Bob Sutton
@work_matters
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Organizational psychologist @stanford . Books include Good Boss Bad Boss, Scaling Up Excellence, No Asshole Rule, and now,The Friction Project.
Stanford
Joined March 2010
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Pinned Tweet
My
@HiddenBrain
interview on "The Friction Project" dropped today
@ShankarVedantam
did a masterful job of framing (and editing!) our conversation to focus on leading organizations that implement innovation, rather than just perform innovation theatre
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Layoffs are brutal. But this is what a competent and compassionate one looks like. All CEOS can learn from this
@patrickc
email to Stripe employees. There is a difference between what you do and how you do it.
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@magnorris
It is a nearly perfect definition of a certified asshole. Terrible and wonderful all at once
#noassholerule
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The news about Anthony Bourdain breaks my heart. I was a big fan. My daughter and I had perhaps our best meal ever at his recommendation: Asador Etxebarri in Spain. He was so much more than a food guy, all about the joy and pain of humanity, a big proponent of the no asshole rule
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"Your lack of planning is not my emergency" keeps running through my head today. I took a few days off and--despite an out of office message--several folks seem unhappy I wasn't reading and responding to their emails. Let's all help each other and NOT respond when on vacation.
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A review of 150 studies shows how narcissistic Leaders Destroy from Within: “They believe they’re superior and thus not subject to the same rules and norms....They know they’re lying, and it doesn’t bother them. They don’t feel shame.”
via
@stanfordgsb
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15 Things I Believe
Biased but mostly evidence-based opinions on management and life
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Status anxiety? Interesting that Joseph Epstein, lecturer emeritus at Northwestern University, never earned a Phd like
@DrBiden
did. In any event, this piece is misogynistic and the "kiddo" is demeaning and disrespectful. Mr. Epstein, you earned my "asshole of the day award."
What’s the worst part of this?
(a) Ignorance that in too many fields, women don’t get the respect they deserve without titles like Dr.
(b) A man who calls a woman “kiddo” having the audacity to offer advice
(c) Equating honorary and actual doctorates
(d) WSJ publishing it
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@Stanford
Pretty spineless. I am disappointed. You at least could say his opinions clash with the overwhelming weight of the evidence about COVID and condemn him for his apparent effort to incite domestic terrorism (despite the backtrack).
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The label "Influencer" makes me uncomfortable. People who label themselves as an "Influencer" make me suspicious. Is it just me?
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The No Asshole Rule! Thank you
@potus
@amyjccuddy
Watch Biden swear in his political appointees and issue a warning:
"If you're ever working with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise I will fire you on the spot."
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@VivekVAyer
@magnorris
I think simply ending social contact is best. But he sure could use some radical candor
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My pal
@huggyrao
and I finished our next book, "The Friction Project." We spent 7 years studying, teaching, and asking wise people how to eliminate bad organizational friction and inject good friction--without driving people crazy. Ships early 2024.
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This is a misleading headline. Psychological safety is different than being nice. When it is present, people are tough and honest about mistakes—they call out others. Hey
@qz
this is misleading. Delete the tweet.
@AmyCEdmondson
After years of intensive analysis, Google found the key to good teamwork is being nice
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@patkiernan
@kairyssdal
@JetBlue
Note the difference between greedy assholes with a short-term perspective and people who care. JetBlue isn't perfect but they care
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A lesson from past downturns. Layoffs may save money now, but can cost companies a lot later. This old Bain study found that--other things being equal--companies that avoided layoffs, and did less deep layoffs, performed better down the road.
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The older I get, the more I believe, when it comes to bad management or bad organizational design, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. People rarely intend to be malicious or incompetent. That's why the late Jim March liked to ask "Why would a smart person do that?"
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15 Things I Believe: Updated Late 2018. I updated my personal manifesto for the new
@stanford
academic year. I would love your feedback.
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More evidence open offices undermine performance. A pattern across studies. Especially for tasks that require concentration. Yet architects keep peddling this crap
One reason so many employees resist returning to offices is they concentrate better at home.
New publication in 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺!
