By Rolf Crocker

The Book Report - November, 2010

A little over three years ago, I reviewed a book called "The No A**hole Rule," by Stanford Professor Dr. Robert Sutton.  That book dealt with jerks and bullies in the workplace and what to do about them.   The ongoing barrage of e-mails three years after that book was published caused Dr. Sutton to revisit the subject with the thought of a sequel.  When reviewing the data, he discovered that the vast majority of information, both empirical and anecdotal, involved a Boss - someone to whom the person writing directly reported.  This will be the third book by Dr. Sutton I have reviewed ("The No A**hole Rule" in August, '07 and "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-truths and Total Nonsense" in November, '08, both in the Book Report Archives on the Adamen-inc.com website).  This places Dr. Sutton on my list of 'go-to' authors who shoot straight and tell it like it is in a way that is both educational and practical.

Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best…and Learn from the Worst by Robert I, Sutton, PhD (©2010 Business Plus).  (Click here for the book price on amazon.com.) As I mentioned above, this book was borne out of a continued stream of letters, e-mails and personal interactions after Dr. Sutton's previous book.  Upon discovering that most of these stories centered around the Boss (a term used with intent - instead of "Manager" or "Supervisor," "Boss" implies a direct report/interactive relationship), Sutton felt that, rather than an actual sequel, this would take the data (and the stories) and put them in a context to which everyone can relate - and learn.  The primary focus is on what the best bosses do, with chapters titled "Take Control," "Strive to Be Wise," "Link Talk and Action" and "Don't Shirk the Dirty Work."  Each chapter is sprinkled with plenty of supporting scientific studies and a whole lot of what not to do.  This falls in line with this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt in the book, "Learn from the mistakes of others.  You can't live long enough to make them all yourself."

I always look for at least three (3) 'takeaways' - concepts or practical advice I can take and apply immediately:  My three takeaways from "Good Boss, Bad Boss" are as follows:

1) Balancing profitability with humanity.  In the book, Sutton shares a diagram from David Kelley, chairman and founder of IDEO.  The diagram is like a teeter-totter with a heart on one end, a dollar sign on the other and the fulcrum in the middle.  The point being A) without profitability, we cannot run a successful business and keep people gainfully employed and B) without humanity, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to provide dignity and 'joy in the journey' that keeps good people with us and translates to superior products and services for our clients.

2) The 5 to 1 Rule - It takes five (5) positive experiences to outweigh one (1) negative experience.  So, as a rule, negative experiences have five times the impact of positive experiences.  Therefore, the need to minimize the negatives is obvious, not only from a 'joy in the journey' workplace perspective, but because of the 5 to 1 ratio, we'll bury ourselves in the negative to a point of fatal toxicity in the workplace.

3) Avoid people (deadbeats, downers and a**holes) who suck your energy.  It has been proven that people who are time/energy suckers bring down workplace performance 30 - 40%.  I found this particularly interesting, as my wife and I have something we call "The Friend Test.'  This test is applied every time we leave a social gathering of some sort and is this:  Do we feel better when we leave than when we came, or at least not worse?  This helps us vet future social opportunities and gives us some control over those situations we subject ourselves to.  Not that we can always choose, as we are all sometimes called upon to be in less-than-ideal situations.  But, after some hard-learned lessons, we strive to make a conscious choice of not continually subjecting ourselves to gatherings where we leave feeling worse than when we came.  Life is way too short for that.

This book was a download to my Amazon Kindle (no promotional consideration given).  The upside?  Easy to download, easy to read and easy to carry around.  The downside?  While you can highlight and bookmark in the Kindle, you can't make margin notes nor put your 'sticky note' in the page to get back to it quickly.  However, the downside is very minor - I'm totally enjoying my Kindle experience!  Whether it's the physical book, the e-book or the audio book, just get the book.  Another 'must read' from Bob Sutton.  Enjoy!  5 Stars

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