The No Asshole Rule --the inevitable experience in the life (Continued)

When we always talk about a* around, can that be ourselves -- an inner bad one -- behave badly? How can we stop our "Inner Jerk" from getting out? We need to understand that acting like an a* is a communicable disease. According to "emotional contagion" researchers, "in conversation, people tend automatically and continuously to mimic and synchronize their movements with facial expressions, voices, postures, movements, and instrumental behaviors of others." So being around people who are a* makes us feel a* and behave a* too. When we get a job offer, we should take a close look at the people we would work with, not just at whether they are successful or not. If the future colleagues are self-centered, nasty, unethical, narrow-minded, overworked and physically ill, there is little chance that we will turn them into better human beings or transform it into a healthy workplace, instead, odds are that we will catch their disease, even we think ourselves as moral and strong-willed persons. Unfortunately, "a* poisoning" is a contagious disease that anyone can catch. Then how can we avoid it? Dr. sutton gives the following suggestions:

• Don't join the Jerks, and get it right at the beginning. As Leonardo da vinci saide, "It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end." The more time and effort that people put into anything, the harder it is for them to walk away. The "too-much-invested-to-quit" syndrome is sound social psychology.
  
• Walk out, or stay away as much and fast as you can. If you can't or won't quit the job, do everything you can to limit the contact with the worst people.
• Warning: seeing coworkers as rivals and enemies is a dangerous game. When status differences between people at the top, middle and bottom of the pecking order are emphasized and magnified, it brings out the worst in everyone. Trivial differences in language had profound effects on how willing people were to e selfish and dishonest backstabber, such as people are primed with words like enemy, battle, inconsiderate, vicious, lawyer, and capitalist are far less likely to cooperate than when first exposed to words like helped, fair, warm, mutual, and share. Try to use ideas and language that frame life in ways that will make us focus on cooperation. First, although many situations do require a mix of competition and cooperation, try focusing on the win-win aspects. Most inspiring managers has a few things in common, including they thought and said we rather than I. Second, adopt a frame that turns our attention to ways in ways we are no better or worse than other people instead of we are superior, which provoking arrogance and negative opinions of others, or inferior, which provoking envy and hostility. We are all the same in most ways. Reminding us of our common humanity helps us see and treat other people in ways we would like to be treated. Finally, Tell ourselves that I have enough. Although common attitude "whoever dies with the most toys wins." helps the constant improvement, taken too far with constant dissatisfaction, unquenchable desires, and overbearing comparativeness can damage the mental health, and trapped us in a lifelong contest where we want "more more more for me me me" and never get enough. Feel satisfied and be at peace with ourselves help us treat others with affection and respect.
• See yourself as others do. Since nearly all human beings travel through life with distorted and often inflated beliefs about how they treat, affect, and are seen by others, we should try contrasting what we believe about ourselves with how others see us. Only after we discloses that we worked hard to change our negative behavior, we will be able to get open comments from the others and change ourselves. Testing how other people see us and making adjustments as a result constantly avoid us to be a jerk.
  
• Face your past. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Facing the facts about the past, even the dark past, can be a powerful way to assess the risk of acting like an a* in the future, and start changing our "a* proneness". Facing the fact that the borne personality, the culture and environment around us have measurable and strong effects to our behavior and starting to change.

To keep our inner a* from getting out, "admitting you're an a* is the first step." We need to be aware of places and people that will turn us into an a*; we need to be aware of how seeing life as a bitter winner-takes-all contest can turn us into an instant jerk, and of how others see us even if it doesn't reflect our true intentions. Try to treat the person right in front of us, right now, in the right way.

In real world, we may trapped in places surrounded or inevitable encountered with mean-spirited colleagues without the luxury of escape immediately. What can we do to survive nasty people and workplaces? Dr. Sutton gives a great analytical guidance from rafting experience: if you fall out of the boat in rapids, don't try to fight it; just rely on your life vest and float with your feet out in front of you. That way, if you are thrown up against rocks, you can use your feet to push off, and you will protect your head and conserve your energy. Similarly, while we are dealing with the nasty workplace, we can use the following strategy to keep our mental and physical health intact:

• Reframing: change how you see things, include avoiding self-blame, hoping for the best but expecting the worst, developing indifference and emotional detachment. It was backed up by psychological theory: if you can't escape a source of stress, changing your mind-set about what is happening to you, or reframing, can help reduce the damage done to you. When people view difficulties as temporary and not their fault, and as something that will not pervade and ruin the rest of their lives, this frame protects their mental and physical health and enhances their resilience. There are no needs to be a victim and think irrationally like "I will never get over this," "I must have done something wrong for this to happen to me," and "everyone hates me."
  
