I was delighted to see that Jack and Suzy Welch's new column in BusinessWeek, "Send the Jerks Packing," is singing my tune. In response to a reader's question about what do about bad apples, they advise that such jerks "must go -- publicly." And they go on to say:
Look, nothing hurts a
company more than when the bosses ignore, indulge, or otherwise
tolerate a jerk--or two or three--in the house. Such latitude
undermines organizational trust and morale, and without those, the
competitive linchpins of collaboration and speed are just plain harder.
Not to mention the fact that jerks take the fun out of work.
Jack and Suzy take a bit different approach that I do, but I am glad to see that they are adding their support to the no asshole rule, albeit in more polite language
P.S. I worked with Suzy on a couple of articles when she was an editor, and then THE editor of the Harvard Business Review. She was creative, an amazingly fast writer, and fun to work with. And she came up with one my favorite titles, "The Smart Talk Trap," for an article that Jeff Pfeffer and I published in 1999.
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