When the A**holes Begin to Win, the Culture Begins to Lose

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Brutal Ineffectiveness is Bad for Everyone

Brutal Ineffectiveness is what you get when, in addition to management systems that unconsciously reward conformity, the systems optimize for coercion rather than collaboration, producing more outright bullying and harassment.

The Weinstein Company was an example of Brutal Ineffectiveness. So is Elon Musk’s Twitter/X, in a different way. The board of Uber made the determination that Travis Kalanick’s behavior was both brutal and ineffective and removed him. The Jim Crow South, apartheid South Africa, and Putin’s Russia are other examples of Brutal Ineffectiveness.

Brutal Ineffectiveness is worst soonest for the people harmed, but in the end, it’s bad for everyone. If we take the long view, everyone has a practical interest in changing these systems, even the people who benefit from them in the short term.

Sometimes Brutal Ineffectiveness springs from an evil leader, but it often springs from management systems that fail to hold people accountable for bad behavior or that even reward bad behavior. The assholes begin to win, and the culture begins to lose.

Power dynamics, competition, poorly designed management systems, and office politics can create systemic injustice in ways that may be subtle and insidious at the outset but over time become corrosive, and often even criminal.

And, really, who cares about the leader’s intentions? We should demand the same good results from leaders who create management systems as we do from CEOs when it comes to profitability. If the systems reflect and reinforce the injustice in our society, they need to be changed. If a leader can’t figure out how to change the system, the leader must go.

The examples of Brutal Ineffectiveness don’t have to be as dramatic as the Weinstein Company or as bloody as Stalinism.

Think about a time in your life when leaders demanded conformity and therefore hired homogeneous teams, passing over the most skilled people for promotion, touting their meritocracy while actually creating a mediocracy. And there were no consequences for bullying or harassment, so these behaviors were common, making it difficult for many to do their best work. A vicious cycle ensues.

It’s hard to understand how or why we let things get so bad that we land in Brutal Ineffectiveness. Considering discrete problems like bias, prejudice, bullying, discrimination, harassment, and physical violations can’t explain it.?

To understand, we need to consider the dynamics between these attitudes and behaviors, and the vicious cycles such dynamics can set in place. How does bias lead to discrimination? To harassment? To physical violations? And are there times when a vicious cycle ensues?

For example, a man believes women don’t handle stress well, so he discriminates against women, offering them lower-paying jobs. Having less power in the office, a woman is more vulnerable to being sexually harassed. Not surprisingly, she seems stressed, reinforcing his bias.

What can we do to disrupt these dynamics and set in place a virtuous cycle that leads to systemic justice, instead of a vicious cycle that creates systemic injustice? What moves us away from collaboration and respect. Partly it’s the discrete attitudes and behaviors already discussed. But it’s also the dynamics between them.

Read chapters 7 and 8 of Radical Respect (31% off on Amazon right now!) to learn more about how leaders can use checks and balances and measure what matters to make their management systems fairer and more successful at every stage of the employee life.

Radical Respect is a weekly newsletter I am publishing on LinkedIn to highlight?some of the things that get in the way of creating a collaborative, respectful working environment. A healthy organization is not merely an absence of unpleasant symptoms. Creating a just working environment is about eliminating bad behavior and reinforcing collaborative, respectful behavior. Each week I'll offer tips on how to do that so you can create a workplace where everyone feels supported and respected. Learn more in my new book Radical Respect , available wherever books are sold! You can also follow Radical Candor? and the Radical Candor Podcast more tips about building better relationships at work.