How To Get Rid Of The, Uh, Jerks

When Stanford University management professor Robert Sutton wrote in the Harvard Business Review in 2004 that companies should ban bullying personalities from their ranks, he was flooded with approving e-mails. Perhaps not surprisingly, his 2007 book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't (Warner Business Books), is a big seller: In the business genre, it was recently at No. 2 on BarnesandNoble.com (BKS).

But couldn't Sutton have picked less inflammatory wording? "There's an emotional reaction to a dirty title," he says. "You have a choice between being offensive and being ignored." The indelicate appellation aside, the book reasonably argues against keeping arrogant or intimidating employees. And it lists companies—among them, Google (GOOG), Barclays Capital (BCS), and Men's Warehouse (MW)—that have policies aimed at preventing the recruitment of such characters. One rule Sutton recommends: "Keep your resident jerks out of the hiring process."