All said and done you need your "bad" employee more than they need you. Brilliance usually comes at a cost. If you were really a good leader you would have been able to get Rodger some help with his drug problem. And if it had worked he would have repayed you with some amazing work.
Stop fucking complaining about "bad" employees who make you more money than everyone else on the team. Your job IS to deal with them - so deal with it.
Else be happy with the 9-to-5 lifers on you team and shut the fuck up. You'll find that you aren't going to be able todo jack shit with them.
Your job isn't to deal with them, its to extract from them. Once you can no longer extract value beyond their cost, "poof, be gone".
Once T.O. isn't a great player, who's gonna put up with him? No one. With that said, when you look at most of the greats, think Gretsky, Jordan, Tiger, Magic, Bird, etc... they are the model player. The only major exception I can think of is Bonds, and with him, steroids I think I helped a lot. If not for the roids, I think Griffey and A-Rod look a lot better.
Once T.O. isn't a great player, who's gonna put up with him? No one.
Clear example of this: Brett Favre. Skipping training camp by pretending to retire each year was fine if he could still put in a good season of football. Having failed to do that this year, he has nowhere to go but out.
Even without his later 'roid years Bonds is statistically by far the best batter of his generation and one of the top 5 of all time (Probably #2, just a sliver behind Williams).
Well he is claimed to have started roids in 1998. While he was a great player before '98, he moves into legendary status after '98. With that said, I shouldn't have put A-Rod in the same breath with the Kid since clearly A-Rod also used steroids.
You know, I'm inclined to agree that one needs to be able to deal with a bit more to get talent. But no amount of leadership can deal with a drug problem. That requires action on Roger's part.
Besides that, this doesn't sound like the typical "Employees aren't good unless they follow my every order to the letter and get along great with every single person in the company" meme that I'm used to hearing. At least there's an acknowledgement that companies might have to deal with these issues in certain cases.
Is it really black and white as that? Would you still hire a genius if his actions were unethical on purpose just on the off streak that he might (or even has) produced 10x the wealth/value/code/output as an average engineer?
It really depends on the person, his flaws, and the role.
Roger the Coke Fiend actually seems like he'd be manageable as a part-timer: keep him on the bench, and if you have a cool 72h burst for him to do, especially if the consequences of his failure are not bad in any case. A dull but productive and reliable guy makes a great accountant. It's all about the specifics.
For someone unethical, I'd be reluctant to do most business, but might be willing to do arms length product purchases. For instance, there are musicians who produce music I sometimes enjoy but wouldn't trust at all.
Definitely. I think at the end of the day, Id still be wary of lack of ethics (or professionalism) regardless of an uber IQ (or HQ - Hackability Quotient!). While there may be a lot of value from this person, the costs of managing would certainly be high as well (from the point of view of ensuring there are no negative effects - both tangible and on team morale)...
Regarding helping people: yes, an enlightened workplace would try to help an employee, but it's far from certain (understaing) that it will work.
> And if it had worked he would have repayed you with some amazing work.
This is wishful thinking. If it hadn't worked, it probably wouldn't be clear right away. Instead it would seem like maybe it was working, and you'd spend months to years in a hopeful and guilty cycle trying to help someone who didn't really want to be helped, or worse yet, wanted to be helped, but still couldn't overcome his addiction.
> Your job IS to deal with them - so deal with it.
Firing someone is one way to deal with them.
> Else be happy with the 9-to-5 lifers on you team and shut the fuck up. You'll find that you aren't going to be able todo jack shit with them.
Self-righteous feel-good bullshit. Organizations need all kinds of people. I have great sympathy for types (1) and (2), but there are many cases where they are clearly self-destructive and toxic to others.
Even if keeping difficult employees is the right move, classifying them (as this post attempts to do) can still be useful. In fact I'd guess it's even more useful.
Stop fucking complaining about "bad" employees who make you more money than everyone else on the team. Your job IS to deal with them - so deal with it.
Else be happy with the 9-to-5 lifers on you team and shut the fuck up. You'll find that you aren't going to be able todo jack shit with them.
I hate people who post shit like this.