
Why It Pays to Be a Jerk - cft
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/why-it-pays-to-be-a-jerk/392066/?single_page=true
======
Aqwis
>Measuring narcissism was tricky, Hambrick said. Self-reporting was not
exactly an option, so he chose a set of indirect measures: the prominence of
each CEO’s picture in the company’s annual report; the size of the CEO’s
paycheck compared with that of the next-highest-paid person in the company;
the frequency with which the CEO’s name appeared in company press releases.
Lastly, he looked at the CEO’s use of pronouns in press interviews, comparing
the frequency of the first-person plural with that of the first-person
singular. Then he rolled all the results into a single narcissism indicator.

It must be nice to be able to just make up and use a method for identifying
"narcissists" without having to test whether the people you're identifying as
narcissists are, in fact, narcissists. In my opinion, if this is how you do
research you can hardly call what you do science.

~~~
parennoob
True, and the "first person singular = narcissism" equation that this makes
struck me as strongly inappropriate. With this metric, a CEO who takes
personal responsibility (e.g. "I instructed the finance department to do X,
and I'm sorry about that but it is a necessity for reasons Y and Z") is going
to be identified as a narcissist compared to the one who hides behind words
weasel words like ("We architected and rolled out a brand new program, which
we hope you will like very much (not)").

If that is your measure of narcissism, then it's fine -- but it should
probably be called something else. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the first
CEO in the above example was more successful than the second.

~~~
WalterSear
As a former psychology researcher, I would hazard, that like any decent,
published, study, they validated their measurements before using them.
Minutiae like this is often missed in the press description.

~~~
philh
If you (or anyone) happens to have journal access and feel like checking, this
seems to be the paper:
[http://asq.sagepub.com/content/52/3/351.abstract](http://asq.sagepub.com/content/52/3/351.abstract)

It's not mentioned in the abstract either, but I don't know whether we'd
expect it to be.

~~~
WalterSear
It's not usually mentioned there. The length of the abstract is usually
limited by the publishing journal - it can often be as little as 100-150
words.

------
quietplatypus
Atlantic article has a bunch of unexamined underlying assumptions that are
then presented as some false dichotomy, in order to inspire fear and self-
loathing in the masses? Color me unsurprised.

There are times to be nice and times to be a jerk. That's it. You have to
listen to your instincts, an activity assiduously avoided by the Atlantic
demographic.

I've noticed that as I've spent time on both sides of being nice and being
mean, it's easier to turn one or the other on or off depending on the
situation. Eventually, I stopped being nice (or even mean) out of obligation.
I've gotten a lot happier as a result. Yes, it's also a thing to cave into
being a jerk out of social pressure.

Which is when we get to the unexamined foundation of this article: that we
have to be nice or mean because it will "pay off" or help our position in
society. This is just a bunch of bullshit because what matters isn't your
personality, it's what you contributed to the world. If that means you need to
kick some ass in order for your contribution to be seen, then that's ok. On
the other hand if that means you need to be super friendly and nice, that's
also ok. Skipping the pretension and being real is what matters, and in a
large number of cases that pays off the best anyway!

~~~
mistermann
> There are times to be nice and times to be a jerk. That's it. You have to
> listen to your instincts, an activity assiduously avoided by the Atlantic
> demographic.

To me it sounds like you are describing how a society of _reasonable_ people
_should_ act. That we don't live in such a society is why articles like this
are useful - for reasonable people to deal with these others, who have often
risen to positions of power, we must first understand them.

Speaking for myself and the current environment I'm working in, I found the
article very interesting and I would _very_ much like to know more on the
subject.

------
eranation
I think that this is a context of which country, era and industry you are in.
If you are a general in the middle ages, or a wall street stock broker in the
50s, or a gangster / mafia leader in the 30s, then being a Jerk is kind of a
must have to move forward. If you are a software engineer at a SF startup, not
so much. Why people try to find "global truths" when it's clear that right and
wrong are very, very subjective.

Being nice in highschool only works if you are the most attractive / popular
person, (so does being a jerk). If you are not so attractive / smart / good in
sports, then being a Jerk or being nice won't really help you... When you are
an adult, being a jerk usually never pays, unless you are surrounded by jerks
and you want to fit in.

Also there is a difference between respecting people and liking people.

