Peter Klein over at Organizations and Markets wonders aloud:

It’s easy to come up with examples of organizations run by jerks that failed, but do we have systematic empirical evidence that nice-guy firms finish first? Do the marginal costs of costs of placing rude, self-centered people in management positions outweigh the marginal benefits?

It is likely that Peter is already familiar with Robert Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule. If he isn’t, either 1. he’s forgotten what it is like to be a hazed and harassed junior member of the faculty, or 2. he hasn’t read it. In my experience, “assholes” (a technical term from Sutton’s text, which generally means what you think it means) are capable of slowing down a department or organization (by blocking forward progress on all manner of issues) and are happy to use their position to abuse or otherwise demean anyone who they view as less than themselves.

There is no value in an institution to people like this. His example of a “self-described Law school asshole,” drawn from Mendelsohn’s own reflection (PDF link) does not match Sutton’s definition:

University of Pennsylvania 3L Steve Mendelsohn (writing in 1990) tells his fellow students: “You know who we are. We’re the ones who always have our hands up in class volunteering to answer the professor’s questions, or ready to ask one of our own at seemingly any and every opportunity. Everytime you hear one of our names called, you groan and turn to the person next to you and slowly shake your head from side to side.”

This is not an asshole. This is an engaged student. Being passionate and engaged in ones subject of study is exactly what I want my students to do. I don’t want passive consumers of information in my classroom—which, it sounds like, is what the culture of law schools encourages. I want critical questions, I want debate, I want a room full of critical thinkers who use the time we have together in the classroom for more than consuming information that I pass on to them. When I want to do that, I create a video and point my students at it. It’s far more effective than giving lectures over and over.

People who are driven, who know there is a better way, and who work hard to achieve that even when it means shaking up the status quo—those people are not assholes. They’re innovators. Catalysts. Activists. They’re the people who make things happen in this world. The problem is, for someone who is passive, and just wants to leave well enough alone, the innovator is an asshole.

In short, I respectfully disagree with Klein’s terminology. Only in an industrial-age classroom, where the fount of all knowledge lives at the front, dictating from yellowing notes written before the beard was greying… only there can an engaged and passionate student be labeled an “asshole.”

Update, slightly later: Peter’s question is about organizations, not classrooms. I got distracted by his example. I doubt that “productivity,” “creativity,” or any other way of measuring the value of an employee necessarily correlates with whether they treat their colleagues poorly. (Highly productive people want to see others be the same; only assholes want to make sure that they are recognized as the local expert/value proposition within an organization.) I would be interested in seeing any research that demonstrates that middle managers or those throughout an organization who abuse their power, and therefore their colleagues (passively or actively), add substantial value to the workplace.

All boats rise with the tide. If my colleague is excellent, it makes my workplace better and my institution more successful, and I have a better chance of demonstrating my own excellence as well. Only those insecure in their person need to put others down or hold them back in order to define who they are.