Open-Office Noise and Information Processing
In a lab experiment that manipulated open-office noise (e.g., co-workers chatting in the background, phones ringing, doors closing) we found...🧵
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19 New Leadership Books to Read in 2019. Great list from
@AdamMGrant
, especially The War for Kindness:"Jamil Zaki is one of the bright lights in psychology, and in this gripping book he shows that kindness is not a sign of weakness but a source of strength"
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The evidence SO FAR suggests working from home is linked to more productivity. The upshot from
@I_Am_NickBloom
, the researcher with best evidence, and among the least ideological takes on this hot topic
Beware of the strong opinions strongly held by so many ill-informed others
It is frustrating reading articles on the productivity impact of WFH based on anecdotes from CEOs and politicians. These policies impact millions of employees, so should be grounded in data and research.
I summarized for The Hill what we know, covering the three main sources.
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My mom, Annette "Nussie" Sutton, had a wonderful life, and a lovely death at 91: "She made us laugh with her sarcasm and disdain for snotty and phony people. And no matter what advice we or anyone else offered, Nuss did pretty much as she pleased."
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Every woman knows there are two kinds of men. Those who know how to hold a baby and those who don’t & sometimes pretend they do. But don’t do it day after day. See it as women’s work. Biden knows how to hold a baby. Men—and especially women—who been there know exactly what I mean
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Dear university administrators: Before you send that next email, please read the "Brevity" memo Winston Churchill sent to his staff in 1940
#frictionproject
. .
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Zuck says he is "turning up the heat" on poor performers. Classic downward spiral:
Creates a climate of fear
Stigmatizes any employee who leaves for any reason now
Drives away top job candidates
Zuck's team caused
@meta
's problems, not weak underlings
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A student: "Groups of people are like liquid: they tend to go the path that is easiest. The single most important design feature for any healthy environment is to make doing the Right Thing feel like going downhill and doing the Wrong Thing like going uphill."
#frictionproject
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The shift to online classes for
@stanford
's final week creates fun challenges. Spent the day redesigning classes, sharpening Zoom skills,experimenting with equipment and locations in my house for best wifi speed & background. Plus lighting to diminish the shine off my bald head!
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Creativity,Inc. by Pixar's Ed Catmull: One of the Best Business Books of All Time
http://t.co/7iGxfX3VS2
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A wonderful compact summary of 1000+ peer reviewed studies.
It is interesting that these impediments to organizational learning are from studies of individuals. Team and organizational dynamics--contagion, routines, rituals, norms, network effects are another part of the story.
These look familiar 🤔
‘Why organisations don’t learn’ by
@francescagino
&
@brstaats
.
Image by
@tnvora
.
#orgdev
#innovation
#orgculture
#feedbackloops
#inclusion
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I just took
@AdamMGrant
's Think Again quiz, based on his new book on wisdom. My score:
Preacher: 21%
Prosecutor: 0%
Politician: 0%
Scientist: 70%
How about you?
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A cartoon from a
@wsj
reader in response to my piece on management by getting out of the way
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The best explanation of privilege I've heard. As the absence of inconvenience, absence of impediment or challenge: "when you have it, you don't notice it."
#frictionproject
h/t
@AdamMGrant
What is white privilege?
We asked
@JohnAmaechi
, psychologist, best-selling author and former NBA basketball player to explain it for us.
👉
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How a 3-person
@USDS
team built the site in 3 weeks, working with 15
@USPS
folks (as they deliver it). It took 3 weeks to build, 68 million people visited the first week without an outage. Imperfect but impressive.
#frictionproject
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This advice is pretty much the opposite of what I glean from research, teach students, advise leaders, what we teach
@stanforddschool
, and what I learned on the
@iftf
's board. Wise leaders strike a healthy balance between confidence and doubt, have "strong opinions weakly held."
Elizabeth Holmes on taking risks & embracing failure:
http://t.co/ZzgGQtyRbh
http://t.co/ex77TTMdMG
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Influence is the only book I’ve assigned to my organizational behavior students at Stanford for the last 25 years. Students love it, and, years later, rave about how helpful it is has been throughout their careers. The update is better, ships Tuesday!
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Who won’t shut up in meetings? Men say it’s women. It’s not.
