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Ask HN: How do you deal with the brilliant jerks at your workplace?

14 points by sidcool ↗ HN
Over the past decade of my career, I have come across a few arrogant people who were brilliant, and sometimes indispensable to the project. They would consider themselves absolutely untouchable because of their superior intellect.

But with time I realised that they were doing more harm than good. Have you ever successfully converted a brilliant jerk into a relatively milder one? How did you deal with those people? Especially when you were a technical lead or a manager ..

12 comments

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usgroup
I think in any locality you’ll have some sort of rank determining who’s most competent in the team/department/etc. When someone is self aware of their rank as perceived by others it becomes a payable advantage for all sorts of possible purposes: To decide, To lead, To help, To change, Distinction, Promotion, Disdain, Control, Pay rise, Etc

How they use it, what for and what you could do about it depends on the situation and the people involved. General advise would be, as usual, understand what’s actually happening and what enables it, then act accordingly.

cimmanom
By choosing workplaces where they’re not welcome in the first place and thus aren’t present and don’t have to be dealt with.
was_boring
No one is ever "indispensable to the project", and being smart isn't an excuse for being a jerk. Here's how we do it at my company -- you're given a talking to by your manager and a warning, if it continues it starts getting documented and you get fired.

We have a simple rule when hiring -- we don't hire jerks -- and we make that clear during the interview. Generally that self-selects people out and we end up with a team that is productive and cooperative. This is essential when building products, companies, or even coding as all of them are social interactions at their fundamental level.

sidcool
What you say is ideal. But real world has brilliant people, who act like jerks because they feel they will get away with it.
RonSkufca
I ended up leaving due to a brilliant jerk. The organization believed his output outweighed the misery he created. It did not matter that 3 people out of 10 went to HR to complain. No one sued. Yet. Unfortunately I feel it's just a fact of life in some organizations. As long as someone makes the company money the owners/management will look the other way. If you can't get rid of them, my advice is to find a place where they are not welcome in the first place.
mchannon
Honey, not vinegar.

Advocate to management that they be promoted as soon as possible, to a role where they are less involved day-to-day with you. Get your peers in on it. Focus on fear and greed to keep their golden boy employee onboard and not having to replace them.

At the same time, try to get them hired at another company. Find some good recruiters (not the ambulance chaser phone spam variety) and pass their resume around. If your coworker gets wind of it, you have an honorable, believable, and selfish motive: the spiff from the recruiter if they get hired.

Sometimes the best way to push somebody away/out is to push them up. It comes off as positive instead of negative too. Win win.

sidcool
This may be a double edged sword. If the brilliant jerk resorts to micro-management, we are screwed.
Spooky23
If you control their work, keep them accountable for things and don’t let them jump around.

In a big org, promotion is always the best way to get rid of someone. Second best is to have them interact with a bigger jerk.

laurentl
As a manager, I’ve had some success in such situations by demonstrating to the brilliant jerk that I’m at least as brilliant as him. This does not have to be specifically in his area of expertise, but it has to be on a topic he will respect (e.g. architecture, project management, team leadership). This step is crucial, as the BJ will only look up to (perceived) brilliance. (Plain jerks will defer to authority but the brilliant ones usually briddle at incompetence and perceive shows of authority as weakness). This is basically signaling that you’re the alpha male, for the BJ’s definition of alpha. From that position of power, you can then lead by example and demonstrate to the BJ that acting like a decent human being delivers better results than being a douche. If they’re intelligent enough they’ll see how it can serve their own interests and amend their ways. If they’re not intelligent enough... well then it’s time to make them understand that no one is indispensable.

Note: it’s usually a good idea to let your own manager know of the situation and get their approval before attempting anything (to defuse any “going over the manager” gambit).

tmaly
I liked the example given in the book Extreme Ownership. In this case the executives recognized that two brilliant jerks were at each others throat. They vetted members in each of their respective teams, then fired the jerks and promoted those they vetted to replace them