Winning Assholes: “Making Money Gives a Pass to Even the Worst Manners”

One of my motivations for writing The No Asshole Rule was that I am disgusted with the norm in business and sports that, as one of my friends put it, “if you are a really big winner, you can get away with – even be celebrated – for being a demeaning creep.” One of my little dreams is that all leaders and their organizations will eventually treat acting like an asshole as a sign of bad performance rather than an excuse for good performance. If you want to see a detailed and eloquent argument along these lines, check out Pamela Slim’s post Bob Knight: The Perfect Mascot for the No Asshole Rule.

Bob Knight still has his job and is still bragging that “I did it my way” and Steve Jobs (who I confess is brilliant) is so widely revered now that – short of a jail sentence – I don’t thank that the backdating scandal will get him fired no matter how bad it turns it to be. There are, however, a few bright spots in recent years, where  bosses with a reputation for being nasty were apparently shown the door, at least in part, because of their nasty ways: Carly Fiornia at HP, Bob Nardelli at Home Depot, and Michael Eisner at Disney.  But it seems we still have a long way to go. A recent article in Vanity Fair called The Trouble With Judith made me realize, as the headline here shows, that if a person brings in a lot of money, the rules of civility that most of us must follow still don’t apply to them (Assuming that the reports in this article are accurate). It is about Judith Regan, the famous book publisher whose books sold millions of copies – with authors ranging from Rush Limbaugh to Howard Stern. She did eventually get fired late last year, but got away with apparently vile behavior for many years.

The article suggests that her downfall at Murdoch happened when she pushed to publish O.J. Simpson’s never published semi-confessional book “If I Did It,” with apparently the final straw being some anti-Semitic comments that she allegedly made. You can see her in the attached picture, in an interview with O.J. about the book that was never aired.

This article is written by a former friend Michael Wolff, an author who had known Judith since college. Perhaps Wolff has an ax to grind, but if his reports are accurate, this is a rather frightening illustration of how much abuse successful people are permitted to heap on others. Wolff starts out:

Somehow Judith Regan—the most famous book publisher of her generation, and the would-be Nancy Drew ready to finally close the O. J. Simpson case—has always gotten away with her obscene, grotesque, often funny, Jewish-obsessed, not just politically incorrect but reprehensible, probably slanderous, not necessarily truthful monologues (definitely monologues—she doesn't really engage in conventional conversation). Neither corporate America  nor upwardly mobile society objected, or, even, seemed to blanch. Her diatribes were part of her charm—or at least part of the forcefulness of her nature (if you didn't find her charming, you certainly found her forceful).

A few paragraphs later, he adds:

Anybody who's ever come in contact with her has been exposed to the bilious, vitriolic, manic, gynecological, anti-everybody-and-every-propriety conversation—if not awed by it.

But what really struck me was this line:

She's got an 800-pound chip on her shoulder. And the chip is part of how she's made money—she's tapped into a vein of American resentment and victimhood, plus she's been able to bully her way into the market—and making money gives a pass to even the worst manners.

The No Asshole Rule has plenty of examples of people who have succeeded without bullying others. And I show ways to build teams and companies where demeaning people aren’t hired in the first place, and if they do get in the door, either change their behavior quickly, or are expelled. BUT it seems there are too many places where (apparently… perhaps the press reports are wrong about her behavior) leaders like Judith Regan get away with – and even seem to be rewarded and applauded – for spewing out their venom, because they are WINNERS.

My view is that letting people like this do their dirty work not only leaves them free to damage a host of victims, it demeans all of us as our silence lends support to a system that allows asshole poisoning to flourish and spread. That is a nice sentiment, of course, but it means nothing unless it is backed by effective action. So, here is my question:

HOW DO WE CHANGE THINGS SO THAT ASSHOLES ARE TREATED AS FAILURES EVEN WHEN THEY BRING IN BIG BUCKS?

This isn’t an easy question, but it is one worth fretting over and trying to solve.

Comments

[DW]

Good luck trying to get companies to get rid of "peak performers" or "movers and shakers." (AKA A%^holes)

I worked in trading for several years and the more money the trader brought in, the bigger the a#$hole s/he was...and it was more than tolerated. The behavior was something the others aspired to. Very sad but true, there was a positive correlation with how much of an a^&hole you were and how much money you made.

[Wally Bock]

Part of the problem is this corollary to the Measurement Rule: "That which can be measured gets paid attention to." We can measure bucks. We have no readily available measures for people who leave, taking their talent with them, or for productivity lost to distress.

Another piece of the puzzle is the economic doctrine that the "purpose of business is to make money." If you see that as the purpose, rather than a necessity of life, then you sacrifice things to it.

I tell managers in my training that they have two jobs: to accomplish the mission and to care for their people. I learned that in the Marines, but many corporations I've been in and dealt with in the last 40 years only see "accomplish the mission." That's the kind of environment where assholes breed.

[Frank Roche]

Bob, I think companies need a No Asshole Policy, like they have Ethics Policies (and not like having vision, mission, and values statements, which are platitudes). It'd be cool if companies used a statement like this: We won't employ assholes. And we'll fire people who defend them, too, if they say, "Yes, he's an asshole, but he sells a lot." Assholes, Asshole Enablers, and Asshole Co-Dependents gotta go.

I wrote about a former colleague who fits the Judith Regan bill when I wrote about The No Asshole Book yesterday (glad to have gotten the copy early...great read!)

Article here: http://www.knowhr.com/blog/2007/02/18/the-no-asshole-rule-and-hr/