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How do you define being rude? From what I read and experienced in my career the real reason "rude" people get away with what they are doing is simple. They ten

How do you define being rude? From what I read and experienced in my career the real reason "rude" people get away with what they are doing is simple. They tend to be top or above average performers who don't like when co-workers who are sub par are treated and rewarded as their equals. I have met many sub-par workers who love to throw around the word "toxic" to define and attack such people. I have seen such "rude" or "toxic" people work fine along other exceptional and/or capable co-workers and reject those who cant perform. "He/she is an #@$hole... but he/she is doing most the work and objectively in the end they are not wrong in anything they have said." Are words I have heard echoed across so many different leadership meetings at various companies. The Pareto principle is very real in terms of workforce and what we should really discuss is how we can focus on honest constructive conversations that allow the successful to succeed and give critical feed back to those who arent.

bigred100 7y ago
This sounds like something a coworker would write. Unfortunately the individual was not actually a top performer—just convinced that he was. He would consistently say things that were objectively wrong (lot of math in our field... pretty easy to verify with certainty whether someone knows what he’s talking about), but the rest of us were polite enough not to point his misunderstandings out very often as he would freak out and throw a fit if we did. He was basically above average, convinced he was several standard deviations above everyone else, and more or less humored by everyone else so we could get work done instead of managing his ego outbursts all day. Slightly above average and a generally sane, nice person will likely be beloved by all coworkers. Slightly above average with a complex... not really
- mharroun 7y ago
  So why wasn't he terminated if he had sub par performance and was also someone who causes friction? Did no one speak up about the issue... or is that "rude" behavior? To me is sound that 1 of 3 things are happening: - Management sucks and cannot objectively see who is successful as doing what. - The person is not subpar and that is your own personal feelings - Most of the company's full of "nice guys/girls" and the building could be on fire and they would still applaud any small insignificant win while the whole place burns. They fail to deal with anyone failures and issues including the rude person and so they just deal with it and complain via whispers.
  - factotvm 7y ago
    > Slightly above average with a complex... I don't think this person would get fired anywhere I've worked. It's difficult and expensive to fire someone. You open yourself up to possible legal action even if you put them on a performance improvement plan. The best is to try and manage them out, but if the work you need to get done outstrips the people able to do it, you'll keep that above average person who thinks more of themselves than they should.
    - mharroun 7y ago
      You case dose not match the parents claim, but i get that your situation seems tricky. I will also say this sounds like a management failure if 1 person is so critical they can get away with being disruptive to others. The leader of that person should focus on getting anyone else up to speed and co-ownership of the knowledge that makes the disruptive person so valuable.
      - factotvm 7y ago
        You’re missing the point. I directly quoted the original response because you misread it and said subpar. The person in question is not subpar. The person is also not so valuable that others need to emulate them as you just put forth. The person is simply above average but thinks they’re amazing and acts accordingly.
  - saghm 7y ago
    > He was basically above average, convinced he was several standard deviations above everyone else From GP's own words, this person was _not_ subpar, just not nearly as good as they thought they were. I don't think most comapanies would fire someone for that.
EliRivers 7y ago
My experience is very different. The rudest people I've had to work with are generally incompetent to mediocre at best, often believe themselves to be far more competent than the evidence suggests, and end up significant drains on the company as people go to significant inefficiencies in order to avoid having to deal with aforementioned rude incompetents. The actual best performers tended to be quietly polite and unobtrusively competent, getting on with their work smoothly; given that being rude to people causes problems, being rude isn't just a sign of incompetence - it is incompetence.
- singron 7y ago
  > people go to significant inefficiencies in order to avoid having to deal with aforementioned rude incompetents This can also make them seem more competent. E.g. if one rude person is an obstruction that everyone else has to work around, the rude individual is the only one working unimpeded. Unless the difference in competency is large enough to account for that, the manager might consider the rude person more competent.
  - EliRivers 7y ago
    I have certainly worked with what I think of as "negative employees"; people who have the same effect, when joining a team, as a competent person leaving that team.
- guitarbill 7y ago
  If this is the case, your hiring and evaluating process has a deficiency, which should be an easy fix. However, assuming a decent hiring process, people generally aren't rude from the get-go. The bigger question the study doesn't even tackle is how does rudeness evolve over time, and - again assuming rudeness isn't some intrinsic attribute - what factors lead to an increase in rudeness. If somebody is truly incompetent, sure, fire them. But incompetence is rarely so cut and dried, and points to a failure to invest in a person's or team's abilities. I don't think it's a stretch to see the proliferation of incompetence as a management failure in any case. If percieved incompetence leads to a lack of respect and therefore rudeness, it should come as no surprise why leaders who allowed such an environment to be created would be unable/unwilling to assess it accurately.
iamleppert 7y ago
Great engineers make everyone around them better. Bad engineers put down their co-workers and dismiss them as incompetent. Almost every great engineer I have worked around has been nice, patient and relaxed. Because they know you can catch far more flys with honey than with vinegar.
riantogo 7y ago
“Top or above average” in what? Apparently not in being a team player. And I don’t think “writes excellent code” is the only criteria in any serious performance evaluation.
confidentlake 7y ago
In any population there is going to be a bell curve in terms of performance. Often those on the left may simply not be as smart or talented. Being rude to them does nothing to make them better.
vivekd 7y ago
>management says he or she is an ahole but do the most work and everything they say os true Now the question is whether management has a clear picture of what is happening on the floor. Do they know who the top performers are or is management just taking whining and anti social behaviour as a false marker of diligence and competence. In my experience it is more often the later. A-holes tend to be better at sucking up and managing up rather than actually being good at the task.
watwut 7y ago
> They tend to be top or above average performers who don't like when co-workers who are sub par are treated and rewarded as their equals. What exactly does this mean? They don't like when juniors are treated well? You will always be working with team of varying skills and knowledge and if you insist that other people are treated with disrespect, then you are asshole. > I have seen such "rude" or "toxic" people work fine along other exceptional and/or capable co-workers and reject those who cant perform. That is being intentionally rude toward members of team you are supposed to lead, teach and give appropriate tasks to. That is toxic no matter how you slice it. > what we should really discuss is how we can focus on honest constructive conversations that allow the successful to succeed and give critical feed back to those who arent. You cant have constructive conversations nor critical feed back when you are rejecting and being rude. The constructive criticism is not possible in that setup. Constructive criticism is possible with good faith interactions and when emotions are away. The people you described turned impersonal into emotional by being rude and "rejecting".
gingabriska 7y ago
Think about a dynamic where one person in team is hyper obsessed with work and refining his work. While there are other members in team who have different hobbies or even have a family. Natrually, the one who spends more time refining the work is often rewarded assuming the members of the team were equally qualified and probably fall within same IQ range. Now, is it not natural for their supervisor to expect from other team members? Team members will recognize who is pushing the bar up and will be bitter towards them because now I've to make extra effort.

