Jerk It Out

In 2007, McKinsey & Company released an article about jerks in the office *. If you don’t have Jerkdar and end up working with one, you have a problem. For those of us fortunate to have solid bosses we owe it to our colleagues to get rid of the jerks.

The best jerks in the business have a cancerous effect. The correlation of their venomous traits is a direct causation to the dysfunction of a team, department, or entire company. People focus less on the work and more on covering their own ass.

So, how do you get rid of a jerk once they have been hired? This is where the McKinsey article falls short. It offers Pollyanna explanations. The reality is firing anyone is difficult, no matter how egregious their behavior. Due diligence, a strong case, and a blessing from General Counsel are needed to proceed with an exit plan. A complicated and often expensive task. Cheap and quick is the better way to go.

I'm an idea man, Chuck.

• Take the Jerk to happy hour. Get 'em drunk. Super glue a gun to their hand and then push them into a police station. “Drop the gun, drop the gun!” The Jerk uselessly tries to shake the gun out of their hand. The police misinterpret the histrionics as aggressive behavior. Gunfire. The Jerk will be eating more lead than a junkyard compactor.

• Contact a casting agent in your area. Scour through all of the actor profiles and find one who is similar or identical in appearance to the jerk at your office. Bring the actor/impostor to the next big work function of 70+ people. Have the actor drop key lines and questions to high-level individuals, “What is the age for statutory rape?”, "It's nice to see you weren't discriminated against because of obesity.”, “Where’s the shitter?”

• A strike to the knee with a crowbar.

(murmuring through breath) You're going down, bitch.

O.K., so that last one isn’t very creative, but it works. And trust me, you will gain immediate clout with your colleagues by implementing any of the effective methods above. Once you get rid of the jerk, you can get to the actual work that needs to be completed.

* The article was adapted from a book by Robert Sutton, professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University. The book is titled, “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t”. Link is below.

http://www.washburn.edu/faculty/rweigand/McKinsey/McKinsey-Building-The-Civilized-Workplace.pdf