HBR CASE STUDY
What a Star-
What a Jerk
y Sarah Cliffe
Sometimes an employee can be nasty, bullying, o
simply hard-hearted. What should you do, though, when
that person also happens to be a top performer?
SEPTEMBER 2001
From: Jane Epstein
To: Rick Lazarus
Sent: 5/14/01
Subject settling in
Hi Rick. I'm starting to get settled in at
TechniCo-1 miss you and the rest ofthe
gang, and the adrenaline of working
with clients when I'm *on,* but I'm
thrilled not to be living in airports any-
more. Hope Mary and the kids are well.
I've inherited a good team here.
They're all strong performers, and most
of them are nice, too. I'm sure they're
still wondering about me-but so far, so
good. Partial cast: Caroline's been here
longest; she seems pragmatic, very gtx)d
with people. Juggling work-Ì‚ family issues
and a recent divorce - but she pulls he
weight and then some. She's universally
trusted (I think). Tom's the joker. A natu-
al sales guy-a bouncy golden retrieve
personality that cloaks real drive, know
what 1 mean? You never really get inside.
37
HBR CASE STUDY • What a Star-What a Jerk
ut there don't seem to be many inter-
nal climate changes anyway, jack's in-
tense, maybe an intellectual -1 haven't
quite figured him out. I think he may
e shy (?). Anyhow, then there's Andy
Zimmerman, who's got me slightly wor-
ied - maybe because he intimidates
me just a bit. He's very
ight, but he's
aggressive - doesn't suffer fools gladly.
He'll bear watching, I think.
Better run. By the way, I love being
ack in Minneapolis. And, glory be, the
hometown team is making us proud.
From: Rick Lazarus
To: Jane Epstein
Sent: 5/14/01
Subject: Hey strange
Good to hear from you, Jane. The TVvins
have got people talking, ali right. Though
of course they'll fold when the Yankees
hit their stride.;)
What's got you nervous about this
Zimmerman guy? -R
Sent 5/15/01
Subject re: Hey strange
Nothing I can put my finger on. Here's a
little incident. My AA, Maureen, flu
ed
a meeting time - scheduled over some-
thing else-and he really lit into her. Not
the end of the world - she had made a
mistake, and he had to rea
ange an ap-
pointment - but he could have gotten
the point across more tactfully. And she
is *my* AA. (And I am *his* boss, and he
did it in front of me.) -Jane
Sent 5/15/01
Subject don't be a softie
j - The guy doesn't necessarily sound
like a problem to me. I hate it when peo-
ple screw up scheduling, and you've
always been too patient with that kind
of thing. Clearly you have to establish
your own authority with him, though, o
he'll step all over you.
What's the place like in general? Are
the folks there patient with incompe-
Sarah Cliffe is an executive editor at HBR.
HBR's cases present common managerial
dilemmas and offer concrete solutions
from experts. As written, they are hypo-
thetical, and the names used are fictitious.
tence? Or is it crisp and cruel, like here?
;) By the by, Mary sends her love. -R
Sent 5/16/01
Subject tougher than you think
Funny you should ask. It's hardly crisp
and cruel. In fact, it's probably a little
too nicey-nice. Support staff's not up to
the same standards (not paid as well, ei-
ther). And there's a little more coasting
among professional staff here. (Culling
out the bottom 20% of performers every
year sure keeps people on their toes!)
Senior managers talk a lot about lack of
hierarchy, which seems to translate into
tolerating barely average performance
if the people are well liked. (Then again,
this could be all wrong: I'm describing
a place I've only been part of for a few
weeks.) -jane
Sent 5/22/01
Subject FW: good for a laugh...
You have just received the Amish virus.
Since we have no electricity or comput-
ers, you are on the honor system. Please
delete all of your files on your hard
drive. Then forward this message to
everyone in your address book.
Thank thee.
38 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
What a Star-What a Jerk • HBR CASE STUDY
Sent: 5/22/01
Subject: ha! \ • '
Speaking of honor (not), here's anothe
anecdote in the the continuing "Who is
Andy Zimmerman" saga. Yesterday we
were doing some strategizing as a group.
(We need to be more aggressive about
growth, and this was a pretty open-
ended meeting to think about new mar-
kets.) Jack (the intense, possibly shy one
that I haven't figured out yet) was going
on a bit too long about a pet idea of his.
I was about to redirect the conversation
when Andy cut him offi "What you're
proposing makes no sense, and here's
why." Then he laid out all the flaws in
poor Jack's thinking, one by one - really
made him squirm. The thing is, he was
ight. On the other hand, it was a pre-
liminary, semi
ainstorming kind of
meeting, so his tirade stopped the free
flow of ideas in its tracks.