~~~
gutnor
> When you are an adult, being a jerk usually never pays, unless you are
> surrounded by jerks and you want to fit in.

Definitively not the experience I have at working in large companies.

It is a coincidence because I have had that very same discussion with
colleagues last week and we collected the stories.

In our experience being a jerk always pays off if you have higher aspiration
than staying in your team (i.e. you want to be promoted or move to a different
team)

Our conclusion is that big companies don't fire somebody without bullet proof
objective reasons and since most employees at all level are non
confrontational, the jerk are never called on their bullshit. So you get the
jerk accusing everybody of murder and nobody calling him on it, which is the
end of any HR move to fire him. The other option is to move them around until
they end up in the position where they are less toxic.

So we all ended up with variation of stories like "The boss told us he knew
the guy was a jerk, and not to worry about his attempt to sink the team:
nobody is taking him seriously" that eventually conclude with the guy moving
to be somebody else problem until he eventually get what he wanted (
promotion, raise, ... )

~~~
dimino
As a guy who just recently raised hell, mostly got ignored for it, and is now
moving teams, I hope what I did won't be remembered as "oh, that jerk was just
trying to sink the team".

I hope in your case you at least made very sure the "jerk" wasn't right.

------
advael
So wait, according to this article:

People who are nice, team players, selfless, etc. cluster near the top and the
bottom of our hypothetical payscale graph.

People who are narcissistic, egotistical, entitled, and overall "assholes"
also cluster near the top and the bottom of payscale graph.

But their data on narcissists only comes from CEOs?

I would suggest that in aggregate this tells us basically nothing about how
one should act to get ahead (Except maybe "Avoid the middle road of only being
an asshole sometimes?").

It does however suggest that narcissism might be more common among CEOs than
in the general populace, although again, not a predictor of being a
particularly successful one.

This is all of course setting aside the obvious problems of "How are they even
defining these nebulous categories (In the case of narcissism, their measures
were pretty unconvincing IMO. A lot of those decisions could have been made by
marketing/PR people. There's sometimes value in the 'personal brand' of your
CEO, even if they themselves are pretty humble in attitude) and even if we
believe their definitions, how could they possibly be measuring them in a
rigorous way in the wild"

~~~
WalterSear
They weren't just talking about that study, mate.

------
thelogos
Why can't you be nice but firm at the same time?

I know people who tries to be stubborn to cover up their lack of knowledge.

Usually, those people are smarter than the majority but not quite smart enough
to realize that they're not always right.

One thing I don't understand is why Steve Jobs took credit for some of the
stuff that Jony Ive did (assumming this is true). He's already the CEO, so
unless he was worried about Ive usurping his position, there was absolutely no
point.

People talk behind your back and the truth will usually get out. It's just
miscalculated and ego-driven with absolutely no gain, monetarily and socially.

Then we have the story of him scamming Wozniak over his fair share of the
Atari bonus. Maybe Jobs thought they wouldn't have a long friendship left?

Forget nice or jerk for a moment, but would you sell your friendship with a
genius for that small amount of money?

At this point in his life, Jobs was a nobody and without Wozniak, he would
probably still be a nobody.

Imagine if Wozniak found out earlier. Imagine if Ive went over to a rival
company.

Some of these jerks do not realize how long people hold grudges and what an
angry person is capable of. A lot of it is just childish like a bully beating
up some small kid for no reason.

It's not smart or assertive, just short-sighted. Look at how many revolutions
were started by hunger and poverty. Millions of Irish people starved to death
during the Potato Famine and evicted from their land while their landlords
happily dined on lobster soup. The Irish Republican Army is still running
around today.

It's people like this that breeds problem in the world. Today most of us are
not dying from hunger in the first world but just go back in time a little bit
and you can watch these "jerks" dining on abalones, shark fins, caviar while
riding inside their cozy palanquin.

They do leave some scrap left for the peasants though, enough to stay alive,
work and pay tax. But they see it as theirs to begin with, so it's ok. All
that generosity "trickling down".

Being a jerk pays, until it doesn't.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"At this point in his life, Jobs was a nobody and without Wozniak, he would
probably still be a nobody."