bigred100 7y ago

This sounds like something a coworker would write. Unfortunately the individual was not actually a top performer—just convinced that he was. He would consistently say things that were objectively wrong (lot of math in our field... pretty easy to verify with certainty whether someone knows what he’s talking about), but the rest of us were polite enough not to point his misunderstandings out very often as he would freak out and throw a fit if we did. He was basically above average, convinced he was several standard deviations above everyone else, and more or less humored by everyone else so we could get work done instead of managing his ego outbursts all day. Slightly above average and a generally sane, nice person will likely be beloved by all coworkers. Slightly above average with a complex... not really

mharroun 7y ago
So why wasn't he terminated if he had sub par performance and was also someone who causes friction? Did no one speak up about the issue... or is that "rude" behavior? To me is sound that 1 of 3 things are happening: - Management sucks and cannot objectively see who is successful as doing what. - The person is not subpar and that is your own personal feelings - Most of the company's full of "nice guys/girls" and the building could be on fire and they would still applaud any small insignificant win while the whole place burns. They fail to deal with anyone failures and issues including the rude person and so they just deal with it and complain via whispers.
- factotvm 7y ago
  > Slightly above average with a complex... I don't think this person would get fired anywhere I've worked. It's difficult and expensive to fire someone. You open yourself up to possible legal action even if you put them on a performance improvement plan. The best is to try and manage them out, but if the work you need to get done outstrips the people able to do it, you'll keep that above average person who thinks more of themselves than they should.
  - mharroun 7y ago
    You case dose not match the parents claim, but i get that your situation seems tricky. I will also say this sounds like a management failure if 1 person is so critical they can get away with being disruptive to others. The leader of that person should focus on getting anyone else up to speed and co-ownership of the knowledge that makes the disruptive person so valuable.
    - factotvm 7y ago
      You’re missing the point. I directly quoted the original response because you misread it and said subpar. The person in question is not subpar. The person is also not so valuable that others need to emulate them as you just put forth. The person is simply above average but thinks they’re amazing and acts accordingly.
- saghm 7y ago
  > He was basically above average, convinced he was several standard deviations above everyone else From GP's own words, this person was _not_ subpar, just not nearly as good as they thought they were. I don't think most comapanies would fire someone for that.