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How not to be stupid, according to a top stupidity researcher. From David Dunning, of Dunning-Kruger fame. My favorite tips:
Lean on other people
Imagine the worst-case scenario
Get better at saying "I don't know"
@entrylevelrebel
via
@Inc
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Evidence-influenced books I like include The Progress Principle by
@TeresaAmabile
, Give and Take by
@AdamMGrant
, anything by
@DanielPink
, Collaboration
@MortenTHansen
, Work Rules by
@LaszloBock
, The Fearless Organization by
@AmyCEdmondson
; and Rebel Talent by
@francescagino
question for you
@work_matters
what are the top evidence-based management books published in the last 5 years? Not necessarily ones with the best stories, but important recommendations based on well established peer-reviewed studies
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“We see the 10% of narcissists that succeeded and call them visionaries. We’re not looking at the 90% who flamed out and caused irreparable damage.” via
@stanfordgsb
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After working on "The Friction Project" for 7+ years with Huggy Rao, I am tickled to hold a finished book for the first time. It ships 1/30/2024
We love the cover & appreciate folks
@StMartinsPress
, our publisher, for their patience as we rejected the first 30 or so prototypes
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Also, it is time to re-up this 2011 Sunday Doonesbury cartoon, from the first time Trump ran (briefly) for President. Garry Trudeau quoted The No Asshole Rule to label Trump as a certified asshole.
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The evidence that assholes undermine performance and damage well-being is overwhelming. Here is yet more evidence. Yet we continue to admire, promote, and retain them. It is our fault, as enablers, silent bystanders, and sometimes sports fans and journalists.
#noassholerule
Abusive bosses are even more catastrophic than you imagine. This study of NBA players shows that those with abusive coaches early in their career had more technical fouls & lower performance a decade later! (And the 2nd paper shows 17%-33% of college coaches use abusive styles)
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@JustinWolfers
Yikes. Read the interview. The arrogance of an academic whose deep knowledge about a few things leads him to believe he is smarter than others about everything.
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Bad is stronger than good "A top 1 percent superstar—a very rare high performer—brings an extra $5,300 in value by doing more work than an average employee does. But replacing a toxic worker with an average one creates an estimated $12,800 in cost savings"
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"When you take a job take a long look at the people you’re going to be working with — because the odds are you’re going to become like them, they are not going to become like you." I still believe it. From my old conversation with
@bakadesuyo
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The power of saying "I don't know."
People With Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge. Definition "having the insight and honesty to hold your hands up and say you’re ignorant or inexpert about an issue." via
@researchdigest
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I love the idea of conducting "stay interviews” instead of “exit interviews.” A suggested question: "What do you wish you could spend less time on?"
#frictionproject
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I've been interviewed for at least 100 articles on bad bosses over the years, and this one of the best. It weaves in
@AmyCEdmondson
's essential work on psychological safety.
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More evidence that open offices suck. Yes they are cheaper. Yes architects love how they look. But if you need to concentrate or have multiple conversations at once or worse, a mix of both, they are problematic. In organizations where it is permitted, people just work from home
Open-plan offices drive down face-to-face interactions and increase use of email
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Again, hierarchy is unavoidable and flatter isn't always better:
Study of 6,234 game start-ups. Evidence a flatter hierarchy can improve improve ideation and creativity, but also fuels weak execution and commercial failure due to power struggles and "aimless idea explorations"
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Is all the hype that Gen X and Gen Y are different than prior generations nonsense? This 2020 National Academy of Sciences report suggest that it is, concluding that using generational concepts in management thinking “is not consistent with science.”
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A reminder, dear managers, that all those "welcome back to the office" lunches, teas, and parties are a double-edged sword. They may energize extraverts, but are exhausting social obligations for many introverts.
Thanks to
@susancain
for making it safe to say such things.
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The mansplaining the last 48 hours has been exhausting. Janet Yellen shut a lot of these dudes up for a few minutes but not long. Me thinks the official Silicon Valley spokesperson right now should be
@karaswisher
and the official bible for us dudes
@realdanlyons
’ STFU.
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I just started as a columnist for
@mitsmr
. My first piece is on why and how smart leaders harness imaginary time travel. Shifting attention from the present to the past and the future can motivate people, ease distress, and fuel better decisions.
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Today, a reward for my gentle candor. Last year, I was sent a book to blurb. It was good, but virtually all the heroes were men. I gently suggested to the author this was a problem. He made wonderful repairs. I fail at times. But it is better to nudge and teach than to get mad.
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Question for fellow organizational researchers. I don't know of even one rigorous study in a good peer reviewed journal that links open offices to more productivity, collaboration, communication, satisfaction, or anything good. All I can find is bad news. Am I missing anything?
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I have this outside my
@stanfordeng
school office, where I've worked as an organizational psychologist for 30+ years
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“How are people with the least power and prestige treated?" I return to that test of leaders and cultures again and again. My warning lights flash when people at the bottom are seen as necessary but annoying and costly stepping stones, to be exploited as efficiently as possible.