I have to disagree here. While Jobs might not have been a tech giant without
Woz (then again, he might...NeXT, Pixar, new Apple all happened without Woz),
I'm as certain as I can be that the man would have been famous no matter what.
Possibly as a cult leader, a music promoter, or a politician, but famous
_somehow_.

~~~
thelogos
We'll never really know. I would love to watch that movie though.

Also I didn't mean to use "nobody" as an insult. There's nothing wrong with
being a nobody. The majority of people who lived were nobody but without them
we would have nothing today.

------
tlogan
Being a jerk and having very little empathy will definitely help you becoming
successful in money and glamor sense. Not sure if that will help you to become
successful in your life since your jerkiness and empathy will eventually spill
over to your personal life causing life to be pretty much miserable.

But you do not need to read books to learn this: actually no book will teach
you this. Life will. Sadly, sometimes that it is too late.

~~~
thelogos
I don't think this is true. It's narrative nice people tell themselves to find
reason in a world that has none.

Yea, they suffer sometimes from poor planning and bad luck, but more often
than not, they'll get away with it. And they won't feel bad about it, not even
a little bit.

Just see how some people cheat on their spouse and then get a sweet settlement
and fat paycheck every month by order of the court. Maybe those people are
secretly miserable but I doubt it. It's actually pretty clever if you think
about it and nature rewards cleverness.

------
codeoclock
I'd rather be nice than successful

~~~
mildbow
They aren't mutually exclusive: being nice or not is a tool in your toolbox
for all interactions.

You can be nice all the time, but that doesn't mean you'll be effective all
the time.

It's crazy to me that we engineers are so focused on hacking systems but seem
to denigrate hacking personal interactions as if it's something dirty blah
blah[0].

[0] copied from my other comment.

~~~
zobzu
I noticed that being nice and pretty good all the time brings you nowhere vs
anyone being meh and pretty bad all the time.

I think that's the whole point too, there's a lot of details but in the end -
if you're nicer than the other guy, he'll exploit that.

In yet another set of words - which while funny is actually exactly the same
concept:

batman: i'll always beat superman, he has a strong weakness.

people: kryptonite?

batman: no, he's a nice guy, i'm not.

------
stegosaurus
I think that in some vague sense, self confidence (sometimes spilling over
into egotism) is a requirement in order to occupy high positions.

Before you can convince others of your skill, you have to convince yourself.
And even then, you have to be willing to actually take the top spot. Plenty of
people are uncomfortable with earning vast amounts of money - they might want
it, but the actual process of taking surplus value from underlings is
something different.

~~~
amelius
> I think that in some vague sense, self confidence (sometimes spilling over
> into egotism) is a requirement in order to occupy high positions.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent
are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell

~~~
mildbow
Sure about that ? :)

Jokes aside, exuding confidence is different from being confident and
orthogonal from the truthiness of you statement/position.

Being a leader _means_ that you can exude confidence regardless of how
confident you are on the data or it's source. Why? Because, at the end of the
day your team needs to trust you to make the correct decision and the first
thing they will measure (knowingly or unknowingly) is whether you trust
yourself.

If you keep being proven wrong your team will stop trusting you. But, that
will start happening a lot sooner if you don't look like you trust yourself.

tldr: being doubtful and exuding doubt in yourself are completely different
things. If you are in a leadership position doing the latter is poison to your
team.

~~~
deciplex
I have worked for people who were overly (sometimes unjustly) confident in
themselves and also for one person who was basically a dispassionate,
consensus-building Bayesian optimizer. A confident person might be able to get
more people on his side initially, but he will have to consistently deliver
successes after that point, and once the facade cracks more than a few times,
he is screwed. This is true even if, depending on the industry or the problem
space, a high expectation of consistent success is irrational on the part of
the people following him.

On the other hand by making people a part of the decision-making process and
laying bare the framework by which action is conceived and then taken, while
it may be harder (sometimes _very much_ harder) to get people to go along,
they will also tolerate setbacks along the way much better. I think it is also
probably much easier for people to act in a way that is consistent with the
goals of the team, since they will know and be closer to what those goals
actually are in the first place.

I guess what I'm getting at is, "confidence" I take to be a type of
information-hiding activity. This can be made to work and is sometimes even
the optimal choice, but it does require more social skill and risk on the part
of the confident person.