EliRivers 7y ago

My experience is very different. The rudest people I've had to work with are generally incompetent to mediocre at best, often believe themselves to be far more competent than the evidence suggests, and end up significant drains on the company as people go to significant inefficiencies in order to avoid having to deal with aforementioned rude incompetents. The actual best performers tended to be quietly polite and unobtrusively competent, getting on with their work smoothly; given that being rude to people causes problems, being rude isn't just a sign of incompetence - it is incompetence.

singron 7y ago
> people go to significant inefficiencies in order to avoid having to deal with aforementioned rude incompetents This can also make them seem more competent. E.g. if one rude person is an obstruction that everyone else has to work around, the rude individual is the only one working unimpeded. Unless the difference in competency is large enough to account for that, the manager might consider the rude person more competent.
- EliRivers 7y ago
  I have certainly worked with what I think of as "negative employees"; people who have the same effect, when joining a team, as a competent person leaving that team.
guitarbill 7y ago
If this is the case, your hiring and evaluating process has a deficiency, which should be an easy fix. However, assuming a decent hiring process, people generally aren't rude from the get-go. The bigger question the study doesn't even tackle is how does rudeness evolve over time, and - again assuming rudeness isn't some intrinsic attribute - what factors lead to an increase in rudeness. If somebody is truly incompetent, sure, fire them. But incompetence is rarely so cut and dried, and points to a failure to invest in a person's or team's abilities. I don't think it's a stretch to see the proliferation of incompetence as a management failure in any case. If percieved incompetence leads to a lack of respect and therefore rudeness, it should come as no surprise why leaders who allowed such an environment to be created would be unable/unwilling to assess it accurately.

iamleppert 7y ago

Great engineers make everyone around them better. Bad engineers put down their co-workers and dismiss them as incompetent. Almost every great engineer I have worked around has been nice, patient and relaxed. Because they know you can catch far more flys with honey than with vinegar.

riantogo 7y ago

“Top or above average” in what? Apparently not in being a team player. And I don’t think “writes excellent code” is the only criteria in any serious performance evaluation.

confidentlake 7y ago

In any population there is going to be a bell curve in terms of performance. Often those on the left may simply not be as smart or talented. Being rude to them does nothing to make them better.

vivekd 7y ago

>management says he or she is an ahole but do the most work and everything they say os true Now the question is whether management has a clear picture of what is happening on the floor. Do they know who the top performers are or is management just taking whining and anti social behaviour as a false marker of diligence and competence. In my experience it is more often the later. A-holes tend to be better at sucking up and managing up rather than actually being good at the task.

watwut 7y ago

> They tend to be top or above average performers who don't like when co-workers who are sub par are treated and rewarded as their equals. What exactly does this mean? They don't like when juniors are treated well? You will always be working with team of varying skills and knowledge and if you insist that other people are treated with disrespect, then you are asshole. > I have seen such "rude" or "toxic" people work fine along other exceptional and/or capable co-workers and reject those who cant perform. That is being intentionally rude toward members of team you are supposed to lead, teach and give appropriate tasks to. That is toxic no matter how you slice it. > what we should really discuss is how we can focus on honest constructive conversations that allow the successful to succeed and give critical feed back to those who arent. You cant have constructive conversations nor critical feed back when you are rejecting and being rude. The constructive criticism is not possible in that setup. Constructive criticism is possible with good faith interactions and when emotions are away. The people you described turned impersonal into emotional by being rude and "rejecting".

gingabriska 7y ago

Think about a dynamic where one person in team is hyper obsessed with work and refining his work. While there are other members in team who have different hobbies or even have a family. Natrually, the one who spends more time refining the work is often rewarded assuming the members of the team were equally qualified and probably fall within same IQ range. Now, is it not natural for their supervisor to expect from other team members? Team members will recognize who is pushing the bar up and will be bitter towards them because now I've to make extra effort.