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Here's the forthcoming
@AmyCEdmondson
book
@rgmcgrath
and I are so enthusiastic about. I read an advance copy. Its the best book ever written on learning from failure, by the researcher who taught millions of us about the power of psychological safety.
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Powerful assholes often believe they are beloved by underlings who smile and kiss-up--but actually despise them and are biding time, waiting to escape, and exact revenge.
When assholes lose power, contagious action among their once silent victims can happen at breathtaking speed
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In addition to income inequality, I see signs that—pay and prestige aside—
#COVID
is amplifying workload inequality. People plagued by collaborative overload, implementers, and most skilled now work more than ever. Bullshitters, outcasts, and free riders do even less. Agree?
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To mark the new year, I just updated my list of things that I believe.
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P.S. My main area of research early in my career was organizational decline and death. This pattern of "blaming the bad people" when problems are strategic, structural, and cultural is classic.. saw it with Atari's leadership in early 80s, HP's leadership in 90s, on and on.
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"Those who refuse to display basic civility to our people or their fellow travelers are not welcome on Delta," CEO Ed Bastian wrote. "Their actions will not be tolerated, and they will not have the privilege of flying our airline ever again"
#noassholerule
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One more time:
Assholes don't finish first. When they win, it's usually DESPITE rather than because of nastiness
Asshole bosses undermine physical and mental health, and performance
Acting like an asshole is contagious (this NBA study suggest the infection lasts a long time)
Bosses who insult and intimidate don't get results. They leave people scarred.
Data: when NBA players have abusive coaches, they play more poorly for the rest of their careers—and commit more technical fouls.
Weak leaders make people weaker. Strong leaders make people stronger.
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When managers provide weekly (vs. annual) feedback,
@gallup
finds people are:
5.2x more likely to strongly agree they receive meaningful feedback
3.2x more likely to strongly agree they are motivated to do outstanding work
2.7x more likely to be engaged
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Bad systems turn smart people dumb. And smart systems can get dumb people to do mighty smart things.
"No amount of skill or pride in workmanship can overcome fundamental faults in the system." W. Edwards Deming
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Let's retire the term "quiet quitting" NOW.
At best, it was emotionally compelling but useless click-bait.
It's devolved into worn-out jargon monoxide that means so many things to so many different people that it means nothing.
Yup, this is loud quitting on my part.
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Yikes..I have never seen the "psychological contract" between employees and a company unravel so fast in my life. Nor have I ever seen a company go from being cool and admired, to stained and stigmatized, so fast. A cautionary tale.
About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today after a contentious all-hands meeting. I’m told more are coming.
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Pfeffer's Law: "Instead of being interested in what is new, we ought to be interested in what is true."
@JeffreyPfeffer
has long been skeptical of scholars and "gurus" who ballyhoo "breakthroughs" as too many are actually old ideas, bad ideas, or both.
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I spoke to an executive who reports, at her company, when she sends an email outside of regular business hours, she gets a warning. And has to do an extra click before sending it.
I like that little obstacle and the mindfulness it can provoke.
Do you?
#frictionproject
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The Asshole Survival Guide as musical theatre? My wonderful literary agents
@fletcherco
reached an agreement with a playwright who bought the rights to turn my book into a musical. I hope it is written and staged, but the very idea makes me smile. Who am I? How did I get here?
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This shows that the emotional experience of touching and seeing and keeping a physical book is something better and different. You can’t keep an ebook on the shelf, can’t feel the experience of underling and bookmarking, and can’t get the author to sign it
Book sales are up this year over last year, and physical books are thriving
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I updated my list of of "12 Books That Every Leader Should Read" for 2017. My focus is on timeless and substantial books. I added
@susancain
's Quiet this year--a book that seems to grow in importance every year, much like
@AdamMGrant
's Gave and Take.
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Beware as the evidence isn’t really in on this, agile now means many different things to many different people and we don’t really know when, why, and to what degree each of the many elements and various mixes of them have strong, weak, no, or negative effects on which outcomes.
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John Gardner on what a university ought to stand for:
•Things forgotten in the heat of battle
•Values pushed aside in the rough and tumble of everyday living
•Goals we ought to be thinking about and never do
•Facts we don’t like to face
•Questions we lack the courage to ask
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I spent about six hours today on zoom leading classes and meetings with
@Stanford
students. Many of them worked from bed, especially those in meetings before noon—and they were proud it. Good for them, if things are going to be weird, you might as well as fun!
