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HBR CASE STUDY What a Star- What a Jerk by Sarah Cliffe Sometimes an employee can be nasty, bullying, or simply hard-hearted. What should you do, though, when that person also happens to be a top performer? SEPTEMBER 2001 From: Jane Epstein To: Rick Lazarus Sent: 5/14/01 Subject settling in Hi Rick. I'm starting to get settled in at TechniCo-1 miss you and the rest ofthe gang, and the adrenaline of working with clients when I'm *on,* but I'm thrilled not to be living in airports any- more. Hope Mary and the kids are well. I've inherited a good team here. They're all strong performers, and most of them are nice, too. I'm sure they're still wondering about me-but so far, so good. Partial cast: Caroline's been here longest; she seems pragmatic, very gtx)d with people. Juggling work-̂ family issues and a recent divorce - but she pulls her weight and then some. She's universally trusted (I think). Tom's the joker. A natu- ral sales guy-a bouncy golden retriever personality that cloaks real drive, know what 1 mean? You never really get inside. 37 HBR CASE STUDY • What a Star-What a Jerk but there don't seem to be many inter- nal climate changes anyway, jack's in- tense, maybe an intellectual -1 haven't quite figured him out. I think he may be shy (?). Anyhow, then there's Andy Zimmerman, who's got me slightly wor- ried - maybe because he intimidates me just a bit. He's very bright, but he's aggressive - doesn't suffer fools gladly. He'll bear watching, I think. Better run. By the way, I love being back in Minneapolis. And, glory be, the hometown team is making us proud. From: Rick Lazarus To: Jane Epstein Sent: 5/14/01 Subject: Hey stranger Good to hear from you, Jane. The TVvins have got people talking, ali right. Though of course they'll fold when the Yankees hit their stride.;) What's got you nervous about this Zimmerman guy? -R Sent 5/15/01 Subject re: Hey stranger Nothing I can put my finger on. Here's a little incident. My AA, Maureen, flubbed a meeting time - scheduled over some- thing else-and he really lit into her. Not the end of the world - she had made a mistake, and he had to rearrange an ap- pointment - but he could have gotten the point across more tactfully. And she is *my* AA. (And I am *his* boss, and he did it in front of me.) -Jane Sent 5/15/01 Subject don't be a softie j - The guy doesn't necessarily sound like a problem to me. I hate it when peo- ple screw up scheduling, and you've always been too patient with that kind of thing. Clearly you have to establish your own authority with him, though, or he'll step all over you. What's the place like in general? Are the folks there patient with incompe- Sarah Cliffe is an executive editor at HBR. HBR's cases present common managerial dilemmas and offer concrete solutions from experts. As written, they are hypo- thetical, and the names used are fictitious. tence? Or is it crisp and cruel, like here? ;) By the by, Mary sends her love. -R Sent 5/16/01 Subject tougher than you think Funny you should ask. It's hardly crisp and cruel. In fact, it's probably a little too nicey-nice. Support staff's not up to the same standards (not paid as well, ei- ther). And there's a little more coasting among professional staff here. (Culling out the bottom 20% of performers every year sure keeps people on their toes!) Senior managers talk a lot about lack of hierarchy, which seems to translate into tolerating barely average performance if the people are well liked. (Then again, this could be all wrong: I'm describing a place I've only been part of for a few weeks.) -jane Sent 5/22/01 Subject FW: good for a laugh... You have just received the Amish virus. Since we have no electricity or comput- ers, you are on the honor system. Please delete all of your files on your hard drive. Then forward this message to everyone in your address book. Thank thee. 38 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW What a Star-What a Jerk • HBR CASE STUDY Sent: 5/22/01 Subject: ha! \ • ' Speaking of honor (not), here's another anecdote in the the continuing "Who is Andy Zimmerman" saga. Yesterday we were doing some strategizing as a group. (We need to be more aggressive about growth, and this was a pretty open- ended meeting to think about new mar- kets.) Jack (the intense, possibly shy one that I haven't figured out yet) was going on a bit too long about a pet idea of his. I was about to redirect the conversation when Andy cut him offi "What you're proposing makes no sense, and here's why." Then he laid out all the flaws in poor Jack's thinking, one by one - really made him squirm. The thing is, he was right. On the other hand, it was a pre- liminary, semibrainstorming kind of meeting, so his tirade stopped the free flow of ideas in its tracks. Later, I heard him *reaming* out the group's other AA, Danielle: "This is an important customer. He's called