366. Dissecting Workplace Friction: A Deep Dive feat. Robert Sutton

Dec 11, 2023

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Why does there seem to be such a struggle to get things done in some organizations? How can you unlock the mystery behind the persistence of bad management practices? What is the problem of inaction, and how are workplaces impacted by the human tendency to add rather than subtract?

Robert Sutton is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the author and co-author of several books, including his latest book The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt, and his upcoming book The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder.

Bob and Greg discuss practical examples of organizational friction, examining the story of Larry Page and Google, observing the transformative leadership of Satya Nadella at Microsoft, and even sharing his personal triumphs and trials. Greg questions the place of assholes in positions of power and the impact they have on organizations. Bob talks about time management and its crucial role in the daily operations of organizations, sharing stories from companies that have triumphed and those who stumbled.

They also discuss the potential of AI and textual analysis in identifying bottlenecks within a company. Tune in, learn, and transform your workplace.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

What are the factors that contribute to an individual being considered a workplace jerk?

21:58: So, what are some of the characteristics that lead people to turn into jerks? One is being in a hurry. The pressure to rush, rush, rush, even when it doesn't make any sense in many organizations, has increased, or at least stayed the same. Another one is sleep deprivation. I mean, if people are exhausted, they're tired. It's not like those things have gone away. And then the other thing that happens, in the other problem with assholeness is, and these are all things that can be produced in the lab easily, and it’s very contagious. Negative behaviors are more contagious than positive behaviors. And, by the way, when there are power differences in organizations, when people are powerful, objectively powerful, or feel powerful, they focus more on their own needs. They focus less on the needs of others, and they act like the rules don't apply to them.

Does being a jerk help you get ahead?

13:28: On the whole, we can have some arguments about when being a jerk helps you get ahead. And it depends on the game: old Microsoft versus new Microsoft. I think that the jerks get ahead in the old system, but not in the new system. But when you're working for somebody like that, there's just no evidence that it helps the underlings or yelling at customers, except in some, maybe very rare, situations.

Generalists vs. specialists

51:43: Everybody doesn't have to be a generalist. You just need enough generalists to glue the thing together. And actually, great specialists are absolutely fabulous, as long as there's somebody there who understands how the system fits together. So I'm not completely opposed to specialists who don't care about anybody else. I just want them to be in a system that glues their behavior together.

Does gossip have a function in an organization?

55:11: Gossip actually has a function in an organization, and the function is that it brings out information that is not captured by formal systems and being in touch as a leader with the gossipers. It's Scuttlebutt. And, so one of the CEOs I know said what she used to always do—that she did somebody who did very well getting ahead in situations where women didn't always get ahead—was try to make friends with the people who were known gossips and complainers. She said it for two reasons. One, they tend to give you the negative information first, and the second one was a little bit more, maybe insidious, she said. Well, if you could give that person a different perspective that everything didn't suck that sometimes you could actually even change the gossip in the system.

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