The definitive guide to eliminating the forces that make it harder, more complicated, or downright impossible to get things done in organizations. Find out why Adam Grant says "If every leader took the ideas in this book seriously, the world would be a less miserable, more productive place."

Every organization is plagued by destructive friction. Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful, and leaders who attempt to improve workplace efficiency often make things even worse. Drawing from seven years of hands-on research, The Friction Project by bestselling authors Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao teaches readers how to become “friction fixers.”

Sutton and Rao kick off the book by unpacking how skilled friction fixers think and act like trustees of others’ time. They provide friction forensics to help readers identify where to avert and repair bad organizational friction and where to maintain and inject good friction. Then their help pyramid shows how friction fixers do their work, from reframing friction troubles they can’t fix right now, so they feel less threatening, to designing and repairing organizations. The heart of the book digs into the causes and solutions for five of the most common and damaging friction troubles: oblivious leaders, addition sickness, broken connections, jargon monoxide, and fast and frenzied people and teams.

Sound familiar? Sutton and Rao are here to help. They wrap things up with lessons for leading your own friction project, including linking little things to big things; the power of civility, caring, and love for propelling designs and repairs; and embracing the mess that is an inevitable part of the process (while still trying to clean it up).

The definitive guide to eliminating the forces that make it harder, more complicated, or downright impossible to get things done in organizations. Find out why Adam Grant says "If every leader took the ideas in this book seriously, the world would be a less miserable, more productive place."

Every organization is plagued by destructive friction. Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful, and leaders who attempt to improve workplace efficiency often make things even worse. Drawing from seven years of hands-on research, The Friction Project by bestselling authors Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao teaches readers how to become “friction fixers.”

Sutton and Rao kick off the book by unpacking how skilled friction fixers think and act like trustees of others’ time. They provide friction forensics to help readers identify where to avert and repair bad organizational friction and where to maintain and inject good friction. Then their help pyramid shows how friction fixers do their work, from reframing friction troubles they can’t fix right now, so they feel less threatening, to designing and repairing organizations. The heart of the book digs into the causes and solutions for five of the most common and damaging friction troubles: oblivious leaders, addition sickness, broken connections, jargon monoxide, and fast and frenzied people and teams.

Sound familiar? Sutton and Rao are here to help. They wrap things up with lessons for leading your own friction project, including linking little things to big things; the power of civility, caring, and love for propelling designs and repairs; and embracing the mess that is an inevitable part of the process (while still trying to clean it up).

A breakthrough in management thinking, "weird ideas" can

help every organization achieve a balance between sustaining performance and fostering new ideas. To succeed, you need to be both conventional "and" weird.

Hire misfits

Pursue the impractical

Find happy people and encourage them to fight

Reward failure but punish inaction

Forget your own successes

These and other counterintuitive strategies will unlock ideas you never knew you had.

From the international bestselling expert on dealing with assholes 'With cutting-edge research and real-life examples that are thought-provoking and often hilarious, this is an indispensable resource' Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project 'At last someone has provided clear steps for rejecting, dejecting, deflecting, and deflating the jerks who blight our lives. Better still, that someone is the great Bob Sutton, which ensures that the information is useful, evidence-based, and fun to read' Robert Cialdini, author of Influence and Pre-Suasion 'If only Bob Sutton's book had been available to help me deal with the full complement of 1st-class assholes I've encountered in my 50-year professional life. No names shall be mentioned' Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence Being around assholes, whether at work or elsewhere, can damage performance and affect wellbeing: having one asshole in a team has been shown to reduce performance by 30 to 40%, and research shows that rudeness spreads like a common cold. In The Asshole Survival Guide, Stanford professor Robert Sutton offers practical advice on identifying and tackling any kind of asshole - based on research into groups from uncivil civil servants to French bus drivers, and 8,000 emails that he has received on asshole behaviour. With expertise and humour, he provides a cogent and methodical game-plan to fight back. First, he sets out the asshole audit, to find out what kind of asshole needs dealing with, and asshole detection strategies. Then he reveals field-tested, sometimes surprising techniques, from asshole avoidance and asshole taxes, to mind-tricks and the art of love bombing. Finally, he explains the dangers of asshole blindness - when the problem might be yours truly. Readers will learn how to handle assholes - in the workplace and beyond - once and for all!

The No Asshole Rule was awarded a Quill Award as the Best Business Book of 2007.