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An alternative explanation for "return to office" vs. remote work decisions
A "CEO support group" member tells me all the extroverted CEOs have implemented "office," while the introverts are sticking with all or mostly remote work
@susancain
's Quiet Revolution continues
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After teaching at Stanford for over 30 years, I see the same complaints about grades every year. Students almost never complain about getting a B or C, or worse. Nearly all complaints about getting a B+. I ran into one former student who was still complaining a decade later!
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"13 Things I Believe" My biased but mostly evidence-based opinions on management and life
@LinkedIn
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Spot on. As the late organizational theorist James March put it,"Neither success nor change requires dramatic action...[they mostly] require ordinary people to do ordinary things in a competent way." March also asserted that success requires competent "plumbers" not just "poets"
Management research is obsessed with trying to find evidence of the counterintuitive, the unexpected, and the overlooked. Here is a case for finding further support for the blindingly obvious.
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"How to Deal With a Certified Jerk at Work" by
@AdamMGrant
appeared in the print
@nytimes
today, based his online piece in April. I have a mixed reaction because Adam does does such a good job of summarizing The Asshole Survival Guide in so few words!
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One of my decision rules is, if a colleague or client moves a meeting, interview, or presentation more than three times, I usually "declare defeat" and decline further scheduling games.
I conclude they are too busy, too flaky, or I am too low priority to them.
That reasonable?
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A hypothesis: The higher percentage of administrators in an organization and the higher the turnover among them, the less work that people who carry out the organization's mission get done, in part, because the admins want more and more meetings with them. Agree?
#frictionproject
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"If you think you are too small to make a difference, you have not spent the night with one mosquito." African Proverb. H/T
@huggyrao
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This is important research. I think many of the stereotypes about millennials and such happen because older people forget what it was like to be younger
Are there generational differences at work? There is strong evidence that most of these perceived differences can be explained by age, rather than by group (Millennial, Boomer etc.).
Generations may not mean as much as you thought. From Macarena Soto Ferri
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A friendly reminder for folks who are returning to in-person work:
You can't schedule multiple face-to-face meetings as efficiently as remote ones. I am seeing a lot of overloaded and frazzled people rushing from one meeting to another.
Slow down! Subtract!
#frictionproject
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The amazing thing about Netflix is that this isn’t BS from the CEO. People who work there actually do disagree openly, even with their bosses. I saw it just last week. The safety and mutual respect is palpable
I want everyone in my company to speak up honestly. "To disagree silently is disloyal.." Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix at
#TED2018
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I am excited to be teaching a new small undergraduate seminar
@StanfordEng
on Leading Organizational Change. One topic today--resistance to change isn't always bad, as such "constructive defiance" has saved many organizations from their leaders' idiocy and incompetence.
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This study of NBA coaches found that abuse toward players was linked to more physical aggression (technical fouls) and lower performance. More evidence that assholes undermine performance of others. Thanks to
@MattRheaPhD
@raburns
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One trick Thomas Edison used to overcome this problem was to give problems to people who had the “wrong” expertise after people with the “right” expertise had failed to solve them
Once our minds slip into default mode, it takes a great deal of agility to override this state. This is why specialists are often the last ones to notice commonsense solutions to problems, a limitation economist Thorstein Veblen called the “trained incapacity” of experts.
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We guys need to hear this:"Male listeners were more likely to view women who interrupted another speaker in the audio clips as ruder, less friendly and less intelligent than men who interrupted." Via Katherine Hilton study of 5000 people on interruptions
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My sweetie
@marinahpark
and me sailing in the 505 Class North American Championship in 1977, in Lake Michigan. We had boat speed problems in light air, but got a 2nd (out of about 40 boats) in the windy race. Can't believe it was almost 44 years ago-- we are still going strong!
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The is such a beautiful thing. I long for such civility to spread far and wide.
I’m not sure this has ever been done before...but as our national political dialogue continues to decline, my opponent
@PetersonUtah
and I decided to try something different. We can disagree without hating each other. Let’s make Utah an example to the nation.
#StandUnited
#utpol
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I wonder if they should reverse-score this and call it the “privilege score” as that would stigmatize the easier path enjoyed by the rich rather than the obstacles faced by the poor.
The SAT is adding an “adversity score” to help colleges account for hardships like poverty amid concerns about the fairness of standardized tests.
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This is some good shit.
In case you don't know shit
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