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Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

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Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#81

Post by alexashka »

csours wrote: post #13
kingkawn wrote: post #5

Why should nothing ever feel bad?

Why should everything be terrible forever? The article is talking about people who are systematically bad for organizations, not people who have a bad day sometimes.

Things can be terrible because some people don't know how to act.

Things can also be terrible because some people don't know how to do the job properly.

It is a lot easier to find a yes-man/woman than a brilliant anyone. Companies are ruined by mediocrity far more than they're ruined by 'brilliant jerks' bullying the company into non-existence.

Who'd you rather have as your surgeon - a brilliant jerk the nurses have to put up with, or a nice guy/lady who screws up sometimes but will feel really bad about it afterwards and will write you a hand-written apology.

I'll take the jerk every time.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#82

Post by exelius »

1001101 wrote: post #63

Google has an interesting philosophy on this: """ Cosgrove asked them to elaborate on the idea: "exile the knaves, but fight for the divas." Rosenberg said maintaining Google's collaborative culture requires weeding out and getting rid of the knaves: Employees who lack integrity, who are jealous of their peers, take credit for others' work, and think only of themselves. "Nice humble engineers have a way of becoming i…

By all accounts I've heard from friends working at Google X, Sergey Brin is the textbook definition of a "brilliant jerk". This probably has something to do with it.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#83

Post by sah2ed »

fizixer wrote: post #9

Meanwhile management and executive positions are teeming with not-Brilliant only-Jerks. It's the norm rather than the exception. Totally makes sense.

Sounds like you are referring to The Gervais Principle ?

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#84

Post by matt_wulfeck »

This is one of the great examples of survivorship bias. You start to think that all of the most brilliant people are jerks, but the reality is that all of the non-brilliant jerks were fired long ago for crossing the line. The only ones left are very very valuable -- and still should fired if they can't play nice.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#85

Post by spenczar5 »

organsnyder wrote: post #72

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 partic…

> 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 think this might be the wrong way to think about this stuff.

Different communication strategies appeal to different listeners. Rather than analyzing yourself, saying "some parts of me are effective, others fail," I think it's more useful to analyze your interactions. You've almost certainly had really productive, energizing debates with people in which everyone walked away feeling glad that all the cards were laid on the table.

You've probably also had really unproductive, demotivating debates in which people felt attacked, unable to express themselves, and frustrated.

Here's the skill to work on: before you start that debate, try to understand the person you're talking with. How do they want to talk about this topic? Do they do better with collaborative, friendly, "That's a good idea"-type discussion, or with hard-edged debate? Now, mold your communication to their style.

You said this yourself in your #2, but I want to triple-underline it. That's the whole job when you are communicating. It's all about finding ways to get your point across as effectively as possible, which means it's your job to communicate the way they will listen to.

This is hard! But it's worth it. You definitely don't want to just have one way of communicating - that just makes you frustrated when people aren't receptive to that style.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#86

Post by mamoswined »

gcommer wrote: post #62
crdoconnor wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer working with "Alices". It's refreshing to see people actually called on their bullshit. 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 frequen…

Most of the "Alice" types I know come from a background in academia, which strongly selects for these types of people who can leave their emotions at the door and iterate on ideas quickly and rationally. None of the complaints raised in this article apply to teams composed entirely of "Alice" types (and the most productive labs I've worked in demonstrate this; and towards this goal I actively practice to become more…

I once had a 100% Alice team (all women too!) and it was awesome until we were forced to work with contractors who were 0% Alice. We offended them, turned out their boss was friends with some higher up at our company, and we got pretty much screwed.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#87

Post by [deleted] »

fhood wrote: post #57
mars4rp wrote: post #53

I am an Alice and I need some feedback as why is it a bad thing! I work in an environment when very small percentage of people know what are they doing. and people that know what is going on do not speak up because they are frustrated and know probably nothing will change. in this environment I do speak up whenever I get a chance and I've been in arguments with managers 3 4 level above me. everybody else wants to be…

You are wrong because the vast majority of people take criticism personally. It turns out that when you tell people they are wrong and present them with reasons they are wrong, a surprising number of people double down. I'm sure you have heard this before, but you have to make them think it was their idea. Edit Source: I make this mistake all the god damn time, and never realize it until the person breaks and finally…

[deleted]

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#88

Post by spenczar5 »

kingkawn wrote: post #77
csours wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should everything be terrible forever? The article is talking about people who are systematically bad for organizations, not people who have a bad day sometimes.

Amen! what’s wrong with confronting them directly without the careful parsing demanded by our self-limiting ideas of being well behaved.

It usually doesn't work. They usually don't get better. It's usually better to just not have hired them in the first place. You waste a lot of time.

That's my experience.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#89

Post by sidlls »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #45

I'm not entirely sure I subscribe to this "behavior based" vs "merit based" look at job performance. 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 Mar…

Performance is rarely objectively measurable for anything but highly quantifiable, usually low-skill work.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#90

Post by [deleted] »

grandalf wrote: post #33

The situation I've encountered is a jerk who was actually fairly mediocre in his abilities but whose bully characteristics and brash confidence had led many of the non-technical people in the company to believe he was extremely skilled. I think one reason people become bullies is because they know they can't back up their decisions with skill. Linus is brash, but is quite able to work well with people and has the res…

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