Robert Sutton

Every so often this magazine drifts away from the coverage of classic programming titles because its main objective is to stretch the brains of software practitioners towards other areas of knowledge, such as design, sociology, or science. Business books are one such area, and we should be covering more of those. But today we will talk about one that could rightfully be called the most important business book of the 21st century so far.

This is the story of “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t”, a 2007 book by Robert Sutton, professor of management science at the Stanford University School of Engineering.

This book is an extension of some ideas Professor Sutton wrote as part of a Harvard Business Review article called “Breakthrough Ideas for 2004”; it turns out that getting rid of assholes was a, indeed, a breakthrough idea, and not just for 2004.

The book (which received backlash, and I kid you not, because of the use of the “asshole” word on the title, no comments) deals with the actual cost of such personalities in the world of business.

Professor Sutton uses the terminology of business language to describe the impact of assholes, going as far as coining the term “TCA” for “Total Cost of Assholes” for organizations. This concept is, needless to say, very complicated to calculate or estimate, but there are some simple metrics that can provide useful results, even in the most complex of corporations.

A Harvard Business Review reader wrote me a lovely note suggesting that more companies would be convinced to enforce the rule if they estimated the “total cost of assholes,” or their “TCA.” As he put it “The organizational impact, in terms of both retention and recruitment, lost clients, [and] excess organizational calories being expended on the wrong things could provide some very interesting insights.”

The very existence of assholes, according to Sutton, should be taken in consideration from the very beginning (that is, hiring) and throughout the work relationship, to spot (and hopefully, potentially remove) the bad apples that could rot your culture. Lots of examples provide enough arguments for any manager to start actively measuring the asshole rate in their teams.

Just like many other business books, “The No Asshole Rule” is important to software developers for a single reason: most of them program computers for a salary, which means that they are part of a business. Hence, knowing how to deal (or at least, how their management deals or not) with assholes is a precious, yet underrated skill.

There is also a big pile of scholarly research that reaches much the same conclusion without using the term “asshole.” It is conducted under banners including bullying, interpersonal aggression, emotional abuse, abusive supervision, petty tyranny, and incivility in the workplace. These studies show that many workplaces are plagued by “interpersonal moves” that leave people feeling threatened and demeaned, which are often directed by more powerful people at less powerful people.

Guess what: knowing about computers is power, and software workers can become assholes through the use of, precisely, their power. Professor Sutton has a word for all of us in the software industry:

I also want to put in a good word for socially awkward people, some of whom—through no fault of their own—are so socially insensitive that they accidentally act like assholes at times.

Some soul-searching might help us spot our own assholish behavior patterns, and better yet, to correct them before it is too late. (Because, let us be honest: we are all assholes at some point in our lives. Such is the condition of being human.)

Cover photo by Sarah H. Gordon, because I had the bad idea of lending my own copy to a person who never gave it back. Asshole.

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