I was recently reminded about the damage that nasty clients can do by a distraught manager at a professional services firm. He wrote: "These jerky people (whom I encounter ad nauseam at the highest levels in all Fortune 50 companies) sap the life out of our employees and make creating...

Read Part 1 here

In my last post, I talked about seven different kinds of reactions that I've had from the media and elsewhere to the obscenity (at least in the minds of some people) in my book title The No Asshole Rule. This post presents another six of...

When I published The No Asshole Rule, I expected strong reactions to the dirty title. But I didn't expect them to be so time-consuming and baffling. I've had at least 200 conversations in the past year with (often nervous) journalists, booksellers, and hosts at speeches about "what to call your...

A few weeks back, I described the ARSE Test here, a 24-item "self-rating" survey taken from The No Asshole Rule . The ARSE has been completed by more than 100,000 people since we launched it on Guy Kawasaki's blog in February. There...

A reporter asked me last week: "The No Asshole Rule is fun to talk about, but does anyone ever actually use it?" I thought it was a great question. It inspired me to do a round-up of places where the rule has been applied. After all, it is too...

I have argued for years that learning when not to care, what not to care about, and how to not care is just as important to career success and personal well-being as being passionate. I especially think that it is an essential skill for people who are trapped in...

The No Asshole Rule reviews research on bullying and psychological abuse in the workplace and how it damages both people and organizational effectiveness. I show how the damage ranges from physical and psychological harm, to reduced commitment and effort, to less effort and productivity -- and how asshole poisoning...

I recently wrote a post here that asked, "Are You a Certified Asshole?" I explained that we had posted the Asshole Rating Self Exam, or ARSE Test on Guy Kawasaki's blog a few months back. This is a 24-item self-test to help determine if you are a certified...

My primary faculty appointment at Stanford University is in the Engineering School, in the Department of Management Science and Engineering. I teach management classes, but the required classes that I teach are to engineers, not MBAs. I do teach some classes that have Stanford MBAs in them, especially in the...

The No Asshole Rule defines certified assholes as people who leave a trail of demeaned and de-energized victims in their wake. I also talk about temporary assholes, arguing that under the wrong conditions just about anyone can turn nasty for a time. But if you are worried that you...

As I wrote in my last post, I have written other management books, but nothing quite prepared me to the range of reaction to my new book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't. My personal blog www.bobsutton.net contains many of the...

I have written other management books, but nothing quite prepared me to the range of reaction to my new book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't. This New York Times and BusinessWeek bestseller describes the damage done by demeaning bosses and co-workers...