Posted on 03/16/2007 5:59:48 AM PDT by radar101
Quit, check out, or dig out Ex-Lax
If you've worked for long, you've probably had a boss or co-worker who was a complete, flaming jerk.
Maybe she always scowled as if she smelled something bad while reviewing your work. Maybe he never missed a chance to berate you in front of others.
Or he interrupted constantly when you were talking. Or sneaked up behind you at your desk. Or helped herself to your food.
Robert I. Sutton, a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford Engineering School, has heard it all while working on his recently released best seller, "The No A------ Rule."
The book grew from a piece he wrote for The Harvard Business Review in 2004 under the headline, "More Trouble than They're Worth." The piece, he said, inspired an outpouring of jerk-boss e-mails from around the world. His correspondents included the manager of a roofing company, the CEO of a money-management firm and a researcher for the Supreme Court.
Since the book came out, he said, he gets at least 15 e-mails a day from people with horrible bosses.
"I feel like Dr. Phil," the talk-show therapist, he said.
He argues that companies should screen for jerks as they hire and purge the bullies already in their ranks because, in almost all cases, they cost more than they contribute.
One of his other solutions may deflate anyone who works for a jerk: Leave the job.
If that's not possible, he suggests checking out emotionally. "Passion is an overrated virtue in organizational life, and indifference is an underrated virtue."
The Associated Press interviewed Sutton, who describes workplace monsters with a mild expletive, which has been changed here to "jerk." Excerpts:
Q: First, let's define who we're talking about. You define work jerks as people who pick on those beneath them and leave others feeling belittled and sapped of energy. What are some other signs?
A: To me, the main sign of someone who's a certified jerk is someone who leaves a trail of people feeling demeaned and de-energized. It tends to be more often associated with power dynamics - they kiss up to those above them and kick down those beneath them. About a third of the time, bullying is peer on peer.
Q: Since workplace jerks tend to pick on people below them, how can the victims, who usually don't have much power, fix the problem?
A: In normal organizational life, for people who have less power, the best thing is to get out. If you can't do that, try to avoid contact with the person as much as possible. You can also learn not to care.
The other thing is to find little ways to get control and fight back. One woman whose boss was always stealing her food reshaped Ex-Lax to look like candy, then her boss stole it.
My favorite story comes from a former CEO who told me about her worst board member. When he'd call and scream, she'd lean back in her chair, put her feet on the desk, put him on speakerphone, turn off the volume and do her nails. She would check in from time to time to see if he was still screaming. When he was done, she would reason with him. She put herself in a relaxed position and did something she could control - her nails.
Q: You describe ways to screen for jerks, such as Southwest Airlines Co.'s refusal to hire a pilot who was rude to a company secretary, and Virgin Group Ltd. founder Richard Branson's ruse on his reality show, in which he picked up contestants while disguised as an arthritic old driver and ejected the two who treated him poorly. How else can an organization separate the monsters from the rest?
A: In fields where there are relatively small and tight networks, people get reputations that are deserved. In my field of academia, we know each other. There are excellent scholars who are not considered because no one wants to work with them.
Q: Is there such a thing as a sick organization? Can a workplace grow jerks?
A: Some organizations are sicker than others. Exhibit One is Hollywood. I have a cousin who works in the industry. I asked her to name the nice people in Hollywood and there was this long pause, and she eventually named Steven Spielberg and Danny DeVito.
Maybe the worst occupation is doctors. Based on studies, as far as a high rate of abuse, nurses really have a brutal time. Ninety percent of nurses report six to 12 incidents of verbal and emotional abuse per year.
Q: You suggest companies perform an audit, quantifying in dollar figures how much a jerk's poor behavior costs. Then you give an example of a company that did, and figured one salesman's bad behavior had cost it $160,000 a year. Instead of firing him, the company took about $100,000 out of his bonus. Can you tell us about a company that purged its jerks instead?
A: I can't name the company, but it was a Fortune 500 retailer. As part of a turnaround, the new CEO came up with a mafia-style hit-list of 25 of the biggest jerks. He wanted to get rid of them all at once, but human resources said, "Let's get rid of them through the performance evaluation process."
The company did and my informant said you could see, even at the store level, less nastiness.
Q: One of your solutions to workplace jerks seems to be to stop hiring them. Other solutions include (one similar to) giving referees at youth soccer matches the power to "red card" abusive parents and eject them from the game, and shaming jerks when they behave poorly. What do you consider your top solution to the problem of jerky behavior?
