Time Magazine Story

The new Time Magazine has a story and sort of a review of The No Asshole Rule called No Jerks Allowed.  Author Lisa Cullen writes for Time about workplace issues (that is her picture below). Lisa has a fun angle and writes with pizazz. She does, however, seem to celebrate assholes more than I do, asking: "Imagine American Idol without Simon, House without House, Family Guy without Stewie. Colleagues of Steve Jobs bear the scars, but wouldn't you prefer him on your team than theirs?" I see the upside of assholes, as seen in my Changethis essay and chapter on "the virtues of assholes."

Unlike Lisa, however, I think that most assholes aren't worth the trouble, as even if being an asshole helps people win at times, 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 would also add that the belief that acting like an asshole helps you win is a suspect assumption.  It is at least in large part a cultural myth, and while it may lead to short-term wins at times, the upshot (to steal an old line from Groucho Marx) is that "time  wounds all heels" (or at least most of them).

I was also amused to see that at least two of Lisa's effective assholes are fictional characters (I say at least two because I sometimes think that American Idol's Simon Cowell is putting on an act to drive up ratings, albeit a convincing one). And as I also like to emphasize, organizations that enforce the no asshole rule the right way aren't a breeding ground for wimps.  On the contrary, many are extremely performance oriented and celebrate constructive conflict (rather than demeaning, nasty, and personally insulting conflict).

In any event, it is a fun story, and I don't want to paint Lisa as exactly an advocate of assholes, because as she admits, "beastly bosses have shaved months off my life."

P.S. Note that Lisa Cullen has a post up called "In Defense of Office Assholes."
Again, she makes some good arguments, but I am concerned that she is creating an excuse for people to act like assholes or to tolerate them too much.

Comments

[Rachel Stockman]

No real comment as I have not read the book yet. I intend to though.

Just a typo on the home page of the site....

....., and that if you looked closely at the teachings of Christ, the main points of the book were was quite consistent...

Delete the word WAS in the sentence above.

Looking forward to a good read.

Regards,

Rachel Stockman

[DonaldHTaylor]

Simon Cowell and Hugh Laurie are both Brits. Should we be concerned? Or should we continue to export them to the US?

(Mind you, you export a fair few over here.)