Start-up Sutra #40: Don't Tolerate Schmucks

This engineer was amazing.

His technical skills were incredible. He had this uncanny ability - almost like a forensics savant - to solve incredible challenges in a fraction of the time when others struggled, wrestled, and failed resolving it over weeks. Time and time again - Conor (not his real name) would "save the day."

Go-live show-stopper? Conor solved it.

Critical pre-sales demo issue? Bring in Conor.

Project hemorrhaging and need to call a lifeline? Conor's the man.

Conor was a certifiable baddass and....

Conor was a certifiable schmuck.

For all of Conor's engineering brilliance, technical expertise, and ability to solve the unsolvable - he was simply impossible to work with. His arrogance, me-first / team-last approach, insensitivity towards others, and overall disrespect was legendary. With every Herculean act - he felt more empowered and his schmuck-ness grew.

We all know incredibly talented folks within our network and most likely within OUR OWN COMPANIES with whom are challenging to work with. Their attitude - perhaps character - is unfortunately toxic and they simply don't have the self-awareness to either see how their behavior impacts others or worse they know... and don't care. (Check out Start-up Sutra #78 (EQ > IQ) to dig a bit deeper into the criticality of emotional intelligence.)

When building a Start-up - we often focus on technical competence most as the primary necessary quality of our teammates / employees. In my opinion - this stems from a primitive and necessary survival mentality. As Founders - we live in this "flight/fright" mode during the beginning of building a business and in turn - this blind spot exists. Other teammate qualities - often more important in fact - are deprioritized.

Speaking from my own experience and specific to Conor's demeanor - I rationalized these "rough edges" because of fear of losing customer revenue. "Sure Conor's collaboration isn't the greatest," I would say, "but who else can solve that problem? His behavior will improve over time." Yeah right.

Allowing these Conor's to remain within your organization has two devastating impacts:

1. the individual acts as a cancer within your Startup
2. and worse - it actually encourages / promotes this awful behavior.

Consistent conduct - positive or negative - reinforces and shapes corporate culture.

Several days after the most recent Conor incident, our VP of HR walked up to me in the office. "Conor's in jail Yosh," he stated matter of fact. My mouth dropped to the floor. Despite his abrasiveness, arrogance, and absolutism, I never in a million years thought Conor would be thrown in jail. This was a first for me and it crossed the line.

Conor left NIMBL in disgrace shortly thereafter. My decision on how to handle Conor's behavior was taken care for me. I should have had the strength to fire him before. I got lucky the universe took action.

Interestingly and perhaps ironically after Conor's departure, stories began to be revealed not only about his intolerable behavior but actually regarding his performance. Because we/I had tolerated his behavior for so long - most folks felt Conor was "untouchable." Only after he was no longer part of our Startup did we realize - his technical chops weren't as strong as its legend. In fact - key findings were brought to light actually stating the exact opposite.

I was fearful of losing Conor's "talent"; hence I failed to act. However - not only did I come to realize his "talent" was NOT as amazing as thought (not remotely as important but still relevant) but the impact of losing his technical talent was not as bad as imagined. Most importantly though, team culture improved overnight.

This critical Sutra (i.e. "schmucks can't be tolerated) was learned only though this memorable experience. It shapes my management decisions to this day. No one person - regardless of talent - is more important than the team. For we can always train for aptitude with the right attitude but rarely the opposite.

As always - would love to hear your thoughts/comments and shared experiences.

[Disclaimer: I do not remotely profess to embody this sutra (please see my Startup Sutras original post for more background); practice this sutra as much as I should; and/or be any role model. Like all ideals, I strive as much as the next to practice as much as possible.