Author
Robert I. Sutton
The Stanford management professor who studies demeaning behaviour at work and how to survive it.
1 book on BookYol
The story and the impact
Robert I. Sutton is a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University, where he studies how organisations work and how they go wrong. Much of his writing is about the everyday damage done by people who demean others at work, and about what that costs teams and companies.
His book The No Asshole Rule argued that organisations should stop tolerating such behaviour, whatever the offender's talent. Readers then asked him a harder question: what do you do when you are stuck with one? The Asshole Survival Guide, published in 2017, is his answer, built from research and from the stories readers sent him.
The signature
Sutton combines organisational research with a plain, often funny voice and a strong practical bent. He refuses easy heroics: his advice starts with diagnosis and an honest look at yourself, puts escape and distance before confrontation, and treats fighting back as a move that needs evidence, allies and timing.
The questions they work on
- How can you tell a person having a bad day from a person who demeans others as a habit?
- When is leaving the smartest response to someone who treats you badly?
- How do you avoid catching the rudeness you are surrounded by?
Thinking tools
- Diagnosing a Difficult PersonUses and explains it
Diagnosing a difficult person means asking, before you act, whether their demeaning behaviour is a one-off episode or a lasting pattern, how much it actually costs you, and whether you might be part of the problem, the first step in Robert Sutton's approach to people who make others feel small.
Learn it: Handle Difficult People, Station 1 - Strategic AvoidanceUses and explains it
Strategic avoidance is the deliberate choice to reduce or end contact with a person who persistently demeans you, by leaving, transferring or simply meeting them less, which Robert Sutton argues is often the most effective response when it is available.
Learn it: Handle Difficult People, Station 2 - Psychological DistanceUses and explains it
Psychological distance is the practice of mentally stepping back from a hurtful person or moment, by watching it as a curious observer, imagining how it will look in a year, or seeing the behaviour as their problem rather than a verdict on you, so that it does less damage.
Learn it: Handle Difficult People, Station 3 - Rudeness ContagionUses and explains it
Rudeness contagion is the tendency for incivility to spread from person to person, so that people who are treated rudely become more likely to treat others rudely, which is why Robert Sutton urges people dealing with a difficult person to protect themselves and refuse to pass it on.
Learn it: Handle Difficult People, Station 11
Limits and fair objections
Escape and avoidance are often the most effective responses to a demeaning person.
Sutton is right that distance protects people, but leaving a job or a team is not equally possible for everyone, and his advice is written mostly for professionals with some options. In BookYol's reading, his diagnosis and distancing tools travel well; the exit strategies need to be weighed against a person's real circumstances, and serious harassment calls for formal or legal routes, not only personal tactics.
Stands on: an argument · BookYol's reading