41–50 of 243 posts
Americans somehow not only manage to conflate use of bad words with mission-hostile management, on top of that they don't even recognize mission-hostile management when it doesn't use bad words. That saga with Torvalds and USB-3 was quite something.
Letting brilliant jerks ruin it for others is a management problem, not a brilliant jerk problem.
However, professionalism is a two way street. Bobs and Alices that make professional salaries can be expected to improve, though the professionals that work with them should make some concessions.
One major problem with corporations / labor / the modern world is that the demands on employees are extremely high. It makes sense - people want to work in good jobs and corporations are paying for the labor and the corporations have to make money so they have incentives to hire the best people for the jobs.
Professional standards are very high - I'd say that most professionals in America are in the top 20%-30% of multiple skill sets - communication, leadership, self-directedness, tolerance for b.s, along with any domain specific skills.
We don't have an environment that most people can succeed in. And solving it would be good for people who struggle with some things or people who don't want to focus their life around professional accountability/development.
The right question to ask isn't "is bob valuable" but more like "how can build a company in that gets a single parent to manage Bob"?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm still part Alice, I think. The Carnegie book really helped me, for sure. The difficulty though is that at some point if you believe something is important you may ultimately have to go through some kind of dialectic to make your case. How to Win Friends and Influence People says never have an argument. If you follow this advice you will reap the benefits of the book. However what you're building in your team will…
I don't particularly like HTWFAIP so please don't take this is a canonical reply, but I never read it as an outright prohibition on debate. Rather, it seems to argue that you can disagree but that an effective leader should keep a disagreement from becoming an outright argument. It sounds like a silly distinction, but what if you and I disagree about something. I have two choices. I could: A.) Get incredibly defensiv…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm still part Alice, I think. The Carnegie book really helped me, for sure. The difficulty though is that at some point if you believe something is important you may ultimately have to go through some kind of dialectic to make your case. How to Win Friends and Influence People says never have an argument. If you follow this advice you will reap the benefits of the book. However what you're building in your team will…
It'd be great if there was a social protocol for having constructive debates, so they weren't always assumed to be bad things.
Consider this criterion:
> 1. After encountering the person, do people feel oppressed, humiliated or otherwise worse about themselves?
Bob and Mary are staunch members of . While they never discuss it at work, Mary deeply resents the views Bob posts on social media. During a code review, Bob is bluntly critical of Mary's code. Mary perceives this to be related to their political differences, and feels oppressed. Mary files a complaint with HR.
Bob claims he is being objective, and targeted for his political views. Others are hesitant to criticize Mary's code, lest they be lumped into a "tolerance witch hunt".
If you want to talk about performance, it should be objective, not subjective. Anything else opens the door to drama. Yes, "jerks" create issues. But making a rule that says "no jerks" will not solve those problems. It might even make things worse.
I was so Alice for much of my career. I know this is going to sound totally cliche because this book get's recommended everywhere, but How to Win Friends and Influence People really did help me.
IMHO there's also a limit to how much you can spare everybody's feelings and still be effective at that ^^. I think the OP believed that there isn't a limit. I think he's wrong.
In a corporate environment, there's almost no value in actually being one though. Linus Torvalds would almost never be promoted and would frequently be unceremoniously terminated - as advocated for by Brendan Gregg.
This is a great article. It's a terrific opportunity for introspection. I do however want to point out that some of these may be less about being an insufferably relentless jerk than other pieces. > He is late to meetings, ... then looks at his phone or laptop while ignoring everyone around him This is also a pretty common indicator for ADHD. Not to say that excuses being a "jerk", but there are people out there that…
I've never actually come across an actually brilliant engineering person who was also a jerk. Maybe they sometimes superficially seemed like a jerk at first (particularly if you had a very thin skin), but not after you actually made an effort to get to know them. Most of the time though, the jerks just aren't even close to being brilliant. I feel this jerk attitude is quite often something that is used to mask inepti…
One surprising thing is that it is possible for people to change, at least in how they treat people. Once I was told I would have to interact with the "brilliant jerk" and I complained and my manager said, "no, really, he has CHANGED" and, miracle of miracles, he had.
I wish I knew exactly how and why he changed, my best guess is treatment for clinical depression, which often surfaces as extreme irritability.
Hiring brilliant jerks is fundamentally a decision that comes down to the specific situation and imo it should rest with the hiring manager. Letting brilliant jerks ruin it for others is a management problem, not a brilliant jerk problem. However, professionalism is a two way street. Bobs and Alices that make professional salaries can be expected to improve, though the professionals that work with them should make so…
Great comment of an instance.
The class:
"Letting ruin it for others is a management problem, not an problem."
I have rarely run into the "brilliant jerk" problem.
I have almost always run into the "incompetent manager" problem.
"Incompetent Managers in Engineering". Now there's an article I'd really like to read.
I've never actually come across an actually brilliant engineering person who was also a jerk. Maybe they sometimes superficially seemed like a jerk at first (particularly if you had a very thin skin), but not after you actually made an effort to get to know them. Most of the time though, the jerks just aren't even close to being brilliant. I feel this jerk attitude is quite often something that is used to mask inepti…
There have been a couple of others in another role, in banking, and they know exactly what I think of them! B^>
These people do exist, and can be successful, and the description given in TFA pretty closely matches many aspects of psychopathy, such as the charming-when-necessary and no empathy.
Psychopaths are 5x more common in the C-suite than the general population. I don't know about the engineering ratio.