I am on the Today Show Tommorow at 8:32 AM!

It was a wild morning.  I was scheduled to give a speech at SuccessFactors about The No Asshole Rule because, after all, they are still the only company I know that not only has a "no assholes rule" (although they now say  "no jerks" on their website) and have all new employees agree to 14 rules of engagement before joining company, which include agreeing not to act like an asshole (and, yes, that is the word they still use).

I was already excited enough about giving the speech to all 420 or so people this morning, who were gathered in San Francisco for a company-wide meeting. And I was delighted that my publisher and 1800CEORead had worked together to overcome challenges in the supply chain, and deliver a special advance shipment of The No Asshole Rule -- so that everyone in the company could have their very own copy though it won't be available otherwise for nearly a month. Indeed, I saw the final version  of the book for the very first time this morning.

Max Goldman at the SuccessFactors blog already put-up a nice post about the talk -- thanks Max!

BUT then, yesterday, the folks from The Today Show decided that they wanted to do a little segment about how to deal with jerks -- not just in the workplace but in other aspects of life as well.  Those TV people move very fast, so they had a camera at the hotel where SuccessFactors is meeting, and they videotaped my speech, footage of conversations as I met Lars and signed books, and a good 45 minutes of interview footage with me about "jerks." They also interviewed Lars for the spot and I understand that they got footage yesterday of all 400+ people in the company (shot from the roof of the hotel) shouting "no more assholes" and (the censored version) "no more jerks" -- I hope that gets on the air.

Of course, this being national TV, they will cut 3 or 4 hours down to 3 or 4 minutes, so I am very curious to see which bits make it on the air.  The producer did say that she would list me as the "author of The No A****** Rule."  So that should be good fun.  They shot the cover of the book too ... but I bet that never makes it on the air.  I am delighted to be following in the Heath brothers footsteps -- they were interviewed a few weeks ago on the Today Show about Made it Stick.

In any event, I am curious to see what they do. Again, it is NBC's Today Show at 8:32 Wednesday, January 24th -- tomorrow!

P.S. The people at  SuccessFactors  are fantastic , warm and performance oriented.  And Lars is one of the most  energetic, smart, and downright fun CE0's I've ever met. And Lars tells me that they are fastest growing software company over 30 million dollars, so it looks like their blend of intense concern about both humanity and performance is working.

Comments

[Bob Sutton]

James,

Thanks for the report. I won't see it for an hour. I am sorry they didn't mention the book, but I understand that they did flash the title on the screen. It was a weird experience in that they shot a good two hours of film, perhaps three, if you include the SucccessFactors stuff.

[james Hubbard]

Watching the segment was a real disappointment. I was hoping that they would actually put up the book and get into the nitty gritty. They didn't mention it all. It turned out to be a fluff piece. What else can you expect from the Today Show.