Starstruck

Face-off

Two of our star columnists debate the value of hotshot employees

Dr. Steven Berglas: "They're management nightmares." I hear it daily. In many companies, self-centered stars who demand their own way and disregard the silent majority dominate. A growing business is the last place where these narcissists should be allowed to set up playpens.

Or maybe not. Sure, the bum rap that some business stars receive is well-founded, but let's not overgeneralize. Some of them, while cursed with an arrogant, imperious attitude that borders on (but isn't) hostility, are well worth the special care and handling they demand. Why? Because without them your business could plunge into receivership.

More often than not, your star sales director or B-school bean-counter braggart got his or her attitude the old-fashioned way: by earning it. I grant that strutting your stuff as some star employees are wont to do can upset the masses, but isn't some of the distress derived from jealousy?

Set aside results for a moment and consider morale. It's just not true that every star employee depresses the mood of a company. In fact, some raging narcissists can lift the mood of a business when, for example, it has lost a major account, because for these guys the glass is perpetually half full. So taken are they with their powers of persuasion and perspicacity that all they need to do to convert the mood of a business from bad to glad is to see some possibility for success off in the distant horizon. Truth be told, that reality-insensitive form of optimism, although grandiose, can work.

Flip the argument on its head and ask yourself if you want a horde of middling people running your company. Bereft of the moxie to weather tough or tragic times, the average Joe or Jane would collapse under the weight of a failure. But the narcissist, obnoxious though he or she may be, would probably act like the carpenter who blames his tools for bad outcomes, attributing an unwanted event to anything but his actions and proceeding, undeterred, toward his goal.

If you're considering reining in your company's self-anointed royalty, remember that their attitude can be energizing in positive ways to new hires or younger employees. People younger than 35 typically love role models who have attitude.

Many of you may be shocked that I, a licensed psychologist, am condoning the megalomaniacal behavior of some stars, of prima donnas who abuse and threaten the physical and psychological integrity of the people with whom they work. I'm not. In no way do I believe that a person who crosses the line from self-indulgence to abusive behavior should be tolerated in any organization. One instance of character assassination, sexual harassment, or physical assault, and I favor termination, EEOC rules advocating accommodations for mental illness be damned. But that's not what most prima donnas are about. They may be spoiled, but they're not sadistic or hedonistic, nor are they intentionally hurtful.

Many stars or prima donnas, in addition to being self-centered, are in fact scared. There's a lovely song from The King and I called "Whistle a Happy Tune." The singer says she whistles a happy tune when she's anxious, "so no one will suspect I'm afraid." The result of that intentional self-deception, as the song reveals, is that "when I fool the people I fear, I fool myself as well." Well, folks, this really works, and when the stars of your organization blow their own horn--even if it's in your ear--you might interpret it as their unique form of preparing for a business battle on behalf of your company. Much of the bluster that gives star employees their bad rap is a unique form of "self-medication" that allows them to function at full effectiveness despite being scared out of their wits.

Think of how, as an upstart young boxer, Muhammad Ali used self-inflation to destroy the then-formidable champion, Sonny Liston. Don't tell me that a person with an "oh, golly! I couldn't step on any toes today; it wouldn't be proper" attitude would battle a champion. And how does one build a business like MCI when facing the Goliath AT&T without an "I am the greatest" attitude? Do you think that any entrepreneur who takes on, and defeats, established businesses that control markets has an "all that matters is harmony in the workplace" orientation toward coworkers? Give me a break. The entrepreneurs who are lionized for their achievements have a "screw the naysayers; screw the establishment; get out of my way, or I'll knock you over" ethos. That's the soul of a prima donna; it's also the soul of an entrepreneurial leader.

Locker rooms are festooned with the slogan "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." You don't build businesses without that attitude, and workers who are afraid to ruffle feathers don't have it. Populate your organization exclusively with folks who don't believe that they're special, and your company's performance will mimic their attitude. Give the narcissists among you their due, as well as some special care and feeding, and I'll show you a company that's a contender for Inc. 500 honors. Sure, stars are noisy, pushy, self-centered, and brash, but boy, do they set challenging performance goals. Robert Browning wrote, "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" You'll never get to business heaven by fostering peaceful coexistence over self-confidence, even if that self-confidence is the off-the-map variety manifested by star employees.

Dr. Steven Berglas is a management consultant and a psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School.

Nancy K. Austin: Quick, who's more valuable to a growing company--a handful of hotshots or a guild of journeymen? Who's harder to do without, a virtuoso, or a skilled corps of reliable carpenters who can build trusty tables and unteetery chairs but have no pretensions to art?

As wages and productivity rise and unemployment stays superlow the search for A-1 people is getting pretty hairy. So plenty of employers try to lure top talent with hallucinatory salary-and-bonus packages. Even if you score, there's no way to compel a lavishly compensated wonder-worker to be an enthusiastic team player, but so what? Stars are stars because they're in a class by themselves; they don't need to work all that well with others as long as they outperform your expectations by 30% or 40% or 80%.

Meanwhile, the merely mortal yeomen and yeowomen work the mines, where performance standards keep getting higher. We ask a lot of regular employees these days. They're expected to pack their own chutes, keep their skills sharp, and work hard because they want to. Above all, they're supposed to contribute more than they cost. No 10-year, $70-million deals for them. Journeymen's work is as plain and as filling as a ploughman's lunch: not fancy, well done, and if you ask me, deeply undervalued.