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  • Published: 7 September 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241980187
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 168

The Asshole Survival Guide

How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt





From the bestselling expert: an entertaining and evidence-based guide to dealing with horrible people

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. And social media has only given rise to further incivility -- 40% of people have experienced harassment online.

But 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.

  • Published: 7 September 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241980187
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 168

About the author

Robert I. Sutton

Robert I. Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering in the Stanford Engineering School.He is co-founder of the Center for Work, Technology and Organization, which he co-directed from 1996 to 2006.Sutton is also co-founder of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and the new Hasso Planter Institute of Design, a multi-disciplinary program at Stanford that teaches and spreads “design thinking.”He is an IDEO Fellow, member of the Institute for the Future’s Board Trustees, and a Professor of Organizational Behavior, by courtesy, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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Praise for The Asshole Survival Guide

'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, deflecting, and deflating the jerks who blight our lives'

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