Building the Civilized Workplace

May, 2007 from The McKinsey Quarterly, a publication of McKinsey & Company – “Nasty people don't just make others feel miserable; they create economic problems for their companies….”

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – In this article author Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, talks about the importance of avoiding having, and if necessary rooting out, any bullies and jerks in the workplace.

According to Sutton, research shows that these undesirable employees ‘not only hinder recruiting and retention, but also raise levels of client churn, damage reputations, and diminish the confidence of investors’.

In our experience, the most successful companies are those whose culture is built upon a zero-tolerance’ towards abuse or nastiness in the workplace from anyone at anytime. Furthermore, best-of-breed companies we’ve seen are those that extend this ‘no-jerks’ policy to customers, suppliers and anyone else who interacts with its employees.

For as the author points out, and as we’ve seen over and over again, ‘persistent nastiness that is left unchecked can create a culture of contempt infecting everyone it touches’.