#22: When a High Performer is High Drama

I am so excited about today's episode of Drama Diffusers. Welcome to No Ego Podcast. I have a fantastic guest for today. I'm so glad Jonathan agreed to be with me. His name is Jonathan Salarsano Hamilton. He's an IT architect at UCLA, and Jonathan caught my attention because I'm reading through the Medium and I read this article about how Jonathan just had the courage to call it quits with an IT professional who had, it sounds like, emotionally blackmailed everyone into believing, you cannot live without me. And for those of you that know my work, you know how I preach everyone going through the value equation, the employee value equation, where you don't just look at people's performance, But you also look at their readiness for what's next. But most importantly, you look at their drama quotient. How much does this person take away from the organization so that you can do better math, that you aren't overvaluing technical skills and undervaluing this whole ego dynamic? And so I just want to introduce you to Jonathan. Hi, Jonathan. Thanks for being on today.

Hi. Thank you very much for having me.

And I'm just going to turn it over to you. I literally— the team thought I won the lottery or something. I'm reading this Medium article that you put up and this blog, and it was fantastic. So can you, even though it's out there on the Medium, can you guys— it was the Medium, right?

Yeah, it was on my Medium.

Okay. And so we got to get a bunch of people following your stuff because I've read other stuff. It's fantastic. So I just want you to tell the, the story about your approach with this particular gentleman. You— I'll turn it to you. You go for it.

Yeah, sure. Well, for those of you that haven't read the article, it's called We Fired Our Top Talent: Best Decision We Ever Made. It really took off in a way that surprised me. But the story is about a time a number of years back where I was involved with a team that was really falling pretty far behind and was getting to some really critical decision points about whether the team was going to be able to succeed or Whether we were going to have to cancel the whole project, which would have likely resulted in substantial layoffs. So it was kind of a do-or-die situation. And I came in fairly late into this equation because there had been some management shakeups and so on. They were trying to get to the bottom of what's going to turn the key here and get this team from failure to success, hopefully. And the most puzzling aspect of this situation is that the team's technical leader was a person who was widely regarded in our company as the top guy, like the top dog. And so it was very puzzling to all of us that this project that was under his technical leadership that had our best people, you know, and our best person in particular on it, was just failing so utterly.

Which happens a lot, and people instead of looking at the reality of it, they blame the circumstances. They say, oh, well, he wasn't helped, or he wasn't cooperated with, or it was impossible projects. But keep going, I love this story.

Yeah, no, actually, you know, on that note, I mean, then that was a lot of what he was saying was, you know, was really kind of shifting the blame to the circumstances. Really, it started to catch my attention because even before I was involved, he was starting to shift blame onto other teams in the company that weren't even related to the project. They weren't even working on it. So I was like, that seems weird. I don't understand how their work is hurting your project because it's not really related. So I come in and it's just a really toxic environment. He's got several people that he's working with that are all tasked with building this thing together and he's calling them idiots openly in meetings. He's just very derisive. He was abusive and really horrible to everybody around him except for his— he was, I guess, pretty nice to his immediate supervisor in the past. But once I came in and took over the project, he was pretty unkind to me as well. It was really a very toxic and unsustainable situation regarding his behavior.

Yeah, it was unsustainable and toxic, and yet people have been putting up with it For a long time regardless of no results.

Yeah, for years, you know, and part of it was— a large part of it I think was because he had delivered successfully in the past on some independent projects that he had been working on and now he was part of a team and the dynamic was different and he was not delivering. But because he'd built up some credibility, you know, they believed him when he would blame other people or blame the circumstances and all of the fixes they had tried up to that point were essentially taking his complaints So you

come in and it's like the emperor has no clothes. Like you're the person that is starting to see this. And how did you proceed as you got more clear about this and you're seeing a whole different picture than anybody else?

