a jerk here and so if you want to get ahead if you want to get your work done even if

00:34:36.360 you're not a nice person you have to be nice to other folks and i think that's one of the best

00:34:41.080 overall summaries because there are cultures that i know of and i suspect you know of that treating

00:34:46.240 other people with dirt is an efficient way to get it to get ahead but at least traditionally at least

00:34:51.260 in the old days backstabbing people bad mouthing people treating them with disrespect that was not

00:34:56.760 the way to get ahead at google no it's i think that idea of just being up front leadership being up

00:35:02.260 front that you're just a-holes are not allowed that can go a long way of you know nipping that stuff

00:35:07.760 in the bud you know here in tulsa the headquarter is the headquarters of quick trip the convenience

00:35:12.600 store chain and there's actually this story so the current ceo is chet cadeau his father founded

00:35:18.520 quick trip and his father you know sent out a letter because he started hearing that some of

00:35:22.320 the managers were treating customers like crap so his father sent out this letter that says no one

00:35:27.620 wants to work for an asshole and i won't allow it like to everybody and so like they had like so

00:35:32.320 quick trip has like like an explicit no a-hole rule they've had it i think since like the 80s or

00:35:36.440 seven i mean it's been wow i didn't know that that's fabulous yeah so and quick trip's fantastic

00:35:40.560 it's like my favorite i love going in there because the customer service is super fantastic

00:35:44.340 i they're just friendly and they're quick and it's my favorite place so you know that kind of reminds me

00:35:50.340 one of one of the biggest issues when it comes to this is essentially what do you do with superstars

00:35:57.040 who are jerks and honestly i think that's one of the biggest challenges certainly in sports we have

00:36:01.580 this problem but in companies too law firms my wife ran a large law firm for some years when you've got

00:36:07.860 a superstar sort of rainmaker and he or she treats others like dirt you've got a problem and to me

00:36:14.100 that's sort of the test of a culture it's not if it's somebody who's relatively powerless and in the

00:36:20.200 healthcare world the the hospital i think of that's really good about this the healthcare chain is the

00:36:25.980 cleveland clinic and and this is one thing and that for years and they still have it they had this model

00:36:32.700 that you could be a superstar surgeon that's great but if you treated people like dirt we were we will

00:36:38.780 get rid of you and it and i heard this from toby cosgrove who was head of the cleveland clinic for

00:36:43.580 years and i also had surgery there and and one of the reasons that i chose to be honest to have

00:36:49.980 surgery at the cleveland clinic so so i flew 1500 miles to cleveland rather than staying at stanford

00:36:55.620 was they had a lot of jerks at stanford in the heart surgery department and when i went to cleveland

00:37:01.040 it's like they actually were all sort of like these civilized modest midwesterners and also their

00:37:05.500 surgical outcomes were better too so that definitely affected my decision too but you know to your point

00:37:10.560 that being explicit about it and calling out people when they're bad very important especially

00:37:15.580 powerful people well bob where can people go to learn more about the the books you've written in

00:37:19.340 your work so just probably my website bobsutton.net and everybody can google everything now so you can

00:37:26.680 find out all sorts of things about me but bobsutton.net is is where uh is where you can

00:37:32.140 probably find the most efficient one-stop shopping all right well bob sutton thanks for your time it's

00:37:36.040 been a pleasure it has been a pleasure thank you my guest there is bob sutton he's an organizational

00:37:40.860 psychologist professor of management at stanford he's the author of the books the no a-hole rule

00:37:45.200 and the a-hole survival guide they're all available on amazon.com you can find out more information about

00:37:49.080 his work at his website bobsutton.net also check out our show notes at aom.is slash jerks where you can find

00:37:54.360 links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of

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00:38:39.520 they win podcast but put what you've heard into action

The Art of Manliness - July 15, 2020

#627： How to Deal With Jerks, Bullies, Tyrants, and Trolls

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