three times - WHY CAN'T YOU GET IT RIGHT!?!?" Once again, he was right. But that kind of tongue-lashing *causes* people to make mistakes. -Jane Sent: 5/22/01 Subject: bottom line? Ignoring his niceness quotient for a moment, how's the guy's performance? -Rick Sent: 5/22/01 Subject re: bottom line? I don't think he'd have gotten away with his nastiness for so long if his per- formance weren't topflight. As another group leader said to me over coffee, "The guy won't win any personality con- tests, but you'll love his numbers." He brings home the bacon: He's smart, effi- cient-the best we've got (in terms of pure performance). I'd have to be crazy not to want him in my group. -J Sent: 5/22/01 Subject: re: re: bottom line? Well, then, I don't see the problem. I think you're overreacting. -R Sent: 5/23/01 Subject: re: re: re: bottom line? That's what I like abt^ut you. Rick-never one to sugarcoat... Sent: 5^0/01 Subject: Holy jeily, Batman...we're in a jam! Can I bore you again with Andy, my low-likability, high-performance guy? Until now, I'd thought he was just nasty to lower-level people (which I quietly asked him to tone down, btw, after the incidents with the AAs) but at least grudgingly civil to colleagues. But he's gone and alienated Caroline, the one who's going through the divorce. Back- ground: She has huge social capital built up here; she's the one everyone turns to with their problems, either professional or perstmal. She's a good egg, but she isn't at her best right now (a custody issue got messy and her mother's sick). She probably should have taken some time off, but it's a bad time of year-so I asked her to hold off. Okay, so here she is, this normally centered perstm who's hanging on by a thread, and Andy got under her skin. She forwarded me this e-mail he'd sent her, and when I went to SEPTEMBER 2001 39 HBR CASE STUDY • What a Star - What a Jerk talk to her about it, she cried. It was a •horrible* scene. Anyhow, take a look: Caroline, you screwed up big time. We had a meeting with people I'd been trying to cultivate for eight months, set up well in advance, and you blew it off at the last minute, which embarrassed me and endan- gered the business. 1 can just hear you whining, "Things are a mess at home right now" - but you know what? Tough. Everybody's got problems, and they should stay out of the office. If I don't land this business, it will be be- cause of your incompetence, and you can bet that Epstein and everyone else who counts will hear about it. After she was done crying-which em- barrassed us both a lot - she expressed remorse for making the mistake. Then we talked... she explained how she has sort of "handled" Zimmerman until re- cently (which is why she felt betrayed by his accusations). Evidently, he'd often vent to her about what he saw as all- around stupidity. She'd listen, calm him down, and occasionally chide him ex- tremely gently for being out of line. And other people would come to her and complain when he'd said something nasty, and she'd calm *them* down (ex- plaining the pressure he was under, whatever). Since he exempted her from his nastiness, she was shocked when he turned on her. Anyhow, she wasn't try- ing to blow the whistle on him - not really-but I could see that she was fed up with the smoothing-over role. (I gather that my predecessor completely ignored the whole situation - in part because Caroline kept it under control. Sure wish I could do that.) Obviously, I have to have a chat with the big bad wolf. You know, when I left BCP to take a job with a real company, 1 imagined focusing on numbers, prod- ucts, customers-on *building* some- thing. Instead, I feel as if people issues- stupid little blowups like this-take up most of my time. Sheesh. These are all highly paid people, mostly with ad- vanced degrees.... Why do 1 feel like a kindergarten teacher? Sent: 5/30/01 Subject: could be worse... J - In some ways, he sounds like your bad cop: He keeps laggards in line, you get to be the nice guy. I could imagine worse set-ups. I'm surprised she showed you that memo, since it makes her look bad. I know you're going to tell me it's abusive, but is it, really? Sent: 5/30/01 Subject re: could be worse... Abusive? I don't know. But it is threat- ening. And it makes someone who's good, and who's defended him in the past, feel like garbage.... Oh, I don't know what I think.-J Sent 5/31/01 Subject whew Okay, so Andy and I had a long talk. I think it went reasonably well. With Car- oline's permission, 1 told him about the leave she should be on. And he said he had to admit that he'd never seen any- thing like that from her before. Looked very slightly ashamed (but maybe 1 imagined that part). 1 wanted to establish some kind of rapport, as well as call him on inappro- priate behavior, so ! got him talking about his own role in the group and how he sees the work developing over the next several months