Are you an asshole?
Posted on April 7, 2007
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I’ve just finished reading this book ‘The No Asshole Rule‘ by Bob Sutton of Stanford University which is all about building a civilised workplace and surviving one that isn’t. The book is a 160 pages of medium to large print that can be read within the space of a day. It was a light hearted read, that offered some funny stories and few sage pieces of advice. I wasn’t blown away by the book, (which I think could have been written in half the number of pages really), but then again I didn’t dislike it either.
Now I don’t consider myself to be an asshole, (other people may have a different opinion 
), and I have not really worked for the premium assholes Bob Sutton’s victims have either, which made it hard for me to relate to some of the ideas he puts forward in the book. However, I have worked for people who just lost their way a bit and exhibited temporary asshole behaviour in their quest for pay, promotion and ultimate power within the organisation.
I remember working in an investment bank where a manager who overcommitted his team to delivering a trading system to the Head of Desk. As the deadline loomed, this manager started to freak. I mean freak. It didn’t help that the team thought he was loser but that’s another story. He looked around one day and noticed that at 12:30, people were at lunch (actually one had gone to the toilet). How strange is that, lunch at midday? He rounded on me as said, Cleve, people are just not working hard enough. I thought nothing of this and continued pressing more keys. The next day brought “coffee fines”. These very words still make my heart sink now. Basically, if you’re at your desk, you are working. This is good. If this manager could not see you typing, you were failing him. This was bad. So if you arrived after 08:30 in the morning, you had to buy coffees for everyone in the team. Manager’s rules. Commitment = Hours @ Desk. We’ve all seen this one…
However, the whole team dynamic changed. At 08:00 all worked stopped. Instead, everyone started looking at the empty desks praying people would be late so that they could get their free caffeine fix. The manager started pacing up and down at around 08:25, waiting to catch his tardy workers… People started bitching about re-offenders particularly when they refused to buy the coffee because of a broken down bus or a signal problem on the London underground. Why should they pay for other peoples failings? Then when you did turn up late there were the victory smiles from the other team members, the disappointed look on the manager’s face and the 180 degree return to the door to get the coffees in. Of course, there was more conflict as the coffee penalties got steeper and the victims started to complain and refuse to get the round in. Eventually, the manager dropped the penalties when the daily coffee fine arguments stopped other adjacent teams from working…
…so what happened to the system. Did we deliver it? Well the funny thing there was the day before we were due to the system, the Head of Desk came over and casually asked my manager, “so, what additional additional value does this new system give me?”. My manager replied, “A new interface, higher performance”. The Head of Desk who is known to fly off the handle said again with a deadly calm, “but what more does it give me over and above what my traders already have?” My manager stuttered out, “ermmm, nothing”. The Head of Desk flew of handle and said, “that system is not going anywhere near my traders. Is that clear?” My manager squeaked out “Yes!”. Now, the Head of Desk was known as an out and out asshole, and it was funny to see one asshole chewed up by another asshole. However, my manager learnt a lot from that. We all did as a team. My manager changed. He became less of an asshole. The team changed. No more coffee fines and you worked the hours you needed to get the job done.
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