When Robert Sutton's "No Asshole Rule" appeared in the Harvard Business Review, readers of this staid publication were amazed at the outpouring of support for this landmark essay. The idea was based on the notion, as adapted in hugely successful companies like Google and SAS, that employees with malicious intents or negative attitudes destroyed any sort of productive and pleasant working environment, and would hinder the entire operation's success.
Now using case studies from these and many more corporations that have had unquestioned success using variations of "The No Asshole Rule," Sutton's book aims to show managers that by hiring mean-spirited employees - regardless of talent - saps energy from everyone who must deal with said new hires. Such insights will come from:
- Seattle law firm Perkins Coie, which instituted a "no jerks allowed" policy, helping them earn a spot on Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list.
- United States Supreme Court Fellow Robert Clayman, who noticed that "assholes" in the highest branch of government turned a blind eye to initiatives that would curb abusive and violent behavior.
- Testimony from a former American Airlines manager about how former CEO Bob Crandall's abusive "tough love" behavior actually caused psychological harm to those he was attempting to motivate.

"This book is a contemporary classic--a shrewd and spirited guide to protecting ourselves from the jerks, bullies, tyrants, and trolls who seek to demean. We desperately need this antidote to the a-holes in our midst."--Daniel H. Pink, best-selling author of To Sell Is Human and Drive How to avoid, outwit, and disarm assholes, from the author of the classic The No Asshole Rule As entertaining as it is useful, The Asshole Survival Guide delivers a cogent and methodical game plan for anybody who feels plagued by assholes. Sutton starts with diagnosis--what kind of asshole problem, exactly, are you dealing with? From there, he provides field-tested, evidence-based, and often surprising strategies for dealing with assholes--avoiding them, outwitting them, disarming them, sending them packing, and developing protective psychological armor. Sutton even teaches readers how to look inward to stifle their own inner jackass. Ultimately, this survival guide is about developing an outlook and personal plan that will help you preserve the sanity in your work life, and rescue all those perfectly good days from being ruined by some jerk. "Thought-provoking and often hilarious . . . An indispensable resource."--Gretchen Rubin, best-selling author of The Happiness Project and Better Than Before "At last . . . clear steps for rejecting, deflecting, and deflating the jerks who blight our lives . . . Useful, evidence-based, and fun to read."--Robert Cialdini, best-selling author of Influence and Pre-Suasion

How do the most resilient companies survive&#8212and even thrive&#8212during a slowdown? If you read nothing else on surviving a tough economy and coming back stronger, read these 15 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help your company persevere through economic challenges and continue to grow while your competitors stumble. This book will inspire you to: Harness your resources to pull through a pandemic Learn the right lessons from previous recessions Minimize pain while cutting costs and managing risk Foster a healthy culture during anxious times Make smart moves to protect your own job Seize the opportunity to innovate and reinvent your business This collection of articles includes "Seize Advantage in a Downturn" by David Rhodes and Daniel Stelter; "How to Survive a Recession and Thrive Afterward: A Research Roundup" by Walter Frick; "How to Bounce Back from Adversity" by Joshua D. Margolis and Paul G. Stoltz; "Rohm and Haas's Former CEO on Pulling off a Sweet Deal in a Down Market" by Raj Gupta; "How to Be a Good Boss in a Bad Economy" by Robert I. Sutton; "Layoffs That Don't Break Your Company" by Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta; "Getting Reorgs Right" by Stephen Heidari-Robinson and Suzanne Heywood; "Reigniting Growth" by Chris Zook and James Allen; "Reinvent Your Business Model Before It's Too Late" by Paul Nunes and Tim Breene; "How to Protect Your Job in a Recession" by Janet Banks and Diane Coutu; "Learning from the Future" by J. Peter Scoblic; "5 Ways to Stimulate Cash Flow in a Downturn" by Eddie Yoon and Christopher Lochhead; "The Case for M&A in a Downturn" by Brian Salsberg; "Include Your Employees in Cost-Cutting Decisions" by Patrick Daoust and Paul Simon; and "Preparing Your Business for a Post-Pandemic World" by Carsten Lund Pedersen and Thomas Ritter. HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to know: leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever-changing business environment.

