Top 40 Robert I. Sutton Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Psychological safety is the key to creating a workplace where people can be confident enough to act without undue fear of being ridiculed, punished, or fired – and be humble enough to openly doubt what is believed and done. As Amy Edmondson’s research shows, psychological safety emerges when those in power persistently praise, reward, and promote people who have the courage to act, talk about their doubts, successes, and failures, and work doggedly to do things better the next time.”

— Robert I. Sutton

2. “The best single question for testing an organization’s character is: What happens when people make mistakes?”

— Robert I. Sutton

3. “Creativity isn’t about wild talent as much as it’s about productivity. To find new ideas that work, you need to try a lot that don’t. It’s a pure numbers game.”

— Robert I. Sutton

4. “Make sure that slow learners are rewarded – or at least not punished – for expressing their deviant views and acting in odd ways.”

— Robert I. Sutton

5. “The University of Michigan’s Karl Weick advises, “Fight as if you are right; listen as if you are wrong.”

— Robert I. Sutton

6. “As much as I believe in tolerance and fairness, I have never lost a wink of sleep about being unapologetically intolerant of anyone who refuses to show respect for those around them.”

— Robert I. Sutton

7. “The best bosses do more than charge up people, and recruit and breed energizers. They eliminate the negative, because even a few bad apples and destructive acts can undermine many good people and constructive acts.”

— Robert I. Sutton

8. “Bosses shape how people spend their days and whether they experience joy or despair, perform well or badly, or are healthy or sick. Unfortunately, there are hoards of mediocre and downright rotten bosses out there, and big gaps between the best and the worst.”

— Robert I. Sutton

9. “A series of controlled experiments and field studies in organizations shows that when teams engage in conflict over ideas in an atmosphere of mutual respect, they develop better ideas and perform better .”

— Robert I. Sutton

10. “A hallmark of petty tyrants – including many Rule Nazis – is that their power over a narrow domain is coupled with low prestige; they simmer and sulk about the lack of respect they get. This mix of power and low social status creates a deadly brew – it provokes them to take out their frustration and resentment on others.”

— Robert I. Sutton

11. “Psychologist Susan Fiske observes, ‘Attention is directed up the hierarchy. Secretaries know more about their bosses than vice versa; graduate students know more about their advisors than vice versa.’ Fiske explains this happens because, like our fellow primates, ’people pay attention to those who control their outcomes. In an effort to predict and possibly influence what is going to happen to them, people gather information about those with power.”

— Robert I. Sutton

12. “Listen to those under your supervision. Really listen. Don’t act as if you’re listening and let it go in one ear and out the other. Faking it is worse than not doing it at all.”

— Robert I. Sutton

13. “A huge body of research – hundreds of studies – shows that when people are put in positions of power, they start talking more, taking what they want for themselves, ignoring what other people say or want, ignoring how less powerful people react to their behavior, acting more rudely, and generally treating any situation or person as a means for satisfying their own needs – and that being put in positions of power blinds them to the fact that they are acting like jerks.”

— Robert I. Sutton

14. “Fight as if you are right, listen as if you are wrong.”

— Robert I. Sutton

15. “Winning is a wonderful thing if you can help and respect others along the way. But if you stomp on others as you climb the ladder and treat them like losers once you reach the top, my opinion is that you debase your own humanity and undermine your team or organization.”

— Robert I. Sutton

16. “Everyone deserves to be treated fairly. If leaders are the problem, we ask those being served by leaders to let them know or go up the chain of command – without the threat of retaliation.” “Store.”

— Robert I. Sutton

17. “Wise people “have the courage to act on their beliefs and convictions at the same time that they have the humility to realize that they might be wrong, and must be prepared to change their beliefs and actions when better information comes along.”

— Robert I. Sutton

18. “Hundreds of experiments show that encounters with rude, insulting, and demeaning people undermine others’ performance – including their decision-making skills, productivity, creativity, and willingness to work a little harder and stay a little later to finish projects and to help coworkers who need their advice, skills, or emotional support.”

— Robert I. Sutton

19. “No one on their death bed wishes they would’ve been meaner.”

— Robert I. Sutton

20. “When your boss listens to you carefully, reaches out to help you, and learns from you, it enhances your dignity and pride. Doing so also helps your boss gain empathy for you, to better understand how it feels to be you and what you need to succeed in your job and life.”

— Robert I. Sutton

21. “Support a few crackpots, heretics, and dreamers, especially if they are wildly optimistic about their ideas.”

