Quotes from Robert I. Sutton

The officer was also proud of the thick skin he developed during his over twenty years in the U.S. Marines and National Guard—an admirable quality in a soldier or police officer, but it proved to be a double-edged sword

Slater was so fed up that he got on the microphone and cussed out passengers, grabbed two beers, and then activated and slid down the emergency escape slide.

Better yet, combine your warmth and flattery with requests that they do a small favor or two FOR YOU. This strategy is akin to what author David McRaney calls "the Benjamin Franklin effect," which is based on experiments that show we come to like people that we do nice things for and to dislike people that we treat unkindly.

To obtain high marks in school often requires a high degree of conformity to conventional ways of looking at the world and people."24

A Stanford graduate student told me that his wife and kids resisted going to church on Sundays because they dreaded encounters with a family of braggarts and bullies so much. Then his family switched to an earlier service that the despised family never attended: the student's wife and kids not only stopped resisting and complaining about going to church; everyone came back from church in far better moods. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Refusal to accept blame, pointing fingers at others, and wimpy language can help bosses keep their jobs for a while, but it usually backfires in the long run. No matter what is said, bosses are seen as responsible for what their people do.

He observed himself performing an act of kindness toward Franklin, which he explained to himself by constructing the most plausible story—that he did so willfully, because he liked Franklin after all.

smart people who get bad grades are listening to their inner voice, doing what they believe is interesting and right.

In school, we are all taught to stay in our seats until we are dismissed, which enables teachers to maintain discipline and create a more orderly classroom. But these lessons in conformity can hurt us later in life. Much as you look for the fire exits in a theater or hotel, it is wise to always keep looking for socially acceptable exit options.

Researchers MeowLan Evelyn Chan and Daniel McAllister contend that when employees distrust others too much and are flooded with fear and anxiety, they become excessively vigilant, focus on just the bad and tune out the good, and see evil motives in the most innocent actions.

The common denominator among all these purveyors of insults, disrespect, and hate is a lack of eye contact with their targets—which seems to be the main reason that online assholes feel so unfettered by the empathy, guilt, and plain old civility that might stop or slow their wrath during face-to-face interactions.

variance in people, knowledge, activities, and organizational structures is crucial to creativity and innovation.

More than 20% of the victims interviewed by Pew did confront their abusers and most reported that doing so improved the situation.

the key to self-awareness isn't found inside our heads; it's in discovering and accepting how others see us—even when it hurts.

part of what makes for a skilled consultant, teacher, barista, or other service employee is the ability to deal with jerks in ways that calm them, protect your dignity and sanity, and still keep the money rolling in.

on outside the meeting and agree on a steward to be responsible for it. With frequent, crisp stand-up meetings, there can never be the excuse that the opportunity to communicate was not there. We insist that bad news travels just as fast

Grant prefers to say nice things about people. But he argues that negative—and well-founded—gossip is often justified: "I feel that I have a social responsibility to speak candidly. If I don't warn people about the most manipulative and Machiavellian marauders in their midst, I'm leaving them vulnerable to attack.

The women—who kept careful tallies—informed the CEO he had interrupted each of them at least six times but never interrupted the four male executive vice presidents. Stunned and embarrassed, the CEO begged for forgiveness, asked them to keep tracking his interruptions, and vowed to halt his sexist ways.

Can you start with a small commitment rather than a big one? A small project for a client or perhaps an internship or trial period? That way, you can learn if there is an asshole problem before you sign up for the long term.

After a while, he and others tried a different approach, where they were out in the open and had more casual exchanges and there were fewer barriers. Tim emphasized that his job was "to get to know the people and how they work" and, he said, "I can't learn much sitting in a private office.

And some of the worst add an extra twist: they take perverse pleasure in insisting that project managers like her commit to timetables and budgets that are impossible to meet—and then berate and bad-mouth them when the project begins to fail, even when the project manager had warned them that their goals were impossible to achieve (and the client insisted on charging forward despite the expert advice).

I find that if you take the opportunity to throw out a subtle reminder of the core values we are required to adhere to, the a**hole quickly backs up, swallows the words, and rethinks the tactic.

Mennonite pastor Arthur Paul Boers offers similar advice in his book Never Call Them Jerks. Boers suggests that when parishioners are hostile and selfish, labeling them as jerks is insulting and detracts from a constructive focus on repairing relationships and changing behavior.

to find a few ideas that work, you need to try a lot that don't.