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Everyone says that you need to hire rockstars for your business. Very true! A single rock star employee can be worth 3 regular employees in terms of productivity. But there are scenarios where the rock star programmer or number one sales person negatively influences an organization and people beyond their value. Do you know the signs that the person you feel is a rockstar is also a cancer negating their value?
1. Alignment - Choosing projects that they want to work on rather than what the business needs. It's subtle at first, but then you realize that the projects that you need done aren't the first ones that are worked on, but rather the last ones that are worked on. If you have a weak manager, poor project alignment is something that can be corrected by being more persuasive about what projects need to be done and by when. Verify that your managers are setting the right priorities.
2. Prima Donna - Have you ever received a call after sending out a thank you email only to hear the caller upset that you didn't give the riockstar enough credit? Defering credit to others is the sign of a level 5 leader according to Jim Collins in Good to Great. If someone is explicitly demanding more credit, there's an underlying problem of someone feeling unappreciated. Be sure to identify who the likely "Prima Donna" people are to address them individually before and during public opportunities.
3. Blame Game - When a project that several people worked on doesn't turn out well, does your rockstar find every reason in the world to place the blame elsewhere? Was the rockstar sounding the alarm bells when the project was going in the wrong direction or just doing their "rockstar" thing? Having regular meetings and an impartial person sitting at the table for project updates is a good way to defuse this before it happens.
4. Yes, but - Your employee always nods in agreement, says "yes I agree with you" then qualifies it with "but...". In some cases, the "yes, but" is a great way to disagree without offending, but when it becomes the majority answer, you have a problem. Documenting the meetings and projects allows people to have a clear picture of what was discussed and agreed on so that whatever the "but" qualifier was is downplayed.
While I paint a black and white picture here, it is usually not that way. The employee in question is usually more in the grey area of these signals and often can be saved, but it takes an attentive manager and a willing employee to make the necessary adjustments.