— Robert I. Sutton

22. “The best management is sometimes less management or no management at all. William Coyne, who led 3M’s Research and Development efforts for over a decade, believed a big part of his job was to leave his people alone and protect them from other curious executives. As he put it: ‘After you plant a seed in the ground, you don’t dig it up every week to see how it is doing.”

— Robert I. Sutton

23. “Galileo was jailed for asserting that the earth was round.5.”

— Robert I. Sutton

24. “Good bosses focus their attention, and their people’s efforts, on the small number of things that matter most. The best bosses learn when they can and should ignore the least important demands from others. But some demands can’t be avoided even though they have little, if any, impact on people or performance. In such cases, it might be wise to do a quick and crummy job so you can ‘check the box’ and quickly move on to more crucial chores.”

— Robert I. Sutton

25. “Forgiveness is also important because, as a study of surgical errors found, “when a subordinate sees his technical errors are forgiven, he recognizes there is no incentive to hide them. He is less likely, therefore, to compound his problems by attempting to treat problems that are over his head for fear of superordinate reprisal.”

— Robert I. Sutton

26. “Bullies drive witnesses and bystanders out of their jobs, just as they do to “firsthand” victims. Research.”

— Robert I. Sutton

27. “If you are a boss, ask yourself: When you look back at how you’ve treated followers, peers, and superiors, in their eyes, will you have earned the right to be proud of yourself? Or will they believe that you ought to be ashamed of yourself and embarrassed by how you have trampled on others’ dignity day after day?”

— Robert I. Sutton

28. “It means constantly seeking and implementing better ways of thinking and acting across old and new corners of the system.”

— Robert I. Sutton

29. “People also have a greater capacity when they aren’t worn down by work and worry. When people get enough sleep, they are more adept at difficult tasks, are more interpersonally sensitive, make better decisions, and are less likely to turn nasty.”

— Robert I. Sutton

30. “Hatfield and her colleagues sum up emotional contagion research with an Arabic proverb: “A wise man associating with the vicious becomes an idiot.”

— Robert I. Sutton

31. “In Katy’s language, this chapter is about – when you can’t or won’t avert engaging with crazy completely – how to limit the frequency, duration, and intensity of the abuse you face and feel.”

— Robert I. Sutton

32. “Then there are people with modest but real power – and who take sick satisfaction from frustrating and pushing others around.”

— Robert I. Sutton

33. “The rule isn’t just for teams and organizations. It is a personal commitment that shapes how you judge people, the kind of individuals you hang out with and work with, and your determination to detect, dampen, and defeat disrespectful actions made by yourself and others.”

— Robert I. Sutton

34. “A Lutheran pastor in Illinois writes: A great deal of the work in our church is done by non-paid individuals who, at times, hurt the feelings of fellow volunteers. Do you have any thoughts on what to do with mean people who volunteer their time?”

— Robert I. Sutton

35. “The protective powers of such “upward hostility” seem striking: abused employees who fought back harder were less prone to see themselves as victims, more satisfied with their jobs and careers, less distressed, and more committed to their organizations.”

— Robert I. Sutton

36. “When employees have negative interactions with supervisors, for example, it has five times more impact on their moods than positive interactions.”

— Robert I. Sutton

37. “The first diagnostic question follows from the late writer Maya Angelou’s assertion that “at the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”

— Robert I. Sutton

38. “That “telling them where they stand, while giving them the chance to try a new environment, is often enough to get them to change their behavior.”

— Robert I. Sutton

39. “Unfortunately, Captain Graf created fear and mistrust in her followers, rather than stoking the courage, skill, and confidence she intended.”

— Robert I. Sutton

40. “Perry “puts all the bad apples in one barrel” so they don’t wreck other teams. He then assigns a no-nonsense coach to lead the bad apples or does it himself – he is adept at dispensing tough love.”

— Robert I. Sutton

41. “As this sales representative discovered, when individuals dress up as organizations, sometimes they twist, exaggerate, or even defy the letter or spirit of the real rules, and will try to belittle, dismiss, frustrate, or ignore you, because they are insecure, lazy, on a power trip, or plagued by other personal quirks. But once you out them, their house of cards just might collapse.”

— Robert I. Sutton

42. “As we’ve seen, such jerks don’t need to hold prestigious positions – they just need to be adept at recruiting allies to help them backstab, intimidate, and spread vicious lies about anybody who stands in their way.”

— Robert I. Sutton