How to deal with assholes
I should add Bob Sutton’s book, The No Asshole Rule, to my wish list (which I haven’t even got around to creating…duh!), along with Blink!, The Long Tail and From Good to Great. Unfortunately, I still have to do proper budgeting since I’ll most likely move to a new apartment within the next couple of months, or take a few days off and away from everything, or (most preferably) both.
Here’s a list that Guy Kawasaki shared about the book:
How to Deal With Assholes
Let’s say that you’re not an asshole, but you have to cope with assholes. What can you do? That’s the second $64,000 question that Sutton answers.
1. Hope for the best, but expect the worst. One of the most frustrating aspects of dealing with assholes is that they disappoint you–making you wonder the very value of humans. Lowering your expectations can help reduce disappointment. Don’t solely lower your expectations, though, or you will slip into cynicism (and possibly turn into an asshole too.) Continue to hope for the best.
2. Develop indifference and emotional detachment. Sutton may be the only author who has the insight and courage to recommend that being indifferent and detached may be a good thing in work environments. If it permits you to survive, then it is. In other words, don’t let the jerks get to you.
3. Look for small wins. Small victories can keep you going. Most assholes pride themselves in total control and absolute domination. Any victory, no matter how small, can keep you going. Rest assured that small victories can lead to winning the war.
4. Limit your exposure. You can do what you can to avoid meetings and interactions with assholes. This involves finding or building pockets of “safety, support, and sanity,” to use Sutton’s words. He cites an example of a nurse’s lounge as a refuge from an asshole doctor.
5. Expose them. In Sutton’s blog he mentions Marge’s Asshole Management Metric. This refers to four-point system from 0 to 3. Marge, the boss, would point to people who were behaving like assholes and hold up one, two, or three fingers according to this code:
* 1 = You are a normal person who can occasionally assert yourself on an issue you are passionate about, but you handle yourself in a non-confrontational way in nearly all occasions.
* 2 = You can consistently assert yourself in a non-confrontational way and are occasionally an asshole, but you feel horrible about it afterwards, and you may or may not apologize (but you probably will have to confess your remorse to someone).
* 3 = You can consistently be an asshole and you either do not recognize this or you simply enjoy it.By the way, 0 in her system means this:
You are a very nice person, and very passive. No one can say a word against you and would never think to call you an asshole. If you are safe in your position, then calling assholes out is a good way to deal with them.
6. De-escalate and re-educate. This strategy requires that the asshole you’re dealing with isn’t a “chronic,” “certified,” and “flagrant” asshole. It means meeting asshole behavior with calmness (instead of either similar behavior or fear) and trying to re-educate the person about how he’s behaving.
7. Stand up to them. Funny thing about assholes: Standing up to them shouldn’t necessarily scare you. While I was an Apple employee, I was in a meeting with a highly placed Apple exec and Apple’s ad agency. The ad agency person showed the new television spots and said he’d give a copy to the Apple exec and me. The Apple exec told the agency person not to give one to me. I spoke up: “Are you saying you don’t trust me?” The Apple exec answered: “Yes.” To which I replied, “That’s okay because I don’t trust you either.” You know what? The sun rose the next day, and my family still loved me.
On hindsight, I do wish that I never have to use the tips this book imparts. It just that the book probably makes for a good laugh-out-loud reading material.
UPDATE:
I have created my Amazon wish list.