Well, I was working very closely with our top leadership because at that point they were the ones that sent me in. And so I had leadership buy-in, which is really critical when you're facing this kind of situation. Our CEO, our CIO, they were all on board. were all on board with whatever we needed to change because at this point, it was kind of do or die for the company on this. So hopefully, it shouldn't get to that point, but in this case, it had. So I had kind of automatic executive buy-in. So what I saw was that for whatever reason, and I suspect it was by and large due to his attitude and personality, almost all of the technical work on the project had been done by this one person. No matter how big, no matter how small the He refused to accept anybody else's work. Other people would work on parts of the project and he would go back over the weekend and redo it differently and throw away what they had built. And he would do it in this really idiosyncratic way where only he could possibly understand how things were working or why they were working the way they were. And so he wasn't necessarily wrong when he would tell people in meetings, you'll never understand what I've done. But it wasn't because it was so far above and beyond what everyone else was doing. particularized to his way of thinking about things, unfortunately.

You know, when we look at how the ego comes out to play at work, you've given so many symptoms to this, like the drama, the judging, calling people, you know, idiots, really thinking there's only one way to do it and it's the right way. And actually, that's just the way I'm most comfortable with. And, you know, and then really no knowledge transfer. I mean, listeners, these are all signs that somebody's operating with a lot of ego, when I won't knowledge transfer, instead of being very open source about my thinking or my coding, or I'm just not willing to contribute in a way that makes sure we all succeed and leaves the organization better off. I'm doing it with motive to kind of make people dependent upon me. And that's one of my theories is rather than making you dependent upon me, I want you loyal to me. Loyal meaning that you'll put me on any project 'cause you know I do great work. And a lot of us in Eagle want people dependent upon us, and it's just really a different way to play. So I can only imagine after you went back and said, I think we need— how'd you get to the conclusion this guy wasn't salvageable? A lot of people ask me, when do you know you can't salvage somebody? But how'd this play out?

Yeah, so at first we were going to try to salvage the situation and all of the players, you know, and so We decided that obviously this one solo contributor couldn't carry the whole project by himself. We were also having a lot of problems with the technical aspects of the work that he was producing because he was working under so much pressure by this point that he was getting really sloppy. So we knew that we had to start kind of divvying up the work and sharing the load. And he did not take very well to that idea at all. We sat him down in the room with me and with some of the senior leadership, and what we explained was, listen, you're an extremely valuable talent. You do really great work in these very kind of advanced areas of the product, and we need you to focus on that. So what we're going to do is we're going to explicitly move you over to these areas, and then we're going to have the rest of the team come in and build up the other parts that aren't as— don't require your particular talents. We're really trying to to sell it to him, knowing that he was kind of— had a particular personality. I mean, we were really kind of trying to stroke his ego a little bit and say, yeah, like you're just so great and so smart that only you can do this really hard stuff, but we need to free up your time for that, and he wasn't having it. He blew up and he took it out on everybody else. So after that, when he— and I opened my article with some fairly colorful phrasing that he used to describe what he thought about that idea. In front of everybody and it was really an unpleasant outburst. And after that, he never came back unfortunately to the fold. I mean, he was still working with us and we tried coaching him for a while. I mean, it was a bigger company and we had very well-defined HR procedures and so on for coaching, but he just wouldn't change his behavior.

Interesting, interesting because I think a lot of times when people get in that position, they really— Believe their own story they've made up about, you can't live without me. And so they're willing to really have risky behavior and push the envelope because they really don't believe people will do anything. And I hear it all the time from an HR perspective. People will come to me and they'll say, you know, Cy, this person's a rock star. Now he can't work with anybody, or she is unfit for human consumption, but trust me, they're great. And what I say to them, I go, well, how do you define great? Because— We've got to quit— we've got to change our language on how we protect and enable these folks with calling them a rock star, except for these huge problems. Because, you know, we do enable it. So he didn't come back, and that's got to be a moment where there was a little fear there, even if you, you know, knew it was the right thing to do. But you're saying it was the best thing you ever did.

Yeah, well, you know, and here's the thing about rock stars. I, you know, I love watching rock stars. Rock stars are fun to watch. You go to a concert, they smash their guitars, they destroy the stage, they destroy their hotel rooms afterwards. It's a wonderful spectacle. I would never want to work with one, you know, somebody that's just literally destroying the tools that you all are working with around you. I'd much rather work with a musician, you know, that has discipline. And

that's why you want the rock star to stay in the hotel, not your own house.

Exactly. So rock stars are a great spectacle, but they're terrible colleagues. