Topic: Robert Sutton

Evidence Employees Are MORE SATISFIED With Their Bosses: Why It May Be So

A new survey by Adecco finds that more than three-quarters of bosses say their relationships with workers has improved in the past three years because of the recession.READ»

Chile's President to Luis Urzua: "You acted like a good boss"

I am quite obsessed with the (now) feel-good story about the trapped miners and their rescue. I was taken with Luis Urzua's leadership, especially during the first couple of weeks when they were trapped with little food and no knowledge of the efforts being made to rescue them. And I love what the President said to Luis.READ»

Sociomateriality: More Academic Jargon Monoxide

We academics do many things to invite deserved ridicule and parody. Perhaps the most vile habit--especially among behavioral scientists like me--is we invent or spread new words that are just absurd abuses of the English language. ...READ»

New Study: Feeling Powerful Leads People to Dehumanize Others

This research shows that when people have power over others, or simply think about a time when they were powerful or role play being powerful, they tend to dehumanize others.READ»

CEOs Love Their iPads

I have done a couple workshops on "Good Boss, Bad Boss" for CEOs in the last few months, and was rather surprised to see that iPad's seem to be the tool of choice for these folks. In June, at the session I did for CEOs, about half of them had iPads. And at the session I did this week, about 75% of them had them. I asked one CEO why he had one, and then a few more jumped in to add comments.READ»

Bad Is Stronger Than Good: Why Good Bosses Eliminate the Negative First

Of all the tunes in the Johnny Mercer songbook, the most generally beloved must be "Accentuate the Positive"--whether your favorite cover is Bing Crosby's, Willie Nelson's, or someone else's. Chances are that you yourself could ...READ»

Being a Good Boss Is Pretty Damn Hard

The job is never done, it is amazingly easy to screw-up, and wielding power over others makes it all even harder because you are being watched so closely. Yet, despite all these hurdles, the best evidence shows that many, if not most, people find their bosses to be competent and compassionate.READ»

Is Your Boss a Certified Brasshole? Take the BRASS Quiz

The higher the score, the worse your boss. If your boss is really bad, if he or she scores "true" on 15 or more items, then you have the misfortune of working for a certified brasshole.READ»

Quiz: Are You Hiring and Breeding Greedy and Selfish Employees?

For those managers worried they are staffing their teams with a bunch of jerks, we have this handy quiz! Answer truthfully and learn if you are a leader of obnoxious superstars.READ»

Are You Working With Energizers or Rotten Apples?

In this excerpt from "GOOD BOSS, BAD BOSS: How to Be the Best ... and Learn from the Worst," Robert Sutton tells us about those employees that elevate an office, and those deadbeats and downers that can destroy a company.READ»

What Are Signs That Your Boss Cares About You?

My post on the power of bosses who take a moment to offer a simple "thanks" to people got me thinking about the more general question of little signs that your boss cares for you.READ»

It Isn't Just a Myth: A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way

Effective bosses work their magic by piling up one small win after another--and realizing that followers are watching their every move. A host of renowned bosses talk about the importance of thanking people, about the power of this small gesture and how failure to express appreciation to people who are working their tails off is a sign of disrespect.READ»

How to Tell When Your Boss Is Lying: Cool New Study

There's a fascinating study by two researchers over at the Stanford Business School based on transcripts of American CEOs and CFOs statements during 30,000 quarterly earnings conference calls between 2003 and 2007. They found some interesting patterns--based on research on detecting lies--that predicted apparent deception by the CEOs and CFOs.READ»

My Favorite Books for Bosses

In thinking about the process of writing "Good Boss, Bad Boss", and more broadly, about the set of books that I believe every boss should read, I came up with a list of my favorites.READ»

Management, Leadership, and Mark Hurd: Why Top Teams Are More Important Than Individual CEOs

A fascinating editorial by Joe Nocera in "The New York Times" about the Mark Hurd story makes the argument that perhaps HP wanted to get rid of Hurd for other reasons, and used sex/misuse of funds scandal as an excuse.READ»

Why Bosses Ought to Be More Interested in What Is True Than What Is New

Perhaps the thing I admire most about A.G. Lafley, who recently stepped down after running Procter & Gamble for a decade, is that, in contrast to so many other CEOs, he doesn't pretend for a second that he discovered a new way to manage, or that his success resulted from any mysterious and complicated methods.READ»

Why BP's New CEO Is Lucky -- and the BP Board Is Shrewd

Earlier in the week, I was interviewed by Michael Krasny at KQED (our local public radio station) about BP's new CEO Robert Dudley and the more general question of CEO accountability. You can listen to the interview here if you like. ...READ»

Being Busy Makes Us Happier, but Our Instinct Is to Do Nothing

BPS Research does it again. Check-out this study. The upshot: Forced to wait for fifteen minutes at the airport luggage carousel leaves many of us miserable and irritated. Yet if we'd spent the same waiting time walking to the ...READ»

Power Players and Profanity: Talking About Talking Dirty

General Patton was once quoted as saying, "When I want it to stick, I give it to them loud and dirty." That's consistent with the idea that words are just tools in an executive toolbox.READ»

Here’s Lookin’ at You, Boss

In Good Boss, Bad Times, in May's McKinsey Quarterly, Robert Sutton from Stanford’s Graduate School of Engineering provides the recipe for bosses that have to deliver the bad news of layoffs and pay cuts, and face anxious ...READ»

Summer Reading: Why More People Are Listening to Books

Fast Interview: In this Q&A, Audible founder and CEO Donald Katz talks about what's popular this summer, the business of the spoken word, how life has changed since Amazon acquired his company, and why the "no asshole rule" is a vital corporate principle.READ»

• The Best Business Books of 2007

Fast Company's Best of 2007: Innovators, Books, and Trends

Fast Company's Most Innovative Business People of 2007 From the pages of Fast Company and FastCompany.com, we examine the creativity and innovation of great minds elevating business, such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Timothy ...READ»

Fast Company Library

Books previously featured in Fast CompanyREAD»

25 Rules for Leaders

Fast Company's recent RealTime San Diego generated a remarkable collection of ideas, tools, and inspirational advice. Here are 25 of the smartest insights that we took away from the event.READ»

25 Rules for Leaders

Fast Company's recent RealTime San Diego generated a remarkable collection of ideas, tools, and inspirational advice. Here are 25 of the smartest insights that we took away from the event.READ»