Shareware Overload/ShartewareOverload.cdr/games/fireside.zip/RUAJERK

Text File | 1987-01-19 | 22KB | 641 lines

Retaining and motivating difficult (but valuable) employees
can be a vexing problem, but it is no joke.  Sometimes the
very future of a growing company depends on keeping a single
peculiar individual happy and focused on his work.  And all
you can say is ...

HE'S A GENIUS,
BUT WHAT A JERK.


by Michael Finley

#  #  #


It's past 10 AM, and here comes Norman
-- early for him.  With his frayed
collar, faded yellow Reeboks and Hoover
Dam necktie.  He drags himself past the
receptionist without so much as a hello,
pretends he doesn't see team members he
passes in the corridor, locks his office
door behind him, props the Reeboks on
his typing table and whips out the
latest Scientific American.  That should
keep him sharp until lunch.

The team doesn't talk much to Norman any
more.  He skips meetings, brownbags his
lunch.  Even the company president is
scared of him, though he knows something
is quite wrong with the arrangement.
But somehow Norman manages to make his
contribution, sometimes in a scrawled
note squeezed under a supervisor's door
late at night.  And those scraps of
paper, pencil sketches of product
improvements, have earned the company
millions.

And everyone shrugs and says, what the
heck can you do with a guy like Norman?

Norman (or Norma -- not necessarily
their real names) is a prototype of
what industrial psychologists and
personnel consultants regard as the
abominable snowman of employee relations
-- genus genius, species jerkiensis.
Extraordinarily bright and creative, he
(she) is a high-achieving dynamo when
motivated, giving off ideas the way
regular folk emit carbon dioxide.

And his title is a sign to team members
that he is first among equals -- senior
researcher, creative director, even VP-
R&D.  He might have been co-founder of
the company, him providing the creative
half with the current Chairman taking on
the business chores.  He is, as
competitors have said time and time
again, worth his weight in gold.

Of course, competitors don't have to
work with him.  The fact is that Norman
is one of those gifts of the gods you
consider returning for exchange.  He
blatantly insults half the corporate
staff and blithely ignores the rest.
His contempt for others periodically
results in crying scenes in the human
resources office.  He is unshaven.  He
is arrogant.  He is crazy.

Worst of all, he is probably quite
depressed.  His productivity is way down
from the exciting days when the company
was just getting off the ground.  The
gleam in his eye has given way to
sullenness.  He's still worth the
$80,000 you pay him -- and he sneers at
-- but anymore it's an expensive
$80,000.

Businesses, particularly in the button-
down age of MBAs and Lotus 123, may
dearly wish they were machines made up
of high-reliability, interchangeable
parts, but they are not.  They are
organic families of often unreliable and
seldom interchangeable and sometimes
downright unreplaceable parts.  How does
a company mold its high achievers, its
creative employees, those people who
provide the most vital input to a
company's success, but who may be its
biggest pains in the ass?

The Norman Problem, also known as the
Genius-But-A-Jerk Syndrome, has its
roots in the nature of what a
corporation is.  The theory of the
modern corporation is that all employees
are equal, and all should be treated
equally.  Businesses like to place an
average per-employee cost on the final
cost of products and services.
Personnel offices identity employees by
payroll number.  The overwhelming
temptation from the executive penthouse
high above is to think of employees as
nearly interchangeable units milling
around below.

But as all the high-touch business books
(The One-Minute Manager, In Search of
Excellence, et al) underscore, no
employee is a unit.  Even in the Cave
Era of pop business texts, William H.
Whyte wrote in his The Organization Man
(1956) of the need to reach out to
creative types and include them,
somehow, in the corporate mainstream.
Each has different needs, different "hot
buttons," and each requires a different
approach.  And no one is harder to
figure than the Normans of the business
world.

The way Whyte and others of his day saw
it, Norman was the sort who almost
inevitably wound up in one department,
research.  Once there, it was the duty
of the corporation to bend over
backwards to soothe the creative heart,
and it did so through five distinct
strategies.

These five were: 1) recognition of
status, 2) professional facilities and
assignments, an equal relationship with
administrators, 4) the opportunity for
mobility through basic, applied, and
developmental research, and 5)
management's recognition of the
importance of the individual's (and his
department's) efforts.

