The No Asshole Rule Revisited: How Interdependence and Emotional Stability Buffer Team Performance

Abstract

Although difficult coworkers exist in most organizations, and evidence shows that they damage important work outcomes, we know very little about how to buffer their effects in teams. To address this problem, we extend theory on team bad apples by proposing and testing a joint buffering model. Using a sample of 97 teams we found that a single difficult teammate damaged team performance by 30%, but that highly interdependent teams with emotionally stable members cut this effect in half. We also found that the buffering effect was mediated by teammates’ physiological stress (i.e., salivary cortisol) and contextual performance such that highly interdependent teams with emotionally stable members had the highest levels of stress, contextual performance, and team performance in our study. Implications for theory and research are discussed.