A survival guide you really need

Soon after writing The No Asshole Rule in 2007, Robert Sutton received an email from a Silicon Valley CEO.

“With so many start-ups and so many venture capitalists who lack operational experience sitting on boards,” the message read, “I was wondering if you have done any work or thinking about boardholes (individual bad board members) or entirely dysfunctional boards, which one might call ‘doucheboards.’ ”

“Someone asks me a version of this question pretty much every day,” Sutton writes in his new book, The Asshole Survival Guide, citing Costco cashiers, flight attendants, U.S. marines, nurses, surgeons, lawyers, a Jewish cantor, his barber and his mother.

Where the 2007 book, which sold some 800,000 copies worldwide, made the case for more civilized workplaces, the new survival guide offers tips and tactics for dealing with the rude, obnoxious and Machiavellian who walk among us, specifically, although Sutton doesn’t limit himself to workplace jerks.

A Stanford University professor and organizational psychologist, Sutton knows he has to be cautious about diagnosing from a distance.

However, in addition to what he called the obvious unfortunate state of U.S. politics, he cited some examples:

Uber founder Travis Kalanick, ousted for his management style amid allegations of a sexist workplace culture and trade secrets theft, as well as a dash cam video of him arguing with his own Uber driver when he complained of falling fares.

The Kentucky doctor David Dao forcibly hauled off an overbooked United Airlines jet in April by his arms and legs.

Former American Apparel CEO and Canadian business executive Dov Charney, who faced a raft of allegations of sexual misconduct with employees, all of which were dismissed or settled privately, according to Bloomberg News.

Sutton also talks about British prime minister Winston Churchill during the Second World War, prompting his wife Clementine to write him on June 27, 1940: “One of the men in your entourage (a devoted friend) has been to me & told me that there is a danger of your being generally disliked by your colleagues and subordinates because of your rough, sarcastic & overbearing manner. My Darling Winston — I must confess that I have noticed a deterioration in your manner; & you are not so kind as you used to be.”

Sutton’s goal with the new book was to assemble the best evidence and advice he could offer to help people endure, escape or fight “bullies, backstabbers and arses” and their “vile words and deeds.”

When asked what turns humans into such animals, Sutton said the classic influences include being tired or in a rush, being crowded and power imbalances.

A study last year on air rage co-authored by Katy DeCelles of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management found that people are more likely to lose it when the plane has a first class cabin. Merely having to walk past first class to get to our economy seats seems to magnify the experience of inequality, Sutton said. “That for me is almost a parable for society.”

As well, the web and social media are killing eye contact and, along with it, civility. Less eye contact makes us more likely to be nasty and insensitive. “With the rise of the web, that’s everywhere,” he said. “I kind of feel like the forces are pushing against each other.”

Still, the phenomenon is part of the human condition and even Sutton acknowledged that others have argued it can lead to professional success, especially in pure “I win, you lose” situations, where there’s no need to worry about having to cooperate with anyone.

However, he says a litany of studies show demeaning and disrespectful peers, “bossholes” especially, undermine productivity, performance, creativity and mental and physical wellbeing.

And the nastiness, Sutton says, is remarkably contagious. In his book, he cites one 2012 study that found “abusive senior leaders were prone to selecting or breeding abusive team leaders, who in turn, ignited destructive conflict in their teams, which stifled team members’ creativity.”

Sutton’s book includes chapters on “How bad is the problem?”(For example, is the problem systemic, or down to a single, petty renegade?)

Sometimes the answer is simply, head for the exit.

“I believe in quitting,” Sutton writes, citing the case of several employees at an Iowa-based QC Mart Chain, where the owner offered a $10 prize to the worker who could predict who among them would be fired next.

As one store clerk told the Des Moines Register, “We looked at that, then looked at each other, and said, ‘OK, we’re done.’ ”

For people who can’t, or won’t bail out, Sutton offers mind tricks and dodging and ducking strategies.

For example, when he asked the University of Toronto’s DeCelles, author of the air rage study, for her best advice for surviving jerks, she responded: “Don’t engage with crazy.”

In recent years, studies of the co-relation between distance and toxic workers, inspired by the work of MIT professor Tom Allen in the 1970s, has shown people are four times more likely to communicate regularly with someone who sits two metres away versus one who sits 20 metres away. So, Sutton recommends people “ride the Allen curve.”

If you can move the offending person “to another building, or even just 20 or 30 more feet away, you can reduce your distress and risk of infection,” he says. “If you can’t ship out your colleague, try to move yourself.”

This “defence by distance” ploy applies to social situations as well, Sutton says.

He describes his own encounters, including the colleague who was so narcissistic and self-absorbed that Sutton would feel nausea whenever she was around.

Detach or tune out during the worst of annoying behaviour or try to rise above it, Sutton says, echoing the CEO at San Francisco-headquartered Philz Coffee, who insists baristas be nice, even to nasty customers.