An article by McKinsey-if-you-can’t-put-a-metric-or-wrap-a-process-around-it
-it’s-not-worth-paying-attention-to about Building a civilised workplace (registration needed)
…there is a business case against tolerating nasty and demeaning people.
Companies that put up with jerks not only can have more difficulty
recruiting and retaining the best and brightest talent but are also
prone to higher client churn, damaged reputations, and diminished
investor confidence. Innovation and creativity may suffer, and
cooperation could be impaired, both within and outside the
organization—no small matter in an increasingly networked world.The most important single principle for building a workplace free of
jerks, or to avoid acting like one yourself, is to view being a jerk as
a kind of contagious disease. Once disdain, anger, and contempt are
ignited, they spread like wildfire.
Or as Bob Sutton says:
[W]hen you work with assholes, you don’t change them for the better, they change you into an asshole.
Apparently, the problem is more widespread than you might think. No shit Sherlock, in a set-up where power comes down from the top, jerks are inevitable. It’s like being surprised that the Inquisition had people who were sadists. This is not a cheap dig at the Inquisition – whose history I believe is full of controversy due of its evil ways and a lack of understanding of its context – but a statement that systems with centralised or unchecked power attract people who wield it enthusiastically and ruthlessly. Using that power, in exchange for perpetuating the system, they shape others to its rules. Nasty things become possible in the name of the institution/system/organisation… It’s one of the mechanisms behind corruption by power.
There is good news and bad news about workplace jerks. The bad news is
that abuse is widespread and the human and financial toll is high. The
good news is that leaders can take steps to build workplaces where
demeaning behavior isn’t tolerated and nasty people are shown the door.
The No Assholes Rule would be a good start. Giving employees more autonomy even better.
Chris Sims - Technical Management Institute
on Apr 6th, 2007
@ 17:40 pm:
While walking this morning, I listened to the HBR Ideacast #35, What it Means to Work Here. In it they mention a hiring practice used by Whole Foods, that I really like. New hires are on probation for the first 4 weeks. At the end of that time, their coworkers vote to keep them or let them go.
This should weed out some of the jerks!
Norman
on Apr 17th, 2007
@ 15:10 pm:
Greed aversion and delusion are the expression of the three oldest and deepest drives in human being (in this case, from a Buddhist perspective of 2,500 years). The last two play heavily in the life of the bully – or the asshole in modern terms.
Rather than performing an exclusion, might it not be better to perform a relationship, one that had value elements for all? These are deep human characteristics, and to perform rejections on a significant percentage of human beings simply because they manifest problems with their own or others negative behaviour doesnt serve the human race very well. Better we learn to live together than that we learn to exclude each other…
MFG
on Aug 23rd, 2007
@ 13:08 pm:
Having had to work with a few of these types over the years, weeding them out is much preferable to any other method of dealing with them.