Brilliant Jerks

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Who would want to work for someone like that? Many, of course, do work for someone like that. And besides changing jobs when you’ve had enough, your best hope is that the brilliant jerk changes. And frankly, when Joseph Charlton first put the play on at the Vault Festival in 2018, he probably couldn’t afford a ride home himself – he had to crowdfund the show for a barrel-scraping two grand, making sets, hiring technicians, and getting just three actors to take both the trio of main roles and all of the many supporting parts too. What came out was, well, brilliant. The Independent, The Standard, and The Stage all gave it a heap of praise, and it’s been further refined since then. Kiran Sonia Sawar’s Mia sees none of the dizzying highs of the corporate world as a humble driver, and Sawar captures Mia’s wavering strength, resolve and resilience in the face of heartbreak with great poise and dignity. Brilliant Jerks is a fast-paced three-hander about the rise of a taxi company clearly inspired by Uber, exploring primarily the sort of toxic work environment that is potentially created in a young start-up entirely focused on growth and finances. Touching on a variety of urgent themes relating to modern-day work culture, and bringing a good amount of humour to the mix, the play is perfectly engaging, although spread too thin, which gives it a broad rather than deep focus.

Joseph Charlton’s script moves along at pace and is full of wonderful turns of phrase, showing a real skill for satire and comedy. All three of the cast’s delivery is strong, but the deadpan from Saraf throughout is excellent, with a particular highlight being when Tyler feels he has to name the river that Paris is built on. There is a lot of comedy from start to finish, with several laughs that grow as lines, sinking into the audience, and the cast is excellent at judging an extra pause to allow these ripples of laughter to finish. Brilliant jerks understand that to obtain the good graces of their bosses, they need to have a deeper understanding of how they function. The by-product of this process starts to develop the brilliant jerk’s understanding of and empathy for others. However, just because brilliant jerks begin to understand their bosses better does not mean they now can adapt their leadership appropriately to the many different stakeholders. For that, the brilliant jerk needs to evolve to the next level of complexity, which brings us to the next step. Step 4: Expanding Their Stakeholder Awareness

I believe that humans are fundamentally good and if you’re with me, then I suggest you read Human Kind by Robert Bregman, which provides evidence to support that. Because of this, I don’t believe that anybody wants to come into work and be a brilliant jerk. I don’t for one minute think that they’re stood in front of a mirror – Gareth Cheeseman-style – saying, “You are the worst, you are the worst, today you’re going to make everyone’s life hell… Grrrrr!”, but clearly their behaviour shouldn’t be tolerated just because of the knowledge that they have. So what to do? Be better at setting expectations After this session and in the weeks that follow, it will become clear whether the employee has the will and the capability to make the behaviour changes needed, and if they do, will give them a clear framework to follow to rebuild their internal reputation. 4. Be decisive Todd Stark mused about how much we really know about brilliant jerks and how to manage them. As he put it, "I think we need to learn more about this type of person to deal with this phenomenon. We need to learn more about specifically how these folks bring something valuable into the organization and specifically how to minimize the damage," Stark wrote. "Many companies are run by 'jerks' and some of the most successful projects in the world have been accomplished by 'jerks.'" There are two sets of rules in our organization — one for the so-called superstars and one for everyone else. We want to reward employees based on their full contribution to the team, not just their individual impact.

Anticipates the customer’s needs and takes potential customer impact into account in making decisions/tradeoffs To avoid this, we work hard to maintain employee excellence and keep our business as simple as possible given our growth ambitions. We want to be a company of self-disciplined, accountable people who discover and fix issues without being told to do so. I have once had to manage a jerk during my career in leadership. Quite an excellent performer, meeting and exceeding targets at all times. But he would have issues with one colleague today, and another tomorrow. Again, this jerk was very erratic and gives in to emotions at every slightest provocation. Brilliant Jerks began life a few years ago when I was working as a journalist. The play is about the beginning of the end of the tech boom era… This play is about the people behind the tech. It's about a driver, a coder, and a CEO - and what unites or divides those people all working for one company, but living very disparate lives,” said writer Joseph Charlton.

4. Be decisive

Creates opportunities for others to share their voice and makes sure teammates feel valued and included A number of suggestions were put forth for ways to tap into the value of the "destructive hero." Serene Huang: "I would talk to them about their behaviors to find out if they are actually aware of it … I would also make peer appraisal part of their year end bonus." Gerald Nanninga commented that "perhaps you are giving them the wrong numbers to hit." Before you fire the 'jerk', he said, "make sure he is upsetting things for the wrong reason rather than for the right reason." Joseph Seiler recalled that in growing companies where he worked, "I came across a few of these Type 4 people. What seemed to help was to load them up with big projects and to score their interpersonal skills often." Grant Stanley said "rather than dismiss them I have been able to use their skills and abilities to … create training materials to share their best practices." If absolutely everything has been done to help someone to correct their behaviour and hit performance targets – and I do mean everything – then managers should work with their HR/people department to start the performance management process. Our policy for travel, entertainment, gifts and other expenses is five words long: “Act in Netflix’s best interest.”

We share documents internally broadly and systematically, so people can read and often comment on them—including memos on each title’s performance, our strategy decisions and product feature tests. There are some leaks, but the value of highly-informed employees is much greater. The problem is the brilliant jerk might see what the boss wants but often does not see how it should be done for the betterment of the overall institution, for the development of employees and for the boss’ professional goals. Brilliant jerks are focused on themselves and their outcomes, and others are an instrument to getting what they want. First, it’s important to know what characteristics define a difficult or abrasive leader, whom I prefer to call a brilliant jerk. They have a bevy of behaviors that are quite unappealing. Among them: If you feel you are forced into this situation, it’s time to talk with your boss. Their response will speak volumes about the culture of your organization. If your concerns fall on deaf ears and the behaviors are excused in the pursuit of performance, you’ve either got a bad manager or you’re in a toxic culture. Either way, you might want to consider a move to a new role or firm.Brilliant jerks have an expertise that is highly valued by the organization. The problem is that they are emotionally blind to anyone else’s feelings. And if they are aware, they don’t think considering people’s feelings is part of their job. That is HR’s concern, not theirs. Starting in childhood, they "unconsciously" develop a pattern of behaviors that "work" for them - that support natural biases in their personality. It becomes habitual very fast.