Robert Sutton’s 'The No Asshole Rule' and the asshole's entrenched sense of entitlement

Robert  Sutton’s  'The  No Asshole  Rule'. After all, it is an award-winning book for aspirant  business  executives.

"7. The most important reason that I wrote this book is that demeaning people do terrible damage to others and to their companies. And even though there are occasions when being an asshole helps people and companies “win,” my view is that if you are a winner and an asshole, you are still an asshole and I don’t want to be around you!"

"I have written in-depth about "Why I call them assholes," why for me, no other word captures the emotions I feel when I am the victim of a demeaning creep, when I see others being abused by some jerk, or when the word I apply to myself when I have been nasty schmuck. I also understand that the word does offend some people and that they object to my dirty language. I always say (to steal phrase from William Wrigley Jr., of chewing gum fame), that "when two people always agree, one of them is unnecessary," so I respect people who object to my dirty title and I admire them for speaking-up."

I personally find his reasoning for writing his treatise convincing​. Even more so, as he was encouraged by his wife:

"My wife -- an attorney -- always emphasizes that if anything bad is happening to you, and you want your organization, your boss, or your attorney to help you do something about it, vague and emotional complaints won't help very much. And even having one, well-documented example won't help very much either.  What you need is a documented history of the bad stuff that is happening AND it is even better if you can recruit others to document the bad stuff as well, because that way it is far tougher to dismiss you as a "nut case.""

Just consider the costs associated with such human resource:

"Sutton offers a system to calculate the detrimental cost of such people and suggests it can run as high as $750,000 a year for a typical organization with 1,000 people."

"View acting like an asshole as a communicable disease," he wrote. "Once you unleash disdain, anger, and contempt, or someone unleashes it on you, it spreads like wildfire."

"Sutton suggests companies not only adopt a "no jerks rule" in hiring and firing practices but apply it to clients and customers. Train workers in "constructive confrontation" to resolve conflict, treat misbehavior as incompetence and downplay unnecessary status differences among employees.

Or adopt the "one-asshole rule," which leaves a lone reverse role model as a reminder of what constitutes poor behavior, Sutton wrote.

He also suggests employees use indifference and emotional detachment to cope. "The best thing for your mental health is to be emotionally disengaged and learn not to care," he said."

"5. I have uncovered quite a few companies that screen out and don’t tolerate “workplace jerks.” Many of these places – law firm Perkins Coie, the research department at Lehman Brothers under Jack Rivkin, and software firm SuccessFactors – that have (or had) such rules may call them “no jerk rules” for public consumption. But when you talk to them, they talk about screening out assholes, not jerks. For example, Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Boris Groysberg wrote me that they called it the no asshole rule at Lehman, but he had to write it as the no jerk rule in his teaching cases. My favorite company these days is SuccessFactors, which has all new employees sign 14 rules of engagement. The last is agreeing not to be an asshole! SuccessFactors is pretty successful: It has grown from 100 to 400 employees over the past year."

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Aaron James book 'Assholes: A  Theory'

Although the title of the book may sound off-putting to some souls, Mr James is no intellectual slouch. "He has a doctorate from Harvard and teaches philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, and his first book had the desert-dry title of Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy."

"The book is not just a quick-hit reference on everything asshole-related, but rather a more philosophical, existential approach to the subject. James tells us about the different types of assholes, a “taxonomy of the different species of asshole,” if you will, and he offers suggestions of professions that attract assholes (two good examples: conservative cable-news pundit and investment banker)."

According to a book review by Howard A. Doughty in
The Innovation Journal:  The  Public Sector Innovation Journal, 18(2), 2013, article 10

"Assholes, as he describes  them, are not significantly evil. They are merely annoying examples  of thoughtlessness, indifference  to others’ sensitivities  and blindness  to social contexts. They are  borderline sociopaths  whose  actions do not quite rise (or, rather, descend) to the degree of pathology necessary to merit inclusion in the always expanding list of official mental diseases  and disorders certified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric  Association. They are narcissists without  ambition, bullies  without vision, aspirant despots  without  the wit or the will to stage an actual coup d’état."

The reviewer continues and elaborates succinctly:

"seldom commit actual homicides or pull off multibillion dollar frauds. James succinctly defines  assholes as people who “systematically  [allow  themselves] to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement  that  [immunizes  them] against  the complaints  of  other people.” They are people who take thirty items  through supermarket  express check-out lines designated for those carrying ten items or less and are sincerely unable  to grasp why others in the queue look askance at them, but are too polite to forcefully object. James  says that  assholes normally act within the law and do not exact a great material toll on society. They are not quite sociopaths. They are, however, habitual and incurable. They are what they are and generally irredeemable."

"Incidentally, one of the peculiarities of the novelist Kurt Vonnegut was that, in later life, he substituted a naïve drawing of a sphincter for his signature."

Eric Schwitzgebel rightly points out the emotional injuries of such contemporaries:

"Two of James's insights about the asshole particularly strike me. First, why is the asshole so infuriating, even when the harm he does is slight? James's answer is that the asshole's entrenched sense of entitlement -- the asshole's refusal to treat others as equals -- adds particular sting to the injuries he forces upon us."

Coda

While Kirkus Reviews cautions that "the author’s enthusiasm for the subject makes it possible to get through the book quickly, but it may lack staying power", I would venture to think with Popperian certainty this subject covers all the basic human instincts and therefore will stay a source that keeps on giving.