Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

This hits close to home for me. I've received feedback (never from management—from peers) that I've exhibited some of the "brilliant jerk" behavior (hopefully more Alice than Bob, but I'd rather not be a jerk at all...). A few reflections I've had:

1. Part of it is personality differences. I often default to taking a fairly aggressive approach to discussions, and appreciate a spirited debate on the merits of a particular issue. Depending on who I'm talking with, this can be a good experience, as long as neither side is taking it personally—and I have plenty of colleagues that seem to enjoy working with me. However, this rubs some people the wrong way, and I can come off as domineering if I'm not careful, especially to people that prefer to avoid confrontation. Of course, how I am perceived by others is my own responsibility—but my default personality seems to be more compatible with some people than others.

2. When paired with a strong personality, I tend to take an approach to balance them out. All of the times I've been called out for being too negative, it's been when I've been working closely with a person that is overwhelmingly positive. I feel that I tend to be more critical when I feel that others are not properly vetting new ideas. On the flip-side, I've also noticed that when I'm talking to someone more negative, I tend to take a more positive approach, especially if I feel that they're ignoring the positives in an idea or situation.

3. I tend to be more harsh on people that I perceive as at or above my level—I feel that honesty is something that everyone deserves from me, but I'm direct to a fault. However, with people that I perceive as junior, I find I'm naturally more diplomatic and constructive—I don't want to demoralize them, and I am thankful to be able to play some small part in building someone else's career. I need to remind myself that all people—even those that I perceive as senior to me—benefit from affirmation and constructive feedback; it's easy for me to underestimate the power of my words.

The hard part for me is to identify which parts of my personality are jerk-like, and which parts—when channeled appropriately—are useful (a team lacking critical voices is also going to be ineffective).

I fervently believe that the greatest challenge in our field is not technical—it's interpersonal. Rarely do projects fail because of technical reasons; instead, they fail because of communication breakdown, interpersonal conflict, and other "soft" attributes. I hope that I can be part of the solution, rather than the problem.

While I agree that it's better not to be rude to people, I think it's common for intelligent people to become impatient when forced to share their understanding in what is to them excruciating detail. It is correct to overcome this frustration, but it's also important to acknowledge its existence and accept it as understandable, if only in order to overcome it.

You are wrong because you are ineffective. You want a good thing: you want your environment to change for the better. But if you find yourself getting into arguments with managers, then you are probably not effectively changing minds, and you will get frustrated. You already sound frustrated.

Speaking the truth straight out can feel good, but it is rarely a good rhetorical strategy. Instead, back up, and start with this: what do the people across the table want? What do they believe is good, and what do they believe is important?

Now, how do you recast your arguments to appeal to those goals? How do you frame your position in such a way that they will want to agree with you?

This is the foundation of convincing people: empathize, understand them, learn their communication patterns. Once you see how they communicate and think, you work down those routes but send the message you believe is important.

> I am an Alice and I need some feedback as why is it a bad thing!

Are you interested in the best outcomes, or addicted to behaving in the way you find easiest? If you are actually interested in outcomes, if you actually care you will learn that meeting people on their terms will produce better outcomes than communicating however you find easiest.

Technology is easy, people are hard.

I would hire a brilliant jerk. Our company has 3. 2 of them I actually like, they fit the likable jerk archetype (common in sitcoms, I think Bill Maher is a good example), and they’re good. The other one is basically not interested in human interaction. This offends people somehow, but I’d rather work w someone who doesn’t want to talk to me than someone who I don’t want to talk to.