1:50 PM | Author: Siva
As my code is running endlessly, staring at the giga bytes of data being printed becomes a bit boring. So I look around and I find myself sitting next to the H stack of the journals section of emory's library. As usual the library is deserted. So I take a look at the journals. Hinduism today, Healthcare financial management, Harvard Business review. I find myself reaching for the last one. I am no great fan of management philosphies. But somehow I was curious.

There was this article about people. Make a matrix with likeability and Competence as two axes. You have a lovable star, lovable fool, competent jerk, incompetent jerk. The authors present their survey results about what kind of co workers do people go to when they are in need of help. Everyone wants a lovable star, no one wants a incompetent jerk. When the choice narrows down to other two categories, people prefer a lovable fool over a competent jerk even though they may get better help from the competent jerk.

They also argue that you need competent jerks too. So they outline a manger's course of action to make use of the lovable fools and competent jerks. Choosing a fool : People's preference sometime amazes me !

The complete article is not in the web, but some excerpts are here.
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2 comments:

On 6:15 PM , Anonymous said...

i think we might all have been in one of the four situations that they are describing .. either in personal or professional life.

Atleast, I am sure I have been.

I agree with the author that working with a competent jerk can sometimes be unpleasant in the way that he may treat us ( in a patronizing way) but if it is going to help your work get done .. why care ?? this is ok as long as you are the manager and he works for you. if he is going to be your co-worker, i will give it a second thought ;-)

 
On 9:58 PM , Siva said...

I would have chosen a competent jerk for a co-worker too. As long as work gets done, I really don't care :-)