Fire quickly
- False positives: people who you thought fit your values, but don’t once they’re hired
- False negatives: people who you thought would not fit your values, but would have if you had hired them
If you get some false positives anyway, the solution is to fire quickly. To follow the "No Asshole Rule", we need to strictly apply this despite the common excuses:
- for that one bad trait, he has four good traits going for him.
- [data scientists/engineers/product managers] are hard to replace, so we’ll make do.
- We’ve decided that we’re not going to fire him because he’s a high performer.
Other excuses we made: For ineffective employee, we rationalize this behavior with “lies we tell ourselves.” Here are a few lies people use to keep an ineffective employee:
- He is trying really hard.
- She deserves another chance.
- People really like her.
- I feel bad for him.
- He’s good at other things.
- He has stuff going on in his personal life
- She is in the wrong role.
- For 10x employee
Conversely, we should dramatically expand the responsibility of 20x performers. Most don’t and rationalize limiting their most effective employees by saying:
- She’s great but not ready for a promotion
- He’s good but I’m not blown away
- She doesn’t have the right background
- He’s never done this job before
- If we promote and she doesn’t work out, what then?
Evaluating
Using Performance-Values Matrix. All the sample metrics are included in
- Core
- Team
- Personal
Incompetent Assholes (Fire fast)
Low-performers and their behavior is incongruent with company values. Fire fast.
Competent Assholes (Remediate or Separate)
High-performers but exhibit behavioral tendencies that are incongruent with your company values. The only reason to keep them is because they are seen as critical to the company or difficult to replace.
Exceptions shouldn’t be made, otherwise it shows your values are merely aspirational. It should be made clear that value-incongruent behavior is not tolerated and they will need to remediate their behavior in a measurable way within a limited time.
Incompetent Nice Guys (Manage or Move)
Low-performers but is the exemplars of your culture and are well-liked by almost everyone.
Incompetent nice guys and gals should be put on a traditional performance improvement plan (PIP), and skillfully managed in order to give them the training and feedback to improve their abilities.
Of course, if that is not possible or does not work out, they should also be separated from the company.
Competent and Outstanding Nice Guys (Praise and Raise)
Competent nice guys and gals earn up to 75% of the maximum employee evaluation score, and should be praised and given the opportunity for advancement.
By building this designation directly into the evaluation matrix, outstanding nice guys and gals should be formally recognized and rewarded with raises and promotions.
10x engineer can't be an asshole. They will decrease the performance of the people around them.
The dark triad
The key to understanding the Dark Triad is that while all three share a callousness toward others that encourages manipulativeness, they do so for distinct reasons. Psychopaths are driven by short-term tangible rewards, and engage in reckless, antisocial behavior to get it. Machiavellians are fueled by long-term tangible rewards and will strategize schemes to get them. Narcissists are motivated by whatever boosts their ego, whether tangible rewards or simple praise that validates their idealized self-image.