~~~
mildbow
Lots of things here so my response is going to be a little jumbled :)

Yeah, regression to mean definitely a thing. It can topple justifiably
confident people and/or prop up frauds.

In my experience, decision by committee has never worked when times are tough.
When times are tough you just need to be able to trust your leadership to know
what they are doing and not micro manage them (and not have them micro-manage
you).

When times aren't tough, then anything will work :)

Really, there is no such thing as full-disclosure of information or decision-
making. But, you should have full-disclosure of goals so everyone is pushing
in the same direction.

Your CEO _will_ have info you don't have. Second-guessing him when times are
tough will just lead to poison. And anyway, even in decision by committee
you'll have people who exude confidence being able to sell their ideas better
etcs. They will just do so with no accountability.

I'm not sure people tolerate setbacks any better in the long-term regardless
of whether they were part of the decision or not. Humans are revisionists.
I've definitely heard comments in the line of "He's the CEO, why is he asking
us?" and "I _said_ that would happen. " when things are going bad.

I think of "confidence" as complexity-hiding rather than information-hiding.
Basically, it's saying "you can trust me to do my job. Worry about yours."

At the end of the day, working in any team is going to be based on how much
you can trust everyone else to do their jobs. If you can't, time to move on.

------
krick
Am I the only one who feels very uncomfortable with the fact people these days
are using "jerk" and "asshole" as an "objective" description of other people
qualities? Is it a long time since this became "normal" in English? Not only
it sounds vulgar and disgusting, it is very poor way to express your opinion
as well. If I'm calling you "a jerk" it means nothing except the fact I don't
like something about you (which maybe also not entirely true).

Things like "putting your feet on the table" and "speaking first" are concrete
and measurable, "being a jerk" is not. In fact, you cannot be "a jerk" at all,
you can be somebody, who was called "a jerk" by somebody else. And why am I
calling you a jerk? You can never know. Maybe I consider you being a jerk,
because you don't open the door for a lady. Maybe, because you _do_ open the
door and those are being "oppressive towards female equality" or some other
ridiculous thing.

~~~
reddytowns
I agree. I found especially ridiculous the part of the article where the
author tries to dissect "asshole" into "ass" and "hole" and comes up with
litmus tests to differentiate the two.

------
tremols
To me the logical conclusion is that in a weak and vulnerable society: it pays
to be a jerk. In other words, the fact that a jerk can be a good leader just
speaks poorly of those following such leader. That said, I think that the
article is rooted on a stereotyped false dichotomy: I have met nice people
that can sometimes act as assholes, and assholes that can be empathic.

------
Eye_of_Mordor
Steve Jobs is dead because he wouldn't listen to other people.

------
ronnier
Have you ever sat around trying to talk to a colleague with his shoes on top
of the table? It's awful behavior and I can't stand it. I usually just walk
away.

------
erikb
I like the idea of stealing coffee for the group. If you just pay for coffee
from your own pocket people might look down on you, because you give something
that should be yours. But if you fight for a raise and use that money to
invite everybody to a party then you can achieve something and that your
success also means a betterment for the others.

------
nhebb
For anyone interested in anecdotes about boorish leaders, "What Would
Machiavelli Do?" is a fun read:

[http://www.amazon.com/What-Would-Machiavelli-Justify-
Meannes...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Would-Machiavelli-Justify-
Meanness/dp/0066620104)

------
facepalm
Was Steve Jobs really a jerk? In any case there seems to be a lot of cargo
cult in this theory. Even if SJ was a jerk, it doesn't follow that by being a
jerk you could be as successful as SJ, or even that SJ was successful because
he was a jerk (if he was).

~~~
pp19dd
Spent a few minutes trying to find the one extremely rude email he once wrote
to a customer, since he liked to do that from time to time and it stuck in my
head.

Instead, found this, which gives sufficient documentation that, yeah, he
probably was: [http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-
jerk-2011-10](http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-jerk-2011-10)

------
morpheous
One of the more profound things I have read in a long time. It seems to
confirm a lot of things I have long suspected ...

