Onto the the next of my three major take-aways from Karen McGrane’s fabulous IA Summit closing keynote.
Major Take-Away #2 or “The Role of the Lovable Fool”
Next Karen had a slide with “skill” (may not have been that exact word) on one axis and “likability” on the other. She began by observing that people who are highly skilled and highly likeable are rockstars and there isn’t much to do there except hang onto them (although there is plenty to discuss there, as hanging onto rockstars isn’t necessarily the easiest thing to do since they get a) bored and b) poached–but that’s for another post).
She then went onto to dispatch with incompetent jerks by pointing out that they really don’t create that many problems–they either get fired, transferred to become someone else’s problem, or people just work around them.
That leaves us with the competent-but-unlikeable and incompetent-but-likeable categories–the incompetent jerks and the lovable fools. And here she pointed out that competent jerks tend to stick around and even get promoted; no one likes working with them, but they survive economic downturns due to their competence. And we all know what happens to the lovable fools–in good times they are kept around because of their affability but in economic downturns, they are among the first to be let go.
So, what’s the problem? Doesn’t this just make sense–in a capitalist system surely competence is more important than affability, right? Karen says not so fast–there is more to the lovable fool that meets the eye.
As someone who has done quite a bit of hiring in this field (and hopes to do a lot more) understanding the role of personality in management is important to me and as soon as Karent displayed her axis I had the feeling there would be something important here. Karen’s next point didn’t surprise me a great deal; she observed that lovable fools reduce stress in workplaces and lead to happier teams. I’ve seen this in action.
IMPORTANT CAVEAT: “fool” or “incompetent” really aren’t the right words for this phenomenon, as I don’t think anyone would ever recommend referring to a colleague this way as it would almost certainly be perceived as insulting or demeaning. The people who fall into this quadrant are typically perfectly smart, competent people–but they’re often not as visibly productive, aren’t aggressive, aren’t boastful, and typically aren’t producing deliverables that are quite as sharp (or flashy) as their jerkier (or rockstar) peers.