1.
I wrote earlier about the no
asshole rule at Baird, a Midwestern financial services firm that is led by
Paul Purcell, and that is #39 on Fortune Best Places to Work list. A had a lovely telephone conversation with
Mr. Purcell, who is a charming and smart guy. I will use some of the material for a new chapter I am writing for the
paperback version of the book (which won’t be out for at least a year), but
there is one thing Paul said that I found intriguing. I asked him how he defines as an asshole. And
he said something like, it is someone who does three things:
- Persistently puts his or her interests ahead of co-workers
- Persistently puts his or her interests ahead of the company’s interest
- Engages in ethically suspect actions
Paul
noted that people who do the first two things are especially prone to unethical
action, a good point. Now, this isn’t
how I define an asshole, as I think of them as people who leave a trail of
demeaned and de-energized victims in their wake, but definitional issues aside,
I agree completely with what Paul is trying to accomplish. And the key of
course is that Baird isn’t just trying to select “good” people, they work very
hard to create a culture and systems that support such unselfish and ethical
action.
2. I love all the comments on the Japanese
title of the book. I am glad to hear
that people generally think it is an accurate and culturally appropriate
one. As one example, here is a great one
from Christine Yokoi:
I'm
Japanese/American & lived in Japan 20 years & have done lots of
translation (but with a lot of struggle ;-)).
In
Japanese, there are not really swear words ("dirty" words) that are
used in everyday situations. So you often see/hear the word "baka"
being used as a translation for the many colorful variations of swear words we
have in English, in movies & TV.
I'd say this whole title translates quite closely to "the jerk in your
workplace," and comes at least closer than using "baka" which
literally means stupid and can but doesn't always mean jerk. I don't think
there is a Japanese word that means or has the same connotation as
"asshole." (So you need to insult people in other ways if you're
speaking in Japanese ;-) )
There are other interesting considerations that have seemingly gone into this
translation, which involve the selection of the characters used for the words
(it is possible to write the same phrase using different sets of characters,
such as Chinese characters, or different versions of the Japanese phonetic
alphabet) -- which will nuance the impact (visual interpretation by readers) of
the phrase.
For example, the selection of katakana (phonetic Japanese often used to represent foreign words) for the Japanese word 'iya' (translated by others here as 'nasty') tends to emphasize it within the title.
3. There is a new column out on law.com called No Jerks Allowed: How and Why GCs Can Stop Angry, Rude and Demeaning Workplace Behavior, by Michael Maslanka. He talks about The No Asshole Rul and discusses some new research that I find especially interesting:
“Having practiced employment law
for nearly 27 years, I can say with absolute clarity and total conviction that
abrupt e-mails, rude comments and angry directives fail -- always have, always
will. Confirmation of my subjective feelings comes from two business
professors, Christine Porath and Amir Erez, whose revealing study of rudeness
and its toxic effects is illuminating. They subjected two groups of study
participants to varying degrees of rudeness, and they asked a third group to
only imagine they were the object of the rudeness. All groups were then asked
to perform tasks requiring cognitive functions. The result? In all three groups
the ability of the participants to think was severely impaired. Why? They were
unable to use their cognitive processing power to perform the tasks, wasting
their brain wattage on mulling over and ruminating upon the rudeness, or
parsing the comments and figuring out how they should have responded. This
included the bystander group, asked only to empathize. Talk about collateral
damage.”
4. I had a lovely
time as a guest on the local NPR station in Washington D.C. talking about the
civility movement in Maryland. I was
especially impressed with the good humor and wisdom from Valerie Gross, CEO of
the Howard County Library -- one of the leaders of the civility movement in
Howard County. You can listen to the
broadcast at here the
WAMU 88.5 website.
5. I worked with
Guy Kawasaki and Linked-in awhile back to develop a checklist to help determine
if you are about to go to work for an asshole boss. In that spirit, check out this useful article
on How
to Spot Bad Employers. I love this list of red flags:
· Your
interviewer is more than a little late and doesn't feel it necessary to
apologize.
· It's
clear that your interviewer has never looked at your resume or application.
· Your
interviewer is constantly called from the meeting to handle an office crisis.
· Your
interviewer takes phone calls during your meeting, rarely makes eye contact,
and shows little interest in you or what you bring to the table.
· Other
workers enter the screening room with pained expressions.
· Your
potential boss talks only about his/her accomplishments, and discusses the
shortcomings of other staffers.
· The
interviewer never focuses on direct skills, but your potential boss says you'll
receive specific directives once you're on the job.
· Your
interviewer is rude to you and brusque to existing employees. Or, worse, stress
sizzles off of subordinates on the interview committee.
· Your
interviewer insists on asking personal questions that are not job related about
your home or family life, your age, your health or potential disabilities, your
race or national origin, or your court and financial records.
6. Finally, Marty Kihn’s funny and somewhat
scary book A$$hole:
How I Got Rich & Happy By Not Giving a Damn About Anyone And You Can Too
is out. It is an intriguing book
because, one hand, it isn’t just funny to read, it is actually a pretty useful
guide for anyone who wants to become an effective asshole at work. On the other hand, it shows many of the
downsides, and in fact, that is part of the joke. Check out Marty’s blogging on the book, which
is find funny and often rather touching. He has a blog on his Amazon page (I tried to post something but the censorship there killed it… I didn’t
even use the world asshole, but I Ahole seems to forbidden even though I
noticed they were saying that on CNBC the other day.) I especially love this post from yesterday,
as it betrays what a nice guy that Marty is despite the title of the book and
the experiences he describes:
[T]he A$$hole
appears today on Fox News Channel’s “Your World
with Neil Cavuto.” Not content with just one beat-down, my new best friend
Neil also had me on his Fox
Business Channel show two hours later. Sparks flew. Love was made and lost.
In all, a tremendous eruption for the A$$hole! The Neil-ster (new b.f.f.)
betrayed an uncanny grasp of the True when he said: “People who know
you say you don’t believe a word of it.”
7. Finally, the picture to the left came from a post on Australia-based Management Blog. I had not seen it before, but I think it summarizes that feeling I get after I've had a run-in with a certified asshole or a pack of them.
I know this post
is long, but a lot has happened recently! I love the asshole stuff, of course, but I am looking forward to
focusing my posts, and my writing, on other topics in the coming months
including leadership, turning knowledge into action, and innovation.


An interesting summary & overview that helped something gel for me - this is all about respect for the other person. Seeing them as a somebody and not a nobody. You don't treat people badly if you see them as worthy of respect nor do you see them as someone to take advantage of. Respect is not maudlin either but sets and expects high standards of performance, as a matter of respect. Which brings us full circle to who's interests you act in. A respectful and high-performance workplace is one where we recognize and support our common interests in the prosperity of the company.And again that's a two-way street. If workers are selected because they balance their own interests with those of the company and co-workers the counter-point is that the company should balance its' interests with those of the workers.
Virtuous vs vicious circle, which you may recall my arguing is fundamentally related to l.t. performance of the enterprise or organization. And has a quantifiable impact on that performance. :)
Posted by: dblwyo | April 15, 2008 at 06:16 AM
Well Marty's book is here in UK too! The Sunday Times ran a piece on April 6, 2008 with title "No more Mr Nice Guy" and tagline
Marty Kihn was getting nowhere in life, so he changed his tactics. He tells Style why acting an asshole is the only way to make it big
Rest is at
http://tinyurl.com/5fgbsl
Posted by: Lilly Evans | April 10, 2008 at 05:51 PM