Qualities Your Best Employees Should Have | Hacker News Reader

Qualities Your Best Employees Should Have

inc.com

61 pointsjamesjyu14 comments

It's funny: I could make a list titled "8 Qualities That Will Keep You From Getting Promoted at Most Companies," and the bullet points would be roughly the same. These may be great qualities for employees to have, but a lot of them are likely to be seen as liabilities. Employers may say they want free-thinking, mild eccentrics, but they create pretty much the opposite incentive structures. (Conversely, nothing gets people promoted faster than being a corporate cheerleader).

Perhaps this is at the heart of what's wrong with most big firms. I don't know. But I think articles like this one need to reconcile the gaping disparity between what people say they want and what they actually seem to reward.

Pretty much; the context where this employee would thrive would mean equally amazing employers. An incompatible employee-employer relationship can't be sustained, whoever's "fault" it is.

Haha - I know what you mean. I feel like if you have TOO much of these qualities you become un-hireable because you're probably a closet entrepreneur and many companies don't like that.

I worked at Sonic Foundry for many years, and 2 (Eccentric) and 3 (Know when to dial it back) were highly valued and incentivized. Most everyone there were very bright, yet independent and outgoing (and often a bit crazy). We had a blast around the office, but always knew when to buckle down when meeting deadlines or schmoozing customers.

Everyone in Madison knew it was a fun place to work, which gave us a lot of the best applicants. And even if you were competent, you usually didn't last long if you didn't fit into the "culture".

"Perhaps this is at the heart of what's wrong with most big firms."

I think the list makes a lot more sense if you apply it to small companies. Not necessarily startups, but companies of less than, say, 30 or 40 people.

Big companies seem to need to protect themselves against incompetence in ways that small companies do not. So they create more tightly defined roles and Procedures Which Must Be Adhered To, which preclude employees ignoring job descriptions, grate against eccentricities, and are not amenable to fiddling.

If you have a significant fraction of these 8 qualities, I suspect you'll be happier at a small company.

Amazing. Now, let's all fantasize about bosses who don't suffer from personal insecurities, incompetence and fleeing responsibility that could deal with such an employee.

These articles always sound like the employers are all Gandalfs and all the employees are all the novices.

It's funny, when peoples talks about what they want but don't mention anything about what they ready to give. I think it's easy for "the MBAs".

One question: how many such employees exist? This is one huge "wish for" list. You have to be great at what you do, and the social stuff? You have to be great at that too. Can every company expect to get such employees?

"When a key customer's project is in jeopardy, remarkable employees know without being told there's a problem and jump in without being asked—even if it's not their job."

While this may be true, you're not going to get it often unless you compensate them for it. Most competent engineers will only do the late night/unpaid overtime a few times before they realize it's not getting them anything extra.

Good list. I would add accountability to that.

Accountability is huge trait for employees and it seems compatible with, "They speak when others won’t." Often a team is faced with err and the best employees speak up, take responsibility and discuss solutions from the lessons learned. In the face of failure too many employees pass the blame or simply remain silent.

"They like to prove others wrong"

...what utter shit!

This is a horoscope-quality feel-good list for incompetent middle managers to read and misunderstand.

I was just about to write this exact same comment. Most people will claim 7 or 8 of these points.

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