I Call "Fuzzy Thinking" On Sklansky

[Bill Murphy]

"It is important that to understand that I am not defending the practice of being a jerk, or not taking showers or whatever. I simply used his comment that he would fire his employees to point out something off the subject. Namely that if you became indispensible to him or others, most likely due to technical expertise that most don't bother to learn, you could get away with being rude or smelly if you wanted to."

Bullsh!t. You've been out of the corporate world for so long, you don't know WTF you're talking about in this regard. Just for starters, the potential liability for tolerating an extremely offensive employee outweighs any benefit they could possibly have. Ajit Jann (arguably the most valuable single employee in the world) stops bathing, starts farting near the receptionist, etc., Warren Buffett fires him, albeit prolly not after a couple of warnings. Do you really think Microsoft's top corporate salesman could ridicule Bill Gates' haircut & wardrobe and keep his job?

I worked for a software company for seven years. A REAL company, not some dotcom vaporware boiler room. When we were converting from a DOS-based to a pure Windows platform, we hired an extremely skilled & extremely smelly and erratic Windows programmer. After awhile he was warned to clean up. He didn't, he got whacked. Most of the applicants for his job were of similar ilk. The owner said fuggit, started training the exisiting people plus some tech line folk, delayed the release about a year, and had the rest of us hold the fort on the phones w/irate customers.

This privately held firm has been in business for over 20 years, has no debt, more customers than the next four competitors combined, well over 100 employees, and gross revenues well into eight figures. Most senior management positions have turned over at least three times in this period.

David, please give me any example of a smelly yet indispensible jerk-profit machine employee. Please give an example of any company that went broke due to the loss of *one and only one* employee. Outside of maybe some sports teams, rock bands, Hollywood actors, you can't*^*[see below]. I also suspect but can't prove that for 99+% of all occupations, there exists a point of diminishing returns where even the most gifted employee's personal defects(if strong enough) start overwhelming their advantages, especially if they're bringing others down while remaining at a high productivity level themselves. Maybe some geek-savant deep in the lab is exempt, but *NO-FUGGIN-BODY* is indispensible in today's(or any other day's) workplace.

I'm willing to even speculate that keeping a "bad" employee can be worse than losing a "good" one under many circumstances(obviously broad definitions of bad & good here). Sort of an inverse corollary to the proven facts that, customer retention is more important than customer recruitment after a certain point, and that one bad customer can wipe out the profit from many good ones. I have seen both these "facts" in action, and believe me, they're true. (Sorry, got a little OT there)

I've read almost every word you've ever published & posted, including that subtly revealing(IMO) post on RGP last year about how scientists could demand sex from supermodels before blowing up the asteroid headed for Earth. Let's get real. I know how you feel about politics, bureacracy, nepotism, the Peter Principle, etc. I agree with you 99%.

But, IMO, both you and Mason have given short shrift to people skills, to both of your wallets' detriment. Ironic, for such a people-oriented activity. NOTE: I have met and do like both of you (I know Mason much better), but neither of you are outwardly personable or easy to know, and you are both quite public figures=big, er, fish in a tiny bowl, and regularly swim in that bowl. You also have something to sell, and your presence, in a way, is an ad.

To be fair, I have seen Mason be quite nice to tourists-posters-customers on several occasions. He even let one kid sweat his hands for a couple hours! He's also flashed me his hole cards a couple of times when I've come up and said hello when in LV.

And, yes, I understand a man can't help his nature, gotta stay focused when playing, yada yada. I'm certainly not saying you should be bothered when dining w/family, etc.

If you had Daniel Negreanu's or Russ Hamilton's personality(or even Men's) do you think you would sell more books? If I can improve 2+2 sales by 20%, can I stop bathing, keep my own hours, blow off meetings, call Matty "Daddy's Boy", openly leer at JessicaV & DonnaH, and keep my job; in fact get bonuses for each additional uptick in sales?

*^* Actually, the State Line casino in Wendover went broke, in large part, due to the loss of three key employees, but their loss was mainly a symptom of the underlying cancer, and just started the snowball. It was losing the next 20-30 employees that really killed them, and even then, pre-existing poor financial planning from years before likely couldn't have been overcome under any circumstances.

[bernie]

"started training the exisiting people plus some tech line folk, delayed the release about a year, and had the rest of us hold the fort on the phones w/irate customers."

those were the good old days, werent they?

i agree. i had an employee who on his first day had a B.O. cloud following him. i was in floorcovering in residential. thank god the customer was gone while we did a couple rooms. but i was also going into multi milliondollar houses. how could i take this guy in one? this type of smell just hung in the air and i literally was near gagging. and ive smelled some rancid stuff. he was willing to work, no problem there, but i ended up having to let him go. to which my gag reflex and smell sense appreciated. and yknow what? i replaced him kinda quick. /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

just sharin' a story at the campfire...pass the weenies, i got an empty stick

b

[Vehn]

So wait.. you're saying that someone who was has essentially sat around in card rooms playing poker for the past 30 years is somehow out of touch with the reality of the working class?