Later, I heard him *reaming* out the
group's other AA, Danielle: "This is an
important customer. He's called three
times - WHY CAN'T YOU GET IT
RIGHT!?!?" Once again, he was right.
But that kind of tongue-lashing *causes*
people to make mistakes. -Jane
Sent: 5/22/01
Subject: bottom line?
Ignoring his niceness quotient for a
moment, how's the guy's performance?
-Rick
Sent: 5/22/01
Subject re: bottom line?
I don't think he'd have gotten away
with his nastiness for so long if his per-
formance weren't topflight. As anothe
group leader said to me over coffee,
"The guy won't win any personality con-
tests, but you'll love his numbers." He
ings home the bacon: He's smart, effi-
cient-the best we've got (in terms of
pure performance). I'd have to be crazy
not to want him in my group. -J
Sent: 5/22/01
Subject: re: re: bottom line?
Well, then, I don't see the problem. I
think you're ove
eacting. -R
Sent: 5/23/01
Subject: re: re: re: bottom line?
That's what I like abt^ut you. Rick-neve
one to sugarcoat...
Sent: 5^0/01
Subject: Holy jeily, Batman...we're in
a jam!
Can I bore you again with Andy, my
low-likability, high-performance guy?
Until now, I'd thought he was just nasty
to lower-level people (which I quietly
asked him to tone down, btw, after the
incidents with the AAs) but at least
grudgingly civil to colleagues. But he's
gone and alienated Caroline, the one
who's going through the divorce. Back-
ground: She has huge social capital built
up here; she's the one everyone turns to
with their problems, either professional
or perstmal. She's a good egg, but she
isn't at her best right now (a custody
issue got messy and her mother's sick).
She probably should have taken some
time off, but it's a bad time of year-so I
asked her to hold off. Okay, so here she
is, this normally centered perstm who's
hanging on by a thread, and Andy got
under her skin. She forwarded me this
e-mail he'd sent her, and when I went to
SEPTEMBER XXXXXXXXXX
HBR CASE STUDY • What a Star - What a Jerk
talk to her about it, she cried. It was a
•ho
ible* scene. Anyhow, take a look:
Caroline, you screwed up big time.
We had a meeting with people I'd
een trying to cultivate for eight
months, set up well in advance, and
you blew it off at the last minute,
which emba
assed me and endan-
gered the business. 1 can just hear you
whining, "Things are a mess at home
ight now" - but you know what?
Tough. Everybody's got problems, and
they should stay out of the office. If I
don't land this business, it will be be-
cause of your incompetence, and you
can bet that Epstein and everyone
else who counts will hear about it.
After she was done crying-which em-
a
assed us both a lot - she expressed
emorse for making the mistake. Then
we talked... she explained how she has
sort of "handled" Zimmerman until re-
cently (which is why she felt betrayed by
his accusations). Evidently, he'd often
vent to her about what he saw as all-
around stupidity. She'd listen, calm him
down, and occasionally chide him ex-
tremely gently for being out of line. And
other people would come to her and
complain when he'd said something
nasty, and she'd calm *them* down (ex-
plaining the pressure he was under,
whatever). Since he exempted her from
his nastiness, she was shocked when he
turned on her. Anyhow, she wasn't try-
ing to blow the whistle on him - not
eally-but I could see that she was fed
up with the smoothing-over role. (I
gather that my predecessor completely
ignored the whole situation - in part
ecause Caroline kept it under control.
Sure wish I could do that.)
Obviously, I have to have a chat with
the big bad wolf. You know, when I left
BCP to take a job with a real company,
1 imagined focusing on numbers, prod-
ucts, customers-on *building* some-
thing. Instead, I feel as if people issues-
stupid little blowups like this-take up
most of my time. Sheesh. These are all
highly paid people, mostly with ad-
vanced degrees.... Why do 1 feel like a
kindergarten teacher?
Sent: 5/30/01
Subject: could be worse...
J - In some ways, he sounds like you
ad cop: He keeps laggards in line, you
get to be the nice guy. I could imagine
worse set-ups.
I'm surprised she showed you that
memo, since it makes her look bad. I
know you're going to tell me it's abusive,
ut is it, really?
Sent: 5/30/01
Subject re: could be worse...
Abusive? I don't know. But it is threat-
ening. And it makes someone who's
good, and who's defended him in the
past, feel like ga
age.... Oh, I don't
know what I think.-J
Sent 5/31/01
Subject whew
Okay, so Andy and I had a long talk. I
think it went reasonably well. With Car-
oline's permission, 1 told him about the
leave she should be on. And he said he
had to admit that he'd never seen any-
thing like that from her before. Looked
very slightly ashamed (but maybe 1
imagined that part).
1 wanted to establish some kind of
apport, as well as call him on inappro-
priate behavior, so ! got him talking
about his own role in the group and
how he sees the work developing ove
the next several months