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This sounds like something a coworker would write. Unfortunately the individual was not actually a top performer—just convinced that he was. He would consistently say things that were objectively wrong (lot of math in our field... pretty easy to verify with certainty whether someone knows what he’s talking about), but the rest of us were polite enough not to point his misunderstandings out very often as he would freak out and throw a fit if we did. He was basically above average, convinced he was several standard deviations above everyone else, and more or less humored by everyone else so we could get work done instead of managing his ego outbursts all day.

Slightly above average and a generally sane, nice person will likely be beloved by all coworkers. Slightly above average with a complex... not really

So why wasn't he terminated if he had sub par performance and was also someone who causes friction? Did no one speak up about the issue... or is that "rude" behavior?

To me is sound that 1 of 3 things are happening:

- Management sucks and cannot objectively see who is successful as doing what.

- The person is not subpar and that is your own personal feelings

- Most of the company's full of "nice guys/girls" and the building could be on fire and they would still applaud any small insignificant win while the whole place burns. They fail to deal with anyone failures and issues including the rude person and so they just deal with it and complain via whispers.

> Slightly above average with a complex...

I don't think this person would get fired anywhere I've worked. It's difficult and expensive to fire someone. You open yourself up to possible legal action even if you put them on a performance improvement plan. The best is to try and manage them out, but if the work you need to get done outstrips the people able to do it, you'll keep that above average person who thinks more of themselves than they should.

You case dose not match the parents claim, but i get that your situation seems tricky. I will also say this sounds like a management failure if 1 person is so critical they can get away with being disruptive to others. The leader of that person should focus on getting anyone else up to speed and co-ownership of the knowledge that makes the disruptive person so valuable.

You’re missing the point. I directly quoted the original response because you misread it and said subpar. The person in question is not subpar. The person is also not so valuable that others need to emulate them as you just put forth. The person is simply above average but thinks they’re amazing and acts accordingly.

> He was basically above average, convinced he was several standard deviations above everyone else

From GP's own words, this person was _not_ subpar, just not nearly as good as they thought they were. I don't think most comapanies would fire someone for that.

My experience is very different. The rudest people I've had to work with are generally incompetent to mediocre at best, often believe themselves to be far more competent than the evidence suggests, and end up significant drains on the company as people go to significant inefficiencies in order to avoid having to deal with aforementioned rude incompetents. The actual best performers tended to be quietly polite and unobtrusively competent, getting on with their work smoothly; given that being rude to people causes problems, being rude isn't just a sign of incompetence - it is incompetence.

> people go to significant inefficiencies in order to avoid having to deal with aforementioned rude incompetents

This can also make them seem more competent. E.g. if one rude person is an obstruction that everyone else has to work around, the rude individual is the only one working unimpeded. Unless the difference in competency is large enough to account for that, the manager might consider the rude person more competent.

I have certainly worked with what I think of as "negative employees"; people who have the same effect, when joining a team, as a competent person leaving that team.

If this is the case, your hiring and evaluating process has a deficiency, which should be an easy fix.

However, assuming a decent hiring process, people generally aren't rude from the get-go. The bigger question the study doesn't even tackle is how does rudeness evolve over time, and - again assuming rudeness isn't some intrinsic attribute - what factors lead to an increase in rudeness.

If somebody is truly incompetent, sure, fire them. But incompetence is rarely so cut and dried, and points to a failure to invest in a person's or team's abilities.

I don't think it's a stretch to see the proliferation of incompetence as a management failure in any case. If percieved incompetence leads to a lack of respect and therefore rudeness, it should come as no surprise why leaders who allowed such an environment to be created would be unable/unwilling to assess it accurately.

From my experience rude + under-performing = termination, if those people who you work with are not performing why does your companies management keep the around?

I didn't put it in my original post but incompetent managers who use "boasting" as a success metric instead of objective metrics can lead to such an issue as well.

if those people who you work with are not performing why does your companies management keep the around?

I'm asking this question presently as a team lead.