------
AndyKelley
The article sounded like it was going to be interesting but I couldn't get
past all the ads in my face.

------
amagumori
i can't wait until brain imaging technology improves and we can make
sociopaths and narcissists wear a government-mandated scarlet letter letting
everyone know how dangerous they are.

~~~
pizza
Can't tell if you're joking or not, but "outing" is basically never a good
option.

------
smegel
It's a little bit like saying good soldiers are violent, aggressive brutes who
like killing people.

Some jobs require bad people.

------
taki1
It is true in American culture. It is _not_ true in European (not sure about
Asian) culture. Try putting your shoes on the table in Europe at the same time
claiming credit for someone's else work in Paris or Berlin.

The difference is a cultural one. Americans don't complain when they see or
experience injustice or poor behavior. Nobody will talk to a jerk like this in
Europe.Or actually he will hear something. Like: "Can you take your shoes from
the table Mr. Important? You are not at home! BTW, Jane did this work, not
you, why are you claiming credit for her work?" I can't imagine someone
telling something like this to a jerk in the US. At the same time I can't
imagine someone not telling something like this to a jerk in Europe.

Also, never have seen so much politics and self-praise as in the US.

But then again, maybe a strict culture that puts everyone in their respective
place, is the reason why we don't get Steve Jobs or Bill Gates success
stories.

~~~
quietplatypus
Right, American culture (or the lack of it) definitely represents a tradeoff.
Strong culture has an effect of reducing anxieties; you know your place by
participating. You probably won't do too well, but not too bad either. In
contrast, American culture almost prides itself on not participating, and
"forging your own path", non-conformity is the new conformity, etc.

The results are that it will be easier to do thing like Steve Jobs or Bill
Gates, but at the same time easier to miss the mark even more and shoot up
schools (Not saying that is an exclusively American phenomenon though).

I personally think the tradeoff is worth it. It's like being given a piano
versus a "make music automatically!" iPad app. I will take the piano despite
the much greater possibility of making mistakes, for the chance to make
something that sounds much better.

Although this weak culture leads to some other problems, like the not
complaining when they see injustice. It's that it is more difficult to develop
your instincts for dealing with injustive when you don't know the expectations
and rituals of the group(s) in which you are participating.

~~~
WalterSear
>In contrast, American culture almost prides itself on not participating, and
"forging your own path", non-conformity is the new conformity, etc.

IMHO, this is mostly a presentation of non-conformity. In my experience,
having lived half my life in the US and half of it elsewhere, non-conformity
is punished much more severely here than in western europe. You even get
ostracized here for having a different concept of what non-conformity
involves.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The US has a very limited concept of individualism, which seems to overlap
significantly with "success" defined purely in financial terms, or as some
form of force projection - either charismatic and persuasive, seductive,
violent, or all three.

If you look at the US media, there's almost no coverage at all of other
ethical systems and other forms of individuality.

The closest thing to a break was the drop-out culture of the late 1960s. But
even that burned itself out and turned into a business opportunity.

It's so incredibly pervasive, it possibly seems like the only possible world
view - even though it isn't.

~~~
WalterSear
The drop-out culture occurred because, for the first time in history, the
adult children of the middle class were able to be supported by their boomer
parents, for a time.

I wonder if, and it is a long if, we are able to throw off the shackles of our
financial masters, we might see a similar, only larger, cultural explosion.

------
scolfax
The only time it doesn't pay is during the interview:

[http://recruitinganimal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8345220fb69e201b...](http://recruitinganimal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8345220fb69e201b8d08d4c63970c-pi)

~~~
mildbow
Actually, you'd be surprised. I'm taking the "jerk" definition to mean a sense
of self-entitlement and sense of power.

You don't need to be a jerk and eat the last cookie but having a strong sense
of "alpha" confidence in most interview-like situation pays off really well.

Next time you have an interview (or a one-on-one or a salesy meeting), try to
exude some sense of power[0] (don't overdo it!) and see how the other person
reacts. I know that it blew my mind the first few times I tried it.

As an aside, it's crazy to me that we engineers are so focused on hacking
systems but seem to denigrate hacking personal interactions as if it's
something dirty/beneath us.

[0]
[http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes...](http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are?language=en)