Since then, naturally, some refinements
have occurred.  For one thing, as Harvey
Robbins, industrial psychologist
insists, "He or she doesn't have to be
in a so-called 'creative' field, like
R&D, or advertising or design, or
marketing -- he could be anywhere.
Every field needs creative, high-
achieving type individuals, and every
field gets a few."   The other thing is
that creative types of individuals have
less in common as "types" with one
another than any other kinds of
individuals.  Managers seeking to
formulate rules for the care and feeding
of creative high-achievers will find
that there are more exceptions to the
rules than there are rules themselves.

Judith Kaplan, president of The
Personnel Department, has worked with
the problem repeatedly in her dealings
with firms which have especially vested
interests in their creative staff -- ad
agencies, design firms, and marketing
outfits.

"It's often described as a problem of
organizational fit, and sometimes that
really is all it is.   I recall working
with an individual at one ad agency who
simply could not get comfortable with
the place, its structure, its
philosophy.  I think the firm was
surprised when, upon switching to
another agency, he caught on and
performed very admirably.  The two
agencies were just different enough that
one 'fit' for him, while the other
didn't."

Kaplan stresses to her clients that the
problem should never be seen as the
individual's, period.  "What it is is a
conflict between a group and a member of
the group.  We know that often a team
may be working toward a single
objective, but individual team members
will at times be at cross-purposes.
Someone in production may not look at
the world the way someone from product
design does.  And to make things worse,
few companies have numbers of so-called
creative employees to match those of so-
called non-creative employees."

As a result, she said, the minority way
of thinking can acquire a bad reputation
within the organization, whether fairly
or not.  And the last thing a creative
type can handle is that isolated,
persecuted feeling -- "these are the
people that need the most approval of
anyone," Kaplan said.

Kaplan and other counselors believe that
intervention by management in the form
of the management-by-considerateness
espoused in The One-Minute Manager and
elsewhere is the only answer to poor
organizational fit.  It can go both
ways, she says.  She's seen companies
where the strategic and production-
oriented groups get no attention at all
where the creatives are carried around
on a hero's litter all day long.

The bedrock of counseling many creative
types, Kaplan says, is that they may be
experiencing a lot more stress than
other employees.   In addition, an
individual who is susceptible to the
terrible pressures of the workplace is
probably not immune to pressures on the
home front, either.  It's always
possible that behind the superficial
inappropriate behavior may lurk problems
far more difficult to solve -- marital
conflicts, chemical abuse, mental
illness even.

People with the intuition and empathy to
understand and meet the needs of
consumers have a knack for turning these
right-brain talents against themselves.
Kaplan suggests that a fair number of
employees suffer from a chronic sense of
is-that-all-there-is? -- the feeling
that nothing matters, that even their
best work and greatest accomplishments
are like architecture in sand, just
waiting for the inevitable tide to turn
it into mush.  The sad thing is that
they may get the rep for being loners or
unsociable, when what they really are is
morbidly depressed.

The solution to this loner syndrome,
Kaplan said, is fairly obvious --
network, mix it up with one's
colleagues.  "If you're the only
computer jockey in your company, make
sure you're attending your monthly
professional association meetings,
hashing out your frustrations.  Bad-
mouth the fiscal responsibility crowd,
if they're keeping you from doing your
job right.  Anything but lock the door
behind you and sulk."

Lila Lewey, psychological consultant
with Personnel Decisions, Inc., advises
managers that it is always best to
approach the problem less from your and
the company's perspective, and more from
the individual jerk's.  "Remember that a
problem employee may seem to be
flaunting his or her independence to the
rest of the company, but that does not
mean they are happy in that attitude,"
Lewey says.

In fact, she says, that stubborn streak
is both a blessing and a curse to most
creative employees -- it may be what
makes  them special and valuable in the
first place, but it is just as sure to
be the main obstacle in that
individual's career path.  Either on the
surface or deep down, jerky geniuses
know that their being jerks carries a
terrible cost in terms of achievement,
acceptance, and ultimately their sense
of inner esteem.  Shown a way to change
their traits without losing faith, most
individuals will lunge at the
opportunity.

"It's necessary to realize that the flaw
is as much a problem for the employee as
it is for the employer," says Lewey, who
labels the near-fatal flaw -- whether it
is a creative person's insubordination
or a shy manager's inability to confront
-- the Achilles' heel syndrome.

