Bob Sutton

Robert Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford, where he co-founded the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and the Institute of Design (“the d school”). He studies leadership, organizational change, innovation, scaling, and workplace dynamics.His current "friction project" (with Huggy Rao) focuses on why companies make the right things too difficult, the wrong things too easy, and what to do about it.

Sutton has published over 200 articles in academic and popular outlets, along with seven books. "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense" (with Jeff Pfeffer) was selected by the Toronto Globe and Mail as the best business book of 2006. "The Knowing-Doing Gap" (with Pfeffer) was chosen for Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten’s "100 Best Business Books of All Time." Fast Company co-founder Bill Taylor described "Weird Ideas That Work" as "the smartest and most original take on leadership and organizational creativity that I’ve read." Sutton's "Good Boss, Bad Boss" and "The No Asshole Rule" are New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. Scaling-Up Excellence (with Rao) is a Wall Street Journal bestseller and Financial Times picked it as among the best six management books in 2014. "The Asshole Survival Guide" was praised by outlets including The Washington Post, Financial Times, and Vox

Sutton won the Eugene L. Grant Award for Excellence in Teaching, and awards for the best paper of the year in the Academy of Management Journal and in the Academy of Management Review. He was named as one of 10 “B-School All-Stars” by BusinessWeek, “professors who are influencing contemporary business thinking far beyond academia.” The London Business School honored him with the Sumantra Ghoshal Award for Rigour and Relevance in the Study of Management. In 2014, The American Management Association ranked him 10th among the top 30 leaders who most influenced business. To book him for a speech, contact [email protected] or 805-965-1400.