No way!

[El Dukie]

"I'm willing to even speculate that keeping a "bad" employee can be worse than losing a "good" one under many circumstances(obviously broad definitions of bad & good here). "

Yes. Quite likely, in fact -- if you tolerate that kind of behavior from some employees, there's a good chance you'll antagonize the rest of them. Even if the employee in question "produces" for you, it may not be enough to offset the lost productivity from the rest of your employees who resent having to work with him/her. I'm still not entirely convinced the whole business/employee analogy fits the "Meeting David" scenario, but I'd agree that there's a potential flaw in David's logic here.

Bill also touches on another key point in the current corporate climate: liability. No matter how skilled or technically competent an employee is, you'd better dump him if he starts doing something that could get you sued....

[BruceZ]

But, IMO, both you and Mason have given short shrift to people skills, to both of your wallets' detriment.

I'm sure they are crying in their beer.

Actually, many large corporations have a difficult time getting rid of employees who have little or no redeeming qualities, let alone ones who are extremely talented. This is especially true if they happen to be minorities. The paperwork of documentation is so great that many find it isn't worth the effort. The remedy is usually to shift the individual to another department where he will become someone else's problem. It is easier in poor economic times since then they can blame downsizing. It's also different with smaller companies.

[David Sklansky]

It's all a matter of degree. If the guy was extremely smelly and uncouth he would have to be signicantly indispensible, with talents that were both very valuable to the company and not able to be learned by others. But suppose he instead merely refused to wear a tie, or come to work on time? That guy would be much more likely to be tolerated if he was a lot better than his replacement. When I would attend Shufflemaster or other slot manufacturer meetings, invariably the only ones without ties were the only ones who knew their stuff.

[Ian]

I have commented before on the frequent disconnect between your seemingly well-thought out theories and the empirical evidence.

This weakness seems to infect your non-poker related thoughts as well. Yes, it might make sense in theory that a highly valuable employee can get away with flaunting the norms of conventional behavior. But my experience has been that this is not the case in practice. Among the institions I have worked for are Goldman Sachs and McKinsey & Company. Among the thousands of talented employees at each firm are a handful that are of extraordinary value. At Goldman, there are a few individuals who generate over $100 million a year for the firm and at McKinsey there are a couple of folks who are trusted advisors to both Fortune 500 CEOs and Heads of State. And I can tell you that these people do not have the option of whether or not to wear ties at work if they want to keep their current positions. And it does not matter how valuable Donald Rumsfeld considers General Franks -- if Franks insists on the right to wear jeans while commanding the troops, he will be sacked even if the decision to fire him costs thousands of lives. This may not make sense to you in theory (it does to me, actually), but it is indisputably true in the real world.

But FWIW, as far as the original topic is concerned, I doubt your personality flaws are all that costly to your publishing business, if at all.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

On the other hand, even at McKinsey, it's easier to be opinionated and grating on your fellow workers if you produce $100M per year for 2 reasons.

1) McKinsey would rather not fire you, and
2) If you can produce there, you can produce anywhere, so you don't give a rats a$$ if they DO fire you.

I don't think David was talking about grooming or violation of work rules. I think he was talking about attitude. If you produce revenue, attitude will be overlooked, if you don't produce, attitutde will get you canned.

[Phat Mack]

if Franks insists on the right to wear jeans while commanding the troops, he will be sacked even if the decision to fire him costs thousands of lives.

General Grade officers have the right to design their own uniforms.

[andyfox]

David did say indispensable, not highly valuable. I have fired 3 higly valuable employees at my company in the past 10 years and we got hurt each time. They were fired basically because they were the type of people who wouldn't say thank you when paid a compliment. I like sleeping at night and I like working with people I like and people who I think have good hearts.

But I agree with David's point that had they been indispensable, i.e., we would have gone out of business without them, I would not have fired them. But then again I think the truly indispensable (the types who mightbe the only one on the planet to stop an asteriod) are few and far between.

While this is an interesting subject, note that David has successfully turned the discusssion from his being rude to something else entirely.

He's a very smart man.

[olemissgolf]

It's clear to me now. If you are indispensable, or think you are, it's o.k. to be rude.

[Jimbo]

Good post Andy and it really got me thinking. Does this mean if David was rude to someone who was never going to purchase one of his books that it would not be excuseable? After all to that person David would be no more indispensable to him than a shoe salesman is to a man with no feet.

[Tommy Angelo]

I am reminded of the time in the early 90's when I bottomed out for a while and even applied for a job instead of borrowing right away. It was a solid contact. A sales gig. I went to the interview -- overslept and undernourished -- and my heart was not at all in it.

They hired me anyway.

(Wait! You can't hire me! I quit!)

Tommy