Typically, there are two things a
manager needs to do, Lewey said.  The
first is to become a fan of the
individual in question.  If tempers have
already risen that may be hard to do.
But it is important that managers
develop an appreciation for exactly what
that person means to the company's
success, and to let him or her know that
you know.

Curiously, individuals may not emit the
slightest sign that they need this
positive stroking.  They may in fact
appear disdainful of the judgment of
mere mortals like yourself.  Don't
believe it, Lewey says.  The trouble
with troubled employees is never that
they are not human -- hardly a person in
the universe is immune to a word of
praise or a pat on the back.

Second, Lewey says, let your newfound
appreciation be the basis on which a new
alliance can be built between the
individual and you.  "Once the employee
sees you are a true fan, you can do
something.  Acknowledge his talents, but
put an arm around his shoulder and say,
'Hey, if we're going to let that talent
blossom, we have to do something about
these self-defeating behaviors.'"

The key, in Lewey's mind, is that you can't
get to the medicine, which is the
behavioral change, without first
proffering the candy of encouragement and
sympathy.

And when the time comes to name the
obnoxious behaviors, be specific.  What
good would it do you to be told "You're
a pill," or "You really know how to bug
people," or "Come down off your high
horse"?  Unless you are specific about
what needs changing, your advice is
worse than useless.

You could start by taking your shoes off
the table when you're talking to me.

You repeat everything people tell you
like a parrot.  You come across as
incredibly sarcastic.

You shoot from the hip during the
meetings, and you hurt people's feelings
and make enemies.

You're too sensitive.  If someone says
'boo' to you, you run off and cry.
There's no way to work things out with
you.

You think other people get the same joy
out of intellectual debate as you do.
While you're having fun with verbal
sparring, your sparring partner is dying
a slow death.

You made three secretaries quit.

You wear cowboy shirts and string ties
to work.

You lock your door behind you and never
come out.

People can be difficult in amazing
number of ways, Lewey says.  Some are
difficult because they never developed
awareness of others.  Some are blind to
the impact of their own actions.  Some
are just the opposite -- so sensitive
that they take every hint of criticism
terribly personally.

Lots of people convince themselves that
their worst behaviors are actually their
best.  She cited the type of individual
who prides himself on being blunt and
unstinting with the truth.  "He has
himself convinced he is the last bastion
of integrity," Lewey says.  "Meanwhile
everyone wishes he would take a long
walk.  People tell him to ease up and he
is aghast.  'What?  And be dishonest?'"

(Lewey apologizes, incidentally, for the
use of male pronouns in referring to
difficult-but-valuable employees.  "We
do get some women, but for some reason
the preponderance of cases we get
involved in are with men.  But that
doesn't mean being a jerk is a sex-
linked characteristic.")

Harvey Robbins believes that creative
high-achievers have different
experiences depending upon what kind of
company they work for, and what stage
that company is at in its growth.  "New
companies typically fall all over
themselves keeping the creative types
happy.  It's common, for that matter,
for the founder of a company to be that
type himself.  In a young company, a
freewheeling, we-can-lick-the-world
atmosphere is exactly what that sort
craves.  It's the 'skunkworks' sort of
set-up, the carte blanche creative
environment that creatives relish."

As a company matures, however, and
becomes more complex, creative founder
tend to drop out or be forced out, as
Mitch Kapor of Lotus did and as Steve
Jobs of Apple was.  At that point the
financial professionals move in, and the
creatives, whose business it is to think
up ways to spend company dollars, to
take risks, find themselves shut down in
meetings by articulate people in great
suits whose job it is to not spend those
dollars or take those risks.  Is the
creative who switches off his intercom
really a jerk at that point, or is he
simply caught in an impossible corporate
double bind?  Is he really
insubordinate, or has the company that
once nourished and encouraged him
suddenly withdrawn its favors?

"You have to understand that there are
two strong opposing forces in the
creative person.  The one force is that
person's internal standards, which are
precious and, in many ways, the secret
to that person's success.  At all costs,
he tells himself, he has to be true to
that inner measure.  The other force is
one we are more familiar with, it's the
drive we all have for recognition by
others.

"The problem is that the two forces
don't reconcile all that easily.
Especially creative people have to
struggle to know which drive to honor at
any given moment."

Managers sometimes have to get between
the dueling forces and act as referees,
Robbins says.  "Managers have to
remember that these people -- though
they seem interested only in the inner
approvals standard -- need probably more
of the garden-variety stroking than
regular employees."

