Is There Such Thing as the Irreplaceable Employee?

By Bill Hunting

Nobody can do everything. So how do you handle the rising star? That gifted employee that turns effortless the chores we once struggled through.

How do we keep egos in check and powerful personalities complimenting each others abilities instead of over-competing on trivialities.

What happens when one of our people starts to think they are invaluable. That they can set the tempo, even when in a group they are not leading. They are too juiced up on their own awesomeness to realize that they show disrespect, intentionally or not, by abusing our time and the opportunities we offer.

Challenging, fowl minded, high-octane problem solving

When running a business with vision it's important to involve other people. That in itself presents a certain unavoidable risk, so we must concede that mastering business is at least in part about balancing the forces involved in creating the vision.

We must also consider the nature of the technology enterprise especially, and the highly intelligent and skilled programmers required to even get started.

I have worked with a very diverse group of sometimes brilliant and often catastrophically self-destructive people. Sometimes they are the same person. A doubt, an insecurity, or maybe a lingering shadow of potential risk presents. It's different for everybody. No amount of experience can avoid it and only guts will get you through in one piece.

To adapt, one must organize opportunities so there are too many projects for any one person to monopolize. Worst case a developer high-jacks one project and you develop in parallel, which is a common practice, and we spin off the innovations our "giant headed" friend produces in isolation. Often experimental projects require several simultaneous approaches to discover the right formula anyway. Such is the way of programming new things.

If nothing else works then remember. Not everyone's project is going to be a blockbuster all the time, and to some degree the excitement level around an employee will always be connected to that fact. Everyone needs to understand and appreciate this. Take it from a guy who has been at the centre of many big projects and then just as quickly became yesterday's jam. Learn to value the exposure to other high achievers who are willing to teach you what is amazing about their methods. Challenging, fowl minded, high-octane problem solving.

I think it's true that smart people can be uniquely aggravating. Or maybe we are just better at everything...including breathing fire. Invention is hard work and it's no secret I am a hard person to work with so consider me an illustration of every mistake one can make, and yet I'm still here in part because patient people believed in me. So consider the method AND the man, as none of us are irreplaceable should we no longer honour the vision or the code.

Today's Reader List >>  |  Referral Links