Now with a new chapter that focuses on what great bosses really do. Dr. Sutton reveals new insights that he's learned since the writing of Good Boss, Bad Boss. Sutton adds revelatory thoughts about such legendary bosses as Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs, A.G. Lafley, and many more, and how you can implement their techniques.
If you are a boss who wants to do great work, what can you do about it? "Good Boss, Bad Boss" is devoted to answering that question. Stanford Professor Robert Sutton weaves together the best psychological and management research with compelling stories and cases to reveal the mindset and moves of the best (and worst) bosses. This book was inspired by the deluge of emails, research, phone calls, and conversations that Dr. Sutton experienced after publishing his blockbuster bestseller "The No Asshole Rule." He realized that most of these stories and studies swirled around a central figure in every workplace: THE BOSS. These heart-breaking, inspiring, and sometimes funny stories taught Sutton that most bosses - and their followers - wanted a lot more than just a jerk-free workplace. They aspired to become (or work for) an all-around great boss, somebody with the skill and grit to inspire superior work, commitment, and dignity among their charges.
As Dr. Sutton digs into the nitty-gritty of what the best (and worst) bosses do, a theme runs throughout "Good Boss, Bad Boss" - which brings together the diverse lessons and is a hallmark of great bosses: "They work doggedly to "stay in tune" with how their followers (and superiors, peers, and customers too) react to what they say and do." The best bosses are acutely aware that their success depends on having the self-awareness to control their moods and moves, to accurately interpret their impact on others, and to make adjustments on the fly that continuously spark effort, dignity, and pride among their people.

In "Scaling Up Excellence," bestselling author Robert Sutton and Stanford colleague Huggy Rao tackle a challenge that determines every organization's success: scaling up farther, faster, and more effectively as a program or an organization creates a larger footprint. Sutton and Rao have devoted much of the last decade to uncovering what it takes to build and uncover pockets of exemplary performance, to help spread them, and to keep recharging organizations with ever better work practices. Drawing on inside accounts and case studies and academic research from a wealth of industries - including start-ups, pharmaceuticals, airlines, retail, financial services, high-tech, education, non-profits, government, and healthcare -- Sutton and Rao identify the key scaling challenges that confront every organization. They tackle the difficult trade-offs that organizations must make between "Buddhism" versus "Catholicism" -- whether to encourage individualized approaches tailored to local needs or to replicate the same practices and customs as an organization or program expands. They reveal how the best leaders and teams develop, spread, and instill the right mindsets in their people -- rather than ruining or watering down the very things that have fueled successful growth in the past. They unpack the principles that help to cascade excellence throughout an organization, as well as show how to eliminate destructive beliefs and behaviors that will hold them back.
" Scaling Up Excellence" is the first major business book devoted to this universal and vexing challenge. It is destined to become the standard bearer in the field.

Scaling up excellence is the key to creating a great organisation. It's how a small enterprise expands without losing focus. It's how a brilliant new idea or plan developed by the few goes on to be adopted by the many. And, in hard times and tough situations, it's how pockets of smart new thinking overcome cultures of indifference or negativity. An organisation that doesn't know how to scale up what is best within it won't achieve long-term success. Bestselling author Robert Sutton and his Stanford colleague Huggy Rao have devoted nearly a decade to uncovering what it takes to create and spread outstanding performance, and in Scaling Up Excellence they share the fruits of their research. Drawing on case studies that range from Silicon Valley enterprises to non-profit organisations, they provide crucial insights into corporate cultures, both good and bad, and offer a road map for establishing and stimulating excellence. In the process, they show how to use 'premortems' when making big decisions about change. They reveal why seven is so often the magic number when it comes to team size. They examine successful and unsuccessful quests for improvement - in hospitals, schools and elsewhere. And they discuss when a single corporate mindset is best ('Catholicism') and when local variation is preferable ('Buddhism'). Scaling Up Excellence is the first management book devoted to what is - or should be - a core priority for every organisation. As such it is destined to become the standard bearer.

Why are there so many gaps between what firms know they should do and what they actually do? Why do so many companies fail to implement the experience and insight they've worked so hard to acquire? The Knowing-Doing Gap is the first book to confront the challenge of turning knowledge about how to improve performance into actions that produce measurable results. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, well-known authors and teachers, identify the causes of the knowing-doing gap and explain how to close it. The message is clear--firms that turn knowledge into action avoid the "smart talk trap." Executives must use plans, analysis, meetings, and presentations to inspire deeds, not as substitutes for action. Companies that act on their knowledge also eliminate fear, abolish destructive internal competition, measure what matters, and promote leaders who understand the work people do in their firms. The authors use examples from dozens of firms that show how some overcome the knowing-doing gap, why others try but fail, and how still others avoid the gap in the first place. The Knowing-Doing Gap is sure to resonate with executives everywhere who struggle daily to make their firms both know and do what they know. It is a refreshingly candid, useful, and realistic guide for improving performance in today's business.