The No Asshole Rule

Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

By: Robert I. Sutton PhD PhD

Narrated by: Robert I. Sutton PhD PhD

The definitive guide to working with -- and surviving -- bullies, creeps, jerks, tyrants, tormentors, despots, backstabbers, egomaniacs, and all the other assholes who do their best to destroy you at work.

"What an asshole!"

How many times have you said that about someone at work? You're not alone! In this groundbreaking book, Stanford University professor Robert I. Sutton builds on his acclaimed Harvard Business Review article to show you the best ways to deal with assholes...and why they can be so destructive to your company. Practical, compassionate, and in places downright funny, this guide offers:

• Strategies on how to pinpoint and eliminate negative influences for good
• Illuminating case histories from major organizations
• A self-diagnostic test and a program to identify and keep your own "inner jerk" from coming out
  

The No Asshole Rule is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Business Week bestseller.©2007 Robert I. Sutton, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved; (P)2007 Hachette Audio

I wish it had been read by a professional

At the risk of sounding like an @$$hole, this reading was terrible. I'm certain he's a brilliant man, but his pronunciation is difficult to listen to- "exspecially" when he is emphatic about something, which he seems to be about everything. The tone is overexcited and the text is mediocre.

Not as much useful information as hoped for

This book has a promising start but then gets into some questionable psychology about why people are assholes (i.e. bullied or abused as a child makes them assholes in life are the only offerings). I've known assholes in my life, (and I've probably been one), and neither of those explain the "why?" which would be helpful for people who have been told they are assholes. I think I was hoping for a book that would help people labeled as assholes see themselves in this book and see different ways of responding to people. But most of the examples were of some pretty extreme behavior -- eating employee's food, outright bullying and intimidation, etc. when in fact, most asshole behavior is more subtle, slowly eroding people's self-esteem. The assholes don't even realize they are being terrible.

I also don't like meeting assholery with assholery. The story where the subordinate employee makes brownies with chocolate flavored Ex-Lax because her boss kept eating her food, while entertaining, is not really how I want employees handling things at work. There is no mention of using others, like other leaders or the HR rep, for help. That is typically a good starting place, as they can often help with coping mechanisms or better yet, have influence to discipline or fire the abuser. The coping solutions for people who can't walk away were pretty limited, and the case for firing assholes were pretty basic. I was just hoping for more.

Not bad....

WOW I realize the title is "*sshole but he really over says it! It was entertaining but not sure if I really got anything useful out of it.

Relief

Well written, great examples, poignant, and so telling. I’ll likely listen again to set the culture of a startup. I sent it to the two founders who employ some of the characteristics outlined.

Good book but annoying reading.

Dear Author,

There is no such word as ecscape or ecspecially. As least you didn't have any reference to nukular. Otherwise it's amazing book but it's nail grinding to listen to this butchery of the language. The audio engineers should have caught this. Besides the reading no complaints at all.