• Hope for the best; expect the worst. It is supported by another psychological theory that happiness reflects the difference between what you expect versus what you actually get in life. Keep the expectation that the jerks will change their behavior low, but continue to believe that we will be fine after the ordeal is over, then we will not be surprised or upset by the nasty behaviors, and even enjoy the pleasant surprise if they do behave nice. Thus having low expectations for an a* boss, focusing on the good things, and being optimistic about how it will all end can help us endure a horrible situation.
• Develop indifference and emotional detachment. Passion, commitment, and identification with an organization is absolutely correct if we are in a good job and are treated with dignity and respect. However, when organization life takes the ugly turn, learn to feel and practice indifference and emotional detachment, caring as little as possible about the jerks around us help us survive.
• Look for small wins: Finding hundreds of tiny actions we could take each day to take a modicum of control over our lives-- the feeling that one is in control--can reduce feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Aiming for small wins is often more effective than aiming for big wins, since the advantage of taking small actions is that they bring about noticeable and typically successful changes. Besides, most big problems can be solved only one small step at a time, progress can be made if all people are taking all small positive steps in the right direction. Another advantage is the opponent may ignore the small wins, while over time, a series of small wins may add up to a big win against the opponent. To survive a nasty workplace that we can't escape completely, start looking for small ways to seize bits of control; try to find little steps we can take to reduce our exposure to their venom; build pockets of safety and support, as the act of helping theirs alone is good for our mental health.
  
• Limit your exposure to face the jerks: to suffer less direct damage, and to gain even tiny bits of control. Meet them as rarely as possible, schedule meetings that will be short such as using no chairs, use information technologies such as email or tele-conference to buffer us from a* are some tactics to limit the exposure. When those tactics in use, pay special attention that conflict, such as disagreements characterized by anger and hostility is more likely and trust is lower when groups do work that is mediated by information technologies than in face-to-face meetings.
  
• Build pockets of safety, support and sanity: by finding escape locations or rooms, joining or forming a secret social network of victims, finding tiny moments with supportive colleagues or customers. Be careful when we use this double-edged sword that gossip sessions sometimes do more harm than good if it focus on creating arenas that produce and spread feelings of despair instead of on ways to reframe events that reduce stress and on means for gaining small wins.
• Fight and win the right small battles: constantly looking out for small but sweet victories that we CAN win, such as gently teach the angry people to calm down rather than escalate their anger, don't play their game, etc. De-escalation, gentle reeducation relentlessly responding to irate people with calmness and respect are relatively low risk strategies; confronting an a* head-on, exacting revenge, putting the a* in his or her place, and outing and humiliating the jerk are riskier strategies especially aggression often provokes more aggression. Call their bluff if even riskier, but may be effective if it works because bullies usually pick on those who will not stand up for themselves. Watching what happens when others get the courage to stand up before we use this strategy reduces the risk.

Using those tactics does not mean that we will bear with nasty workplace forever. Think twice if we really are trapped in and if we can make any changes.

To show it's a book for the real world, Dr. Sutton even brings a chapter talking about if a* is a necessary evil. Given some industry examples to show it's naive to assume that a* always do more harm than good, interesting enough, there are some virtues arise from nastiness:

• Gaining personal power and stature: in a "kiss-up, slap-down world", although angry people are seen as unlikable and cold, strategic use of anger includes outbursts, snarling expressions, staring straight ahead, and strong hand gestures like pointing and jabbing created the impression that the expresser is competent. Ironically, subtle nasty moves like glaring and condescending comments, explicit moves like insults or put-downs, and even physical intimidation can be effective paths to power, and making themselves seem smarter than others.
  
• Intimidating and vanquishing rivals: threats and intimidation can be used for gaining and sustaining a position at the top of the heap.
• Motivating fear-driven performance and perfectionism: although reward is more effective motivator than punishment, people will work to avoid punishment. Effective a* are rarely nasty all the time; their followers are driven by both the sticks of punishment and humiliation and the carrots of hard-won warmth and recognition. "Contrast effect" taking the contrast between being good and bad makes the threating and warmth more magnified.
• Bringing unfair, clueless, and lazy people to their sense by being strategically nasty and scramble so that indifferent and clueless people start to pay attention. Know when to use this strategy and when to stop is crucial.

Dr. Sutton even brings following key lessons how to be an effective a*. Use it at your own risk.

