Robert I. Sutton > Quotes

“If you are a boss, ask yourself: When you look back at how you’ve treated followers, peers, and superiors, in their eyes, will you have earned the right to be proud of yourself? Or will they believe that you ought to be ashamed of yourself and embarrassed by how you have trampled on others’ dignity day after day?”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“the difference between how a person treats the powerless versus the powerful is as good a measure of human character as I know.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

“As much as I believe in tolerance and fairness, I have never lost a wink of sleep about being unapologetically intolerant of anyone who refuses to show respect for those around them.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

“Bosses shape how people spend their days and whether they experience joy or despair, perform well or badly, or are healthy or sick. Unfortunately, there are hoards of mediocre and downright rotten bosses out there, and big gaps between the best and the worst.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Assholes tend to stick together, and once stuck are not easily separated.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

“at the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt

“two tests that I use for spotting whether a person is acting like an asshole: • Test One: After talking to the alleged asshole, does the “target” feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled by the person? In particular, does the target feel worse about him or herself? • Test Two: Does the alleged asshole aim his or her venom at people who are less powerful rather than at those people who are more powerful?”
― Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

“The University of Michigan’s Karl Weick advises, “Fight as if you are right; listen as if you are wrong.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

“Winning is a wonderful thing if you can help and respect others along the way. But if you stomp on others as you climb the ladder and treat them like losers once you reach the top, my opinion is that you debase your own humanity and undermine your team or organization.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

“Listen to those under your supervision. Really listen. Don’t act as if you’re listening and let it go in one ear and out the other. Faking it is worse than not doing it at all.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Fight as if you are right, listen as if you are wrong.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“A huge body of research—hundreds of studies—shows that when people are put in positions of power, they start talking more, taking what they want for themselves, ignoring what other people say or want, ignoring how less powerful people react to their behavior, acting more rudely, and generally treating any situation or person as a means for satisfying their own needs—and that being put in positions of power blinds them to the fact that they are acting like jerks.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

“The best bosses do more than charge up people, and recruit and breed energizers. They eliminate the negative, because even a few bad apples and destructive acts can undermine many good people and constructive acts.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Be slow to label others as assholes, be quick to label yourself as one.”
― Robert I Sutton, The Asshole Survival Guide (International Edition): How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt

“Third, and finally, if you want people to believe the system is fair and effective, it’s essential to be tough on the most powerful, profitable, and well-known jerks. If you enforce the rule only with the weak performers, people who are easily replaceable, or who deliver bad news and have the gumption to disagree with superiors—and you allow powerful assholes to run roughshod over anyone they please—people will smell your hypocritical bullshit from a mile away.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt

“Psychological safety is the key to creating a workplace where people can be confident enough to act without undue fear of being ridiculed, punished, or fired – and be humble enough to openly doubt what is believed and done. As Amy Edmondson’s research shows, psychological safety emerges when those in power persistently praise, reward, and promote people who have the courage to act, talk about their doubts, successes, and failures, and work doggedly to do things better the next time.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“At the places where I want to work, even if people do other things well (even extraordinary well) but routinely demean others, they are seen as incompetent.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

“Life is too short to put up with assholes.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

“People also have a greater capacity when they aren’t worn down by work and worry. When people get enough sleep, they are more adept at difficult tasks, are more interpersonally sensitive, make better decisions, and are less likely to turn nasty.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less

“Bullies drive witnesses and bystanders out of their jobs, just as they do to “firsthand” victims. Research”
― Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

“the impulse to “get even” can provoke a vicious circle of attack and counterattack—where each side views the other as evil and won’t accept responsibility for fueling the conflict, and”
― Robert I. Sutton, The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt

“as the research shows, the more time you spend around rotten apples – those lousy, lazy, grumpy, and nasty people – the more damage you will suffer. When people are emotionally depleted, they stop focusing on their jobs and instead work on improving their moods. If you find that there are a few subordinates who are so unpleasant that, day after day, they sap the energy you need to inspire others and feel good about your own job, my advice – if you can’t get rid of them – is to spend as little time around them as possible.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“The best management is sometimes less management or no management at all. William Coyne, who led 3M’s Research and Development efforts for over a decade, believed a big part of his job was to leave his people alone and protect them from other curious executives. As he put it: ‘After you plant a seed in the ground, you don’t dig it up every week to see how it is doing.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“He was afflicted with what I call “Asshole Blindness,” where people don’t realize or underestimate how dire an asshole problem is, how much they and perhaps others are suffering, and how important it is to get out as soon as possible.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt

“Bill Lazier’s advice means that you ought to do your homework before taking a job. Find out if you are about to enter a den of assholes, and if you are, don’t give in to the temptation to join them in the first place. Leonardo da Vinci said, “It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end,” which is sound social psychology. The more time and effort that people put into anything—no matter how useless, dysfunctional, or downright stupid it might be—the harder it is for them to walk away, be it a bad investment, a destructive relationship, an exploitive job, or a workplace filled with browbeaters, bullies, and bastards.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

“It means constantly seeking and implementing better ways of thinking and acting across old and new corners of the system.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less

“Interruptions are especially destructive to people who need to concentrate – knowledge workers like hardware engineers, graphic designers, lawyers, writers, architects, accountants, and so on. Research by Gloria Mark and her colleagues shows that it takes people an average of twenty-five minutes to recover from an interruption and return to the task they had been working on – which happens because interruptions destroy their train of thought and divert attention to other tasks. A related study shows that although employees who experience interruptions compensate by working faster when they return to what they were doing, this speed comes at a cost, including feeling frustrated, stressed, and harried. Some interruptions are unavoidable and are part of the work – but as a boss, the more trivial and unnecessary intrusions you can absorb, the more work your people will do and the less their mental health will suffer.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“No one on their death bed wishes they would've been meaner.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt

“Everyone deserves to be treated fairly. If leaders are the problem, we ask those being served by leaders to let them know or go up the chain of command—without the threat of retaliation.” “Store”
― Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

“Hundreds of experiments show that encounters with rude, insulting, and demeaning people undermine others’ performance—including their decision-making skills, productivity, creativity, and willingness to work a little harder and stay a little later to finish projects and to help coworkers who need their advice, skills, or emotional support.”
― Robert I. Sutton, The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt