The "Asshole" Rule?

Ran across a quote by Berkeley's Engineering Professor, Robert Sutton. Should you remove all "assholes", or just keep one on display? His remarks:

It might be even better if a company could implement a "one asshole" rule. Research on both deviance and norm violations shows that if one example of misbehavior is kept on display -- and is seen to be rejected, shunned, and punished -- everyone else is more conscientious about adhering to written and unwritten rules.

It's not been tested, but makes sense and sounds good. With that said, we'd probably not recommend keeping any "assholes".

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