42 Degrees - Business from a different angle

Your office bully may be the best salesman you've ever had, but if he's a rotten apple, he's got to go, says management science guru, Bob Sutton.

Bob Sutton, professor of management science at Stanford University, tells the story of Ethan, a high-performing salesman at a US hi-tech company. He was always among the most competent of the sales force, and, on the surface, made a magnificent contribution to the business.

The problem was that Ethan was a bully. He had a filthy temper and always treated his colleagues as rivals. He routinely belittled and insulted those around him to such an extent that people refused to work with him. Assistants resigned and couldn't be replaced. For years his managers had to deal with floods of complaints from colleagues and mop up after his overbearing and aggressive behaviour.

Finally the company tired of Ethan's temper and decided to establish exactly how much he was costing them. They were shocked to discover that Ethan was eating up £80,000 a year in management time and legal and recruitment expenses alone. The company had no hesitation in deducting those costs from Ethan's annual bonus.

"An employee may be your star performer, they may regularly hit or even exceed their targets. But if they are a bully, creep, jerk, tyrant, despot, egomaniac, call it what you will, they could still be seriously damaging your business," concludes Sutton.

Bullying has been bubbling under as a workplace issue for years now. But there's a general feeling that it is probably a minor issue. It's not. Estimates put the value of lost output due to bullying at between two and five per cent of GDP. UK courts have even fined companies for failing to protect their staff against bullying.

Sutton quotes UK research that suggests that nearly a third of British workers encounter bullies at least once a week. Another study claims that ten per cent of workers are subject to persistent intimidation and bullying. But no one has yet come up with successful ways to manage the problem of bullying at work.

Now in his book, The No A**hole Rule, Professor Sutton supplies a very simple answer to the problem: zero tolerance. (We are British, not American, so we'll just call the bullies "asses" to save our blushes.) "Just don't hire asses, and if you already employ them, either retrain them or get rid of them," he says firmly.

Even if, like Ethan, they are your star performer, get rid of them because they will still be damaging your business. Being an ass is a highly contagious disease, he warns. "They damage their victims directly, but their effects ripple out to damage bystanders and the performance of entire organisations. Organisations become defensive, staff are less committed, absenteeism and staff turnover is higher, there's more theft, too many asses can even affect your share price."

To make matters worse, argues Sutton, asses breed. "They tend to bring out the worst in others (creating more asses) they also tend to hire asses like themselves and people who are too weak to oppose them."

But really it's not just about cost, it's about self-respect and decency, says Sutton. "We are only given so many hours here on earth. Life is just too short to work with people like this."

So how do you identify these genuine asses – as opposed to people who are just a bit gruff or lacking social skills? After all, you don't want to get rid of people who have just had a bad day or even a bad month. Apart from anything else, there is always the possibility of legal action for unlawful dismissal.

Sutton suggests a simple two-stage test. "First, after talking to the alleged ass do you feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energised or belittled? Do you feel worse about yourself?" asks Sutton. Second is what he calls "kiss up, kick down" behaviour: "Do they mostly aim their venom at people who are less powerful?"

Ass tactics include the obvious – shouting, threats, intimidation, sarcasm and uninvited physical contact. But one of the difficulties with asses in the workplace is that their behaviour is often subtle and cunning – making it hard to identify and deal with. Most bullies aren't stupid and tend to behave worst when there are no witnesses. "Ass behaviour also includes apparently trivial things like 'lack of warmth', dirty looks or ignoring people, all of which, when systematically deployed, make people feel worse about themselves," says Sutton.

And, of course, the problem in identifying the culprits is compounded by the fact that we all act like asses from time to time. Even Sutton admits to it on occasion. "Yes, I have been an ass in my time. But I am concerned with certified asses, people who display a persistent pattern across time and different places."

One of the great advantages of Sutton's approach to a difficult subject, which often provokes much ineffectual hand-wringing, is its almost brutal simplicity. But having decided to adopt his rule, the next question is, how do you implement it?

Fortunately Sutton has a ten-point action plan for making your organisation a happier, more productive place or, in his terms, "an ass-free zone".

1 Say it, write it down, act on it.
Be unapologetically intolerant of bullying. Make it very clearly the centrepiece of your culture.

2 Weave the rule into hiring.
Asses and bullies will hire other asses and bullies, rapidly making your work place a nightmare. Select for competence before interviews so you can focus on the person in interviews. Use 360 degree assessments – especially from your receptionist.

3 Treat asses as incompetent.
Even if they are star performers, asses undermine the whole organisation. Treat them as you would any other incompetent member of staff.

4 Get rid of asses fast.
Companies usually wait too long to get rid of certified asses. They are damaging your business. You'll wonder why you didn't act sooner.

5 Apply the rule to customers and clients.
If you are serious, you must apply it to customers, too, because your people don't deserve the grief. If left unchecked, bad customers can create a culture of contempt that infects everyone.

6 Reduce status differences.
The unfortunate truth is that people often behave badly if they can get away with it. This means, as you always suspected, that bosses and managers are much more prone to behaving like asses than are ordinary staff. So embrace the power-performance paradox that shows that organisations need a pecking order but work best when status differences – salary, offices, perks etc – are kept as small as possible.

7 Manage moments, not just policies and systems.
Focus on and change the little things and the big things will follow. So work on tweaking what happens as you are interacting with the person in front of you right now.

8 Model and teach constructive confrontation.
Teach people how to argue and when to stop fighting. Teach them how to listen to each other, to stop whining and implement a decision even if they disagree with it.

9 Adopt the one ass rule.
Research shows that people follow rules better when there is the odd example of bad behaviour. For that reason you might want the odd ass about the place, 'pour encourager les autres'.

10 Link big policies to small decencies.
Effective ass management happens when there is a virtuous self-reinforcing cycle between the big things that organisations do and the little things that happen when people work and talk together.

The No A**hole Rule' by Robert Sutton is published by Sphere