The creative high-achiever has a hot
pilot light, Robbins says.  He or she
burns hotter and works harder than most
people.  And where all of us have an
inner core that we descend into from
time to time in our lives, the creative
high-achiever virtually camps out there,
intensely focused on whatever it is that
he or she is striving to create or
achieve.  "They are almost of another
race than the rest of us -- us being
turtles and them the racehorses,"
Robbins says.  Small wonder if adapting
to our hobbling pace causes them
problems.

"One thing about them," he said, "is
that you can't help them by slowing them
down.  Stress for them may actually be
lower when their activity level is hyper
or beyond.  Never tell a racehorse to
walk a few laps.  Creatives and high
achievers are often subspecies of
workaholics, and workaholics have a way
of dying within a year of retirement."

Comes the final question, a
philosophical one really.  Can people,
whether they are genius-jerks or
whatever, really get hold of their basic
natures and change them?  How many
managers have ever witnessed the kind of
transformation necessary to turn around
a career?

There are several answers, one being
yes, another no, with several others
staking out turf in between.   The no is
easiest to address: no, the chances of
taking a truly awful clump of a
personality and carving it into a
gleaming jewel are slim and none.  But
chances are fair that individuals that
far gone fall more on the jerk side of
the equation than the genius side
anyway.

The positive answers are more
interesting.  Lila Lewey says sure,
individuals certainly can change, and
she and her firm, and the other
industrial relations, industrial
psychological and personnel consulting
firms quoted here, pin
their profit lines on people's ability
to adapt.

At the same time, if change were easy,
it wouldn't require professional
intervention, she says.  You could do it
yourself, which would put individual
coaching teams like Lewey's out of
business.  Taking on the task of easing
a difficult employee back into the
mainstream takes time is practically a
job in itself.  The point is that if
you're a good enough manager to see and
want to solve the problem, you may well
be too valuable to try and solve it all
by yourself.

"Change requires commitment of time,
which alone is enough to dissuade many
managers," Lewey says.  "But it also
requires a commitment of nerve,
involving direct confrontation, and not
a little emotional pain."

And even when the results are good, the
process may not be over.  An employee
who has alienated everyone in the
building will find that his
transformation is not universally
trusted.  Like the boy who cried wolf
too often, the genius-no-longer-(such)-
a-jerk will find that many colleagues
are hard to win over.  There is a degree
to which people almost prefer
the two-dimensionality of poor behavior
to the unpredictibility of more
sensitive behavior.  So more has to
change sometimes than just the
individual -- sometimes the whole
company has to change with him (or her).
Or at the least, his or her own
department.

Sometimes, of course, the will to change
is simply not there.  You can put your
arm around the employee, you can call in
the consultants, you can counsel
everyone in the department to be patient
while Norman makes his transition.  And
Norman decides he just doesn't want to
make it.

There have been more a few managers who,
confronting a Norman or a Norma, have
gotten nothing for their troubles but
the same crummy behavior dished out to
everyone else.  At times such as those,
it may be wise to set aside how valuable
the employee is to the company and to
suggest that it is time to come to a
mutual parting of the ways.  It might be
all the reward you will get, just to see
the look on Norman's face.

To be sure, there are lots of creative
and high-achieving type employees
without the maladaptations of a Norman.
Likewise, being a genius is certainly
not a prerequisite to being a jerk.  And
a jerk who likes being one is of ever
decreasing value, no matter how good he
is.

Norman, are you listening?

#  #  #

Author's Note:

In researching this article, this
reporter found that a great many
individuals were willing to be
interviewed as creative or high-
achieving types, but that only a
peculiar few were eager to be
interviewed as jerks.  Which the author
declined to do.  Being a jerk, experts
agree, is usually something one is not
aware of -- it is mainly a designation
conferred upon one by others.  In fact,
some experts hold that a defining
characteristic of being a jerk is not
knowing that you are one -- which gives
no one the right to point fingers.

So it is not recommended that readers
slide copies of this article under the
doors or over the transoms or between
the panels of those one feels it most
applies to.  Not only do industrial
relations experts agree that clandestine
"hints" such as this only fan flames of
paranoia in the individual, and are not
productive in terms of overall
behavioral modification.  But chances
are strong that the issue will make its
way back to you anyway, with a post-it
note, "Thought you might benefit from
this."

#  #  #