Jeff Pfeffer on the Virtues of Assholes

Jeff Pfeffer, my dear friend and co-author, and I always have a lot of fun – and always learn a lot – by arguing about ideas and pressing them as far as we can take them. Our motto is “the more we fight, the better we write.”

Jeff and I have wrestling a bit over “the virtues of assholes.”  Jeff is always worth listening to, but it is especially true in this case because he is the world’s leading researcher on power and politics in organizations. Pfeffer is also the author of the most frequently used MBA text book in class on power and politics, called Managing with Power. He is also a Business 2.0 columnist, and if you check out his columns, you will see that he is really smart and loves slaughtering sacred cows with superior logic and evidence!  (I disagree agree with him at times, but even when I think he is wrong, he always makes me think hard about things).

Here is what Jeff has to say about the virtues of assholes:

‘On reflection, and reflecting on the enormous amount of mail I got on my Business 2.0 column “The Courage to Rise Above”, there is an interesting "issue" which also comes up in my power class. Many people somehow seem to assume that what is good for the organization or collectivity is what is good for the person and vice versa. Therefore, to take the present case in point, if someone behaves like a jerk and is demeaning and nasty to others, this creates a climate of fear and distrust, causes turnover, inhibits cooperation, and has a number of deleterious effects on the organization (or group). There is little doubt about that.

However, whether or not such behavior can be effective in advancing the individual's private, individual, and possibly selfish interests is an entirely different matter. Many of the people we study in Paths to Power were jerks, or worse, including Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara, etc. But they were quite successful using virtually any measure of career success, in part because so many people are conflict averse, that they often get their way as others back down. Which is not to say that I don't completely agree with your values, your trade-offs, and your instincts on this issue. It is just that it is not clear that Leo Durocher was wrong (he is misquoted as saying "nice guys finish last." Apparently the real quote was that nice guys finish seventh).’

Jeff is making a subtle and essential distinction. I agree with him, but would add that if organizations began calculating the TCA (Total Costs of Assholes), the amount of money and time wasted on these people, the great people they drive out organizations, and a host of other costs can be shocking expensive. The No Asshole Rule presents information from a firm about the costs that they calculated for a star salesperson who was also a flaming asshole. When they added-up the costs of hiring one new assistants after another for him, the amount of time the HR managers and executives spent fielding complaints from him and trying to cool-out his numerous victims, the cost of his anger management classes, and a host of other expenses, they realized that his antics were costing the firm over $150,000 a year.

Unfortunately, there are some organizations where such creeps are tolerated, even glorified, where they are rewarded for using their demeaning ways to push others aside to get and keep their job as top dog. And there are industries – fashion and film – where the pro-asshole rather than the no-asshole rule seem to be the norm. But here are many companies where such behavior is simply unacceptable. Examples include P&G, The Men’s Wearhouse, and Southwest Airlines. Civilized companies like these show that it is possible to treat people well and still make money. And, for my tastes, life is too short to be surrounded by assholes, regardless of their other virtues.