Robert I. Sutton

American organizational psychologist — Stanford — co-author of The Friction Project and Scaling Up Excellence — whose The No Asshole Rule became a management bestseller for naming a workplace phenomenon.

Creates The No Asshole Rule as management vocabulary — Sutton's book named a workplace phenomenon (employees who demean and humiliate others) and provided evidence for their organizational costs; the phrase entered mainstream management vocabulary and the book made it acceptable to discuss workplace toxicity directly.