1. Expressing anger, even nastiness, can be an effective method for grabbing and keeping power. Climb to the top of the heap by elbowing your colleagues out of the way through expressing anger rather than sadness or perfecting a general's face like George Patton.
2. Nastiness and intimidation are especially effective for vanquishing competitors. Follow in the footsteps of baseball legend Ty Cobb, and succeed by snarling at, bullying, putting down, threatening, and psyching out your opponents.
3. If you demean your people to motivate them, alternate it with, at least occasional, encouragement and praise. Alternate the carrot and the stick; the contrast between the two makes your wrath seem harsher and your occasional kindnesses seem even sweeter.
4. Create a toxic tandem. If you are nasty, team up with someone who can calm people down, clean up your mess, and extract favors and extra work from people because they are so grateful to the good cop. If you are "too nice", you might "rent a jerk", perhaps a consultant, a manager from a temporary staffing firm, or a lawyer.
5. Being all a*, all the time, won't work. Effective a* have the ability to release their venom at just the right moment and turn it off when just enough destruction or humiliation has been inflicted on their victim.

Even with those "effective way to be an a*", there are many other nice, kind, warm-hearted people can reach to the same success without being nasty. I love the statement from the author:"I wrote it because my life and lives of the people I care about are too short and too precious to spend our days surrounded by jerks." Neither do we.

If you are reading this line, congratulations that you've start the process of self-improvement. I encourage you take a look at Robert Sutton's blog: Work matters, and take a moment to test yourself using ARSE(Asshole Rating Self Exam) to see "Am I a certified a*?" or "When and where do I behave like an a*?".

Quiz by Robert Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule:
Instructions: Indicate whether each statement is a true (T) or false (F) description of your typical feelings and interactions with the people at your workplace.

What Are Your Gut Reactions to People?

___ 1. You feel surrounded by incompetent idiots – and you can’t help letting them know the truth every now and then.
___ 2. You were a nice person until you started working with the current bunch of creeps.
___3. You don’t trust the people around you, and they don’t trust you.
___4. You see your co-workers as competitors.
___5. You believe that one of the best ways to "climb the ladder" is to push other people down or out of the way.
___6. You secretly enjoy watching other people suffer and squirm.
___7. You are often jealous of your colleagues and find it difficult to be genuinely pleased for them when they do well.
___8. You have a small list of close friends and a long list of enemies, and you are equally proud of both lists.

How Do You Treat Other People?

___9. You sometimes just can’t contain your contempt toward the losers and jerks at your workplace.
___10. You find it useful to glare at, insult, and even occasionally holler at some of the idiots at you workplace – otherwise, they never seem to shape up.
___11. You take credit for the accomplishments of your team – why not? They would be nowhere without you.
___12. You enjoy lobbing "innocent" comments into meetings that serve no purpose other than to humiliate or cause discomfort to the person on the receiving end.
___13. You are quick to point out others’ mistakes.
___14. You don’t make mistakes. When something goes wrong, you always find some idiot to blame.
___15. You constantly interrupt people because, after all, what you have to say is more important.
___16. You are constantly buttering up your boss and other powerful people, and you expect the same treatment from your underlings.
___17. Your jokes and teasing can get a bit nasty at times, but you have to admit that they are pretty funny.
___18. You love your immediate team and they love you, but you are all at constant warfare with the rest of the organization. You treat everyone else like crap because, after all, if you’re not on my team, you either don’t matter or are the enemy.

How Do People React to You?

___19. You notice that people seem to avoid eye contact when they talk to you – and they often become very nervous.
___20. You have the feeling that people are always very careful at what they say around you.
___21. People keep responding to your e-mail with hostile reactions, which often escalate into "flame wars" with these jerks.
___22. People seem hesitant to divulge personal information to you.
___23. People seem to stop having fun when you show up.
___24. People always seem to react to your arrival by announcing that they have to leave.

Scoring the test: add up the number of statements that you marked as true. This isn’t a scientifically validated test, but in my opinion:

0-5 true: You don’t sound like a certified asshole, unless you are fooling yourself.

5-15 true: You sound like a borderline certified asshole; perhaps the time has come to start changing your behavior before it gets worse.

15 or more true: You sound like a full-blown certified asshole to me; get help immediately. But please, don’t come to me for help, as I would rather not meet you.

At the moment I writing it, I was rated as 6 true, and most of points come from my gut reaction to people. I guess that my gut feeling is not that elegant, and I am trying to pretend, or just practice myself to be nice? Anyway, that is a good warning signal.