Do you know when you are at the airport with some time to kill, and you go to a bookstore? Do you know that revolving shelf with business-oriented books suggesting how you will have a great career if you read them, yes, the one just near the other shelf with books on mindfulness, homoeopathy and wonder diets? Well, bear with me a moment, and I tell you about when I dared to buy one of those books (no, not on diets, silly!).
In these days, we are recruiting students, and I had the occasion to host several candidates in the labs for a non-formal chat. Unplanned but unavoidably, I find myself discussing how I have a culture of team-work and how I would not tolerate any behaviour that would undermine a good work environment, team-oriented. As rewards in academic biomedical research are rather individualistic (no one is rewarded for being a good team player, sadly), I also have to reassure people that when papers are published, I prefer to have few good papers with several people sharing authorships rather than having one person with a paper and around them… devastation. I try to discourage self-centred disruptive personalities, however bright, to work with me.
Why do I do that? I do that because the cost of handling the consequences of working with ‘assholes’ (yes, coming to that…) is far superior to the advantage of hiring sociopathic alpha females and males even when they fully deliver on the set goals, perhaps seemingly faster and effectively.
I do have witnessed the effect of various sort of bullying in the work environment, most times as a bystander. Not frequently, but I had the opportunity to see how dramatic can be the fall-out of such events on the psychology of those involved and how these behaviours can undermine efficiency and productivity of individuals, and their future careers*.
So, back to the airport. A couple of times, before a long trip and having exhausted all other possibilities, I dwelled in front of business books. A scientist can learn important things from business, but choosing a book that is not the equivalent of drinking-urine-cures-all-diseases or a specialist treaty on the economy is not trivial. I think I eventually landed on ‘the no asshole rule’ by Robert Sutton (I promise I’ll review this bit at the earliest convenience) and I try to adhere to this rule as much as I can!
First of all, I do agree with the ‘asshole’ definition, because broader than that of a ‘bully’. Sometimes people may not be recognised as a bully, but they are clearly disruptive assholes. Other times, people may seem bullies, but they are actually good people trying to foster discussion. The no asshole rules should be institutionalized so to make sure that disruptive behaviour is not rewarded, but first discouraged and eventually punished.
In the absence of a consensus on the ‘no asshole rule’, I invite you to adhere to this principle, or any other more or less colourful flagship rule, aimed to create and support good, efficient and productive work environments.
* I am rather happy about the team I lead, the group within which I work and the Department where I work. Now and then, here or elsewhere, however, I did see wrong behaviours. But, most importantly, even when we create good environments, we are constantly interacting with others (peers, journals, founders, etcetera). There are far too many that do consider science a tough business and therefore accept various shades of bullying as the acceptable norm. I’ll speak about this on other occasions, but here I wished to say just something about recruiting.
