The Compassionate Instinct

There are signs that Dutton and her colleagues’ ideas are gaining wider recognition, including the publication of POS scholarly work in journals aimed at business managers and the inclusion of a chapter on compassion in two recent management textbooks. When a POS article appeared in the Harvard Business Review in January 2005, over 200 individuals from businesses, schools, and hospitals called in to participate in an online conference with the authors, arranged by the magazine. Dutton says none of this would have happened even a few years ago.

“It’s exciting to see how interested people are in our work, how it energizes them,” she said. “They want to move toward more humane interactions at work, more compassionate responding. This is deeply motivating to me and my colleagues.”

ARE YOU A JERK AT WORK?

Robert I. Sutton

WHEN I ARRIVED at Stanford University as a 29-year-old researcher, I was an inexperienced, ineffective, and extremely nervous teacher. I got poor teaching evaluations in my first year on the job, and I deserved them. I worked to become more effective in the classroom and was delighted to win the best-teacher award in my department (by student vote) at the graduation ceremony at the end of my third year.

But my delight evaporated when a more senior colleague ran up to me immediately after the ceremony, gave me a big hug, and whispered in my ear in a condescending tone (while sporting a broad smile for public consumption), “Well, Bob, now that you’ve satisfied the babies here on campus, perhaps you can settle down and do some real work.” She secretly and expertly extracted every ounce of joy I had been experiencing.

When I encounter a mean-spirited person like this, the first thing I think is, “Wow, what an asshole!”

I bet you do, too. You might call such people bullies, creeps, jerks, weasels, tormentors, tyrants, serial slammers, despots, or unconstrained egomaniacs, but for me at least, “asshole” best captures the fear and loathing that I have for these nasty people. And most of us, unfortunately, have to deal with assholes in our workplaces at one time or another.

Who deserves to be branded an asshole? I like to use two tests before passing judgment. First, after talking to the alleged asshole, do you feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled? In general, do you feel worse about yourself? Second, does the alleged asshole aim his or her venom at people who are less powerful rather than at those people who are more powerful?

I can assure you that after that interaction with my colleague—which lasted less than a minute—I felt worse about myself. I went from being the happiest I’d ever been about my work performance to worrying that my teaching award would be taken as a sign that I wasn’t serious enough about research (the main standard used for evaluating Stanford professors).

My colleague’s behavior also passes the second test because when the episode occurred, this person was further up the ladder than I was. I learned a lot about her from the way she treated one of her subordinates—in this case, me.

I believe the best test of a person’s character is how he or she treats those with less power. The brief nasty stares, the teasing and jokes that are really camouflaged public shaming and insults, the exclusion from minor and major gatherings—they’re all exercises of power, and they don’t just hurt for a moment. They have cumulative effects on our mental health and our commitment to our bosses, peers, and organizations.

Georgia State University professor Bennett Tepper’s research on abusive supervision, for example, examined a cross section of 712 adults in a midwestern city who worked in the private, nonprofit, and public sectors. He found that many of these employees had bosses who used ridicule, put-downs, the silent treatment, and insults. These demeaning acts drove people to quit their jobs at higher rates and sapped the effectiveness of those who remained. A six-month follow-up found that those still trapped in their jobs suffered from less work and life satisfaction, reduced commitment to employers, and heightened depression, anxiety, and burnout. Similar findings have been uncovered in dozens of other studies. They all suggest that assholes can severely undermine an organization’s productivity.