It's Petty Tyrant Week: On My Friction Podcast and Newsletter

Petty tyrants have always been among my least favorite workplace assholes. I despise those Rule Nazis and lords of small domains who reject your paperwork over and over for picky reasons, make you wait and wait for no logical reason, and won't let their boss see you now (even though the boss actually want to see you now). There is good evidence that, when people have a bit of power but don't feel they get the respect they deserve, they take it out on clients, students, colleagues, and others they are supposed to help -- creating needless friction and frustration, and for good measure, treating others with disdain and disrespect.

It's petty tyrant week in my little world. I have spent the last few months working with the ecorner team at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program to produce the "Friction Podcast" (that's our logo). We are interested in the causes and cures for dysfunctional organizational friction, frustration, and fatigue. On this week's new episode our producer Rachel Julkowski interviews me about "The Curse of Petty Tyrants and Other Workplace Assholes." We had a lot of fun talking and laughing about the causes and cures for jerks who make easy things hard to do and treat others like dirt. You can listen here or subscribe on iTunes.

Petty tyrants are also discussed in The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt, which goes on sale September 12th. To provide a preview of the book, and give background for this week's podcast, my next monthly newsletter contains an edited excerpt from the book about conditions that create this very special and very frustrating jerks and how to deal with them. You can subscribe to my newsletter here; the July issue ships tomorrow. In addition to this main story on petty tyrants, other topics in the newsletter include how to pull the plug with candor and class, research on "pop-up" or "flash" organizations, theory and research on the pros and cons of drinking at work, the development of my forthcoming Bully Buster exam (which assess your knowledge about dealing with assholes), and discussion of forthcoming cool cartoons that are based on The Asshole Survival Guide. These new cartoons are by David Willson, who did some amazing ones based on The No Asshole Rule about 10 years ago, including the "rabbits" one above.

In addition, perhaps next week, I will post that excerpt from The Asshole Survival Guide about petty tyrants here on LinkedIn. Please let me know what you think of the Friction podcast and my monthly newsletter-- what you like and what you would like to see that is new or different.

I am a Stanford Professor who studies and writes about leadership, organizational change, and navigating organizational life. Check out my new"All Things Bob Sutton" site, which includes a place to sign up for a free monthly newsletter, videos, and links to my other work. Follow me on Twitter@work_matters, and see my other posts on LinkedIn. My most recent book (with Huggy Rao) is Scaling Up Excellence. My next book, The Asshole Survival Guide: How To Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt, will be published in Fall of 2017.