We have a contributor who is a drain on just about every aspect of our team's operations. They frequently miss meetings, they don't seem to take instruction well (example I brought up once to another team member, this person will ask for help, cut you off constantly, suggest their way is better, or do the direct opposite of whatever recommendation you offer and spend days on a problem set delaying sprints), have delayed multiple projects, caused numerous production outages so on and so forth.

All of this combined has made trying to train this person or help them improve difficult and frustrating--very few on the team wants to work with them anymore.

It's not a secret among the team that this person just is not the contributor we need, and it's pretty evident from his reactions a few times that our department head is not pleased either, but he doesn't seem interested in letting this person go--none of us are quite sure how to have that talk with our leader that we think this person should be cut loose and a replacement found.

Suggestions on broaching that topic?

As team lead are you the persons manager? If so you should have every right to go to hr to either terminate or start a performance improvement plan.

If your a team lead with no hire/fire power you need to go to your department head (and rally those whoa agree with you to do the same) and be blunt. "X is is not performing to expectations on top of that the way X is not performing is disrupting, impeding, and alienating other members of the team and its now become not just a performance issue but one of employee attrition".

This makes it about X vs the rest of the team/department and allows him to clearly see what is actually at risk. Its very unlikely 1 person is so valued that a manager would accept major turnover in their department.

"From my experience rude + under-performing = termination, if those people who you work with are not performing why does your companies management keep the around?"

So many reasons. Outside the US and inside parts of Europe, it's actually often a lot of work to fire someone for being so rude that they're damaging the company. It's possible and not actually difficult, but it requires the gathering of evidence and uncomfortable conversations and so on. Far less work and easier to either ignore it, or try to shuffle the person sideways. If they can't be shuffled sideways, there's always the option of promoting them.

Additionally, these people often look like hard-driving, no-bullshit "get it done" workers to management. Look at Dave there, he didn't mess around; he simply told everyone else that they're idiots who don't know what they're talking about, and then he left the meeting and started furiously rewriting something independently at his desk. What a guy.

Great engineers make everyone around them better. Bad engineers put down their co-workers and dismiss them as incompetent.

Almost every great engineer I have worked around has been nice, patient and relaxed. Because they know you can catch far more flys with honey than with vinegar.

In any population there is going to be a bell curve in terms of performance. Often those on the left may simply not be as smart or talented. Being rude to them does nothing to make them better.

>management says he or she is an ahole but do the most work and everything they say os true

Now the question is whether management has a clear picture of what is happening on the floor. Do they know who the top performers are or is management just taking whining and anti social behaviour as a false marker of diligence and competence. In my experience it is more often the later. A-holes tend to be better at sucking up and managing up rather than actually being good at the task.

“Top or above average” in what? Apparently not in being a team player. And I don’t think “writes excellent code” is the only criteria in any serious performance evaluation.

> They tend to be top or above average performers who don't like when co-workers who are sub par are treated and rewarded as their equals.

What exactly does this mean? They don't like when juniors are treated well? You will always be working with team of varying skills and knowledge and if you insist that other people are treated with disrespect, then you are asshole.

> I have seen such "rude" or "toxic" people work fine along other exceptional and/or capable co-workers and reject those who cant perform.

That is being intentionally rude toward members of team you are supposed to lead, teach and give appropriate tasks to. That is toxic no matter how you slice it.

> what we should really discuss is how we can focus on honest constructive conversations that allow the successful to succeed and give critical feed back to those who arent.

You cant have constructive conversations nor critical feed back when you are rejecting and being rude. The constructive criticism is not possible in that setup.

Constructive criticism is possible with good faith interactions and when emotions are away. The people you described turned impersonal into emotional by being rude and "rejecting".

Think about a dynamic where one person in team is hyper obsessed with work and refining his work.

While there are other members in team who have different hobbies or even have a family.

Natrually, the one who spends more time refining the work is often rewarded assuming the members of the team were equally qualified and probably fall within same IQ range.

Now, is it not natural for their supervisor to expect from other team members?

Team members will recognize who is pushing the bar up and will be bitter towards them because now I've to make extra effort.