Robert I. Sutton's Blog, page 26

Frequent readers of this blog know that one of the most successful tools, or if you prefer, PR gimmicks, we did for The No Asshole Rule was an online quiz called the ARSE, the Asshole Rating Self-Exam.  This is a 24 item quiz to determine if you are a certified asshole.  Approximately 250,000 people have completed it so far, and I still have people come up to (or email me) and say things like "I scored a 2, I am very good" or "I got a 9, I am borderline, watch out."  The items on ARSE

My post on the power of bosses who take a moment to offer a simple "thanks" to people got me thinking about the more general question of little signs that your boss cares for you.  Certainly, as my recent HBR article shows, when a boss "has your back" that is sign that he or she cares about you.  But when I made my top 10 list, I had the distinct feeling that I was leaving out a lot of important stuff.  So I guess this is a form of open source PR.  To get the conversation started, here are...

Over at HBR online today, one of the articles they are featuring is my piece on The Boss as Human Shield.  One point the article makes, and that I emphasize in Good Boss, Bad Boss , is that your job as a boss isn't just to protect employees from other idiots -- it is also to protect them your own idiocy.  At or near the top of the list are bad meetings, too many meetings, and meetings that run too long.  The picture above of a boring meeting made me laugh and and made me think.  If the...

The approach that I take to giving advice in Good Boss, Bad Boss and in everything else I write is to try to be as evidence-based as possible.  But I also realize that the academic literature does not always map neatly onto the demands and needs of bosses and others in organizations.  So I also offer logical or theory-based advice that seems like it is likely to be supported by research -- even if that research has not yet been done or I don't know about it.  Although most assertions in Good...

Jim Stroup's Managing Leadership took me by surprise.  I got in the mail last week and was intending to glance at it for a few minutes, but I am now hooked.  I also felt compelled to write an Amazon review because this is a book that needs more attention.  Too many leadership books are either unrealistic, full of nonsense, or
downright boring or useless. Jim Stroup has somehow managed to
transcend these hazards to provide us with one of rare compelling,
inspiring, and relentlessly useful b...

As I wrote yesterday, I just had an HBR article on "The Boss as Human Shield" appear, which presents some of the main points from Chapter 6 of Good Boss, Bad Boss.   HBR online posts the text of the article for free for a few weeks, so you can go here and read it now if you want.  But they also give authors 100 free PDF's.  If you would like one, please go here to get it.   Please just take one so that others can have a copy.  And if you try to get a copy and they are gone, please email m...

The September Harvard Business Review includes my "The Boss as Human Shield," which presents some of the main points in Chapter 6 of Good Boss, Bad Boss.  From what I can tell, HBR puts up articles on their website for the month the issue is on the stands, but then sells them for six bucks or after that (also, they do this weird thing where they pay $100 for the article... and you get no royalties after that.. really a brilliant financial model as they are so skilled at selling their...

The most recent Economist summarizes a fascinating study by two researchers over at the Stanford Business School -- Professor David Larker and PhD Student Anastasia Zakolyukina -- based on transcripts of American CEOs and CFOs statements during 30,000 quarterly earnings conference calls  between 2003 and 2007.  Yes, 30,000!  They linked the language that bosses used in these conference calls to whether or not the firms later "materially restated their earnings." Their paper is called...

Amazon is already shipping the paperback edition of The No Asshole Rule; the official release is September 1 but they are moving a bit ahead of schedule.  I had a lot of fun writing the new chapter called "On Being the Asshole Guy."  It considers a bunch of things that I learned from writing a book that provoked such strong and often surprising reactions. The chapter starts with this paragraph:

"I didn't plan it.  I never wanted it.  I didn't believe it at first.  And it...

I am continuing to march through my list of 12 Things Good Bosses Believe over at HBR as we get close to the official release of Good Boss, Bad Boss. My last post -- #8 on the list -- digs into a familiar theme for readers of this blog and my books, "Forgive and Remember" It is currently #1 on HBR's "Most Read" list.  Here is how it opens:

I have authored or co-authored five books for managerial audiences in
the past decade. If you want to save yourself the trouble of reading all
of them...