The No Asshole Rule

"I love this book, because while work is about trying to make a context in which everybody can thrive, and continuously building up trust, you also have to dismantle distrust. You have to do the two things at the same time, in my view. You walk into any school and if they say, ‘We don’t have any bullies,’ my thought is you’re just not looking hard enough. There’s always going to be distrust, there’s always going to be jerks. And there’s always going to be bullies around at work. So how are you going to deal with them? You have to build happiness and dismantle unhappiness at the same time. The book is written by a Stanford professor, but what I like about it is that he really puts it out there, and hits you on the chin, by calling it The No Asshole rule. And he also lays himself open and gives lots of personal examples, which show how he can be one and the rest of us all have the capacity to be one. He refers to keeping your ‘inner asshole in check’. The book is a very quick read – you can read it in a couple of hours – and it really made me laugh. Absolutely. For example, I’m not sure that I agree with him that emotional detachment is the best way to survive at work. But I totally agree when he says that passion is an overrated virtue in the workplace. You get some bloke telling you, ‘I’m passionate about female sanitary protection.’ What are you telling me? ‘I’m passionate about data analysis.’ If that’s all you’ve got to be passionate about, please do get a life. So I do agree with this, because it also allows people to go too far. I’m passionate about this, means I can be rude to you, because I’m passionate. He also gives the two sides and argues that sometimes you do need to release your inner jerk, your inner asshole. You wind up shouting at someone. It’s not a clever way of being, because it winds you up and there’s an emotional cost to that. But I think, sadly, there’s quite a lot of that about, especially post-recession. People feel traumatised. I had it today, actually. I was in a restaurant and ordered some takeaway food. I wanted to sit down, but the server told me, ‘No you can’t, it’s not company policy.’ I said, ‘Hang on, there’s one person in here, other than me – it’s 2.30 in the afternoon. What is the problem? I am offering to pay the difference! And I’ll be out of here in ten minutes.’ It’s just insane. I think when someone says ‘it’s not company policy’ that might be a time to release your inner jerk."