A: First thing: I believe that some polite self-awareness helps. There's a test you can take; we put this on Guy Kawasaki's blog, http://electricpulp.com/guykawasaki/arse/.
Second, there should be consequences. People should know it's not efficient and it's going to cost them. My wife is a lawyer. She said with the more aggressive attorneys at her firm, in compensation discussions with them, the partners tell them they should cool it a little bit or it will cost them.
I always felt that office jerks were most often motivated by fear. Find out what's eating them and work to set up situations that reinforce and validate that fear. Cracks 'em up every time.
I didn't have the smarts at the time on an exit interview to HR to tell them how dysfunctional the dept I was in for 2 months was and what a maniacal tyrant the boss was.
The guy who left the company right behind me from that dept. was much smarter. VP level meeting, and as he told me, not with those lackies in HR.
Funny thing, 2 months after this gents Exit interview with the response from the VP of: "Oh I had no idea how messed up things were," The Tyrant decided to retire early without a package at 52 years of age.....
Even funnier, a year or two later a head hunter calls me to fill my old position as a contractor, he hee....
He had finally had enough of the micro-management and gave notice of about a month so as to give time to train a replacement, transition out effectively, etc.
So one day he comes back from lunch perhaps about 15 minutes "late" ( I put this in quotes because this was a salaried envioronment where folks routinely put in 9-10 hours even in non crucial times.) She was screaming at him right in his face demanding to know where he was.
He leaned right into her almost forehead to forehead and said "Get the &%@* out of my face!!", which caused her to go even more ballistic yelling for security to come get him. He got his stuff and just walked calmly out the door before anyone had to escort him.
I hear she's not a manager anymore. Evidently got a promotion to secretary.
Has anyone seen Rocky Balboa? Rocky's son's boss is just about every boss I've ever had (except for recently. I finally landed a great one). Typical megalomaniac with something to prove.
Ah yes the 785, running CAD terminals, I remember it well....
Good Machine, darn near bulletproof, shame it was a good company, I'd like to know were the poster before you was, what plant.
I can top that. When I worked for a major Govvies broker back in the early 90s, one boss threatened to fire one of my fellow IT-geeks for taking a day off to be with his wife while she gave birth to their first child. He called that AM to say he wouldn't be in, and the "boss" said something like, "Get your a$$ in here or don't come in tomorrow." The manager never followed through with the threat.
Six months after I left my old manager got hold of one of my friends that still worked there and wanted to know if he thought I would be willing to come back.
My friend laughed in his face and told him, "Not as long as you're still working here."
"..years ago when I had this problem with a boss who liked to help himself to my secret Twinkie stash, and he would never admit to it,I simply "injected" a few marked single packaged bombs with Tabasco hot sauce. He couldn't say anything about it...and he stopped"
Before my fiancee went back to school her boss and the company owner would eat all her and the other engineers food. One day for example they brought in donuts and her boss stole the whole box and brought it into the conference room for a meeting! pretty lame. buy your own donuts.
She bought a bag of sugar free chocolates and left them in a dish in the kitchen. Her boss and the owner ate them all inside a couple hours. Sugar free chocolates have a little warning on them because of the maltitol content... the boss and owner spend the rest of the day fighting for the mens room. ;)
So were you at DEC?
I don't suppose you ever had to reinforce the lesson? Y'know, pop your head in his office, give a big ole conspiratorial wink and a thumbs-up, and say The clots are getting smaller or something like that... ;o)
Oh, come to think of it, this was after the bright guy had left and he was scrambling for good talent and before he was given some options for the future.....
I have had several real bad bully bosses, all of them women. One at a AT&T was sent to behavioral modification classes prior to them firing the Witch, or with a B. I worked for that nut job for 3 years. Almost gave me ulcers facing her everyday. I now work for my wife, enough said.
Sounds like you are one of the folks that the other folks here are talking about.
I'm glad I don't work with you.
Political correctness, multiculturalism and moral relativity are the culprits.
BUMP
You might want to check your source. You are on the way to a law suit.
The jerks are among us dailey. As the most experienced worker in my department (27 years), my jerky supervisor told me that I was the most arrogant SOB he had ever met. My responce was this, "Well, that means that I do more than you about my job." His red face told me that I was correct.
Now THAT is funny!
I worked at another service company for a while. The boss gave his buddy my job. I was thrown-out the door clutching a cardboard box with my stuff. The next day in the industry annual survey I was named the best service manager in my industry. One year later, under the boss' buddy, the company had dropped-off the bottom of the survey because of the new service manager. The company is now 1/4 its earlier size and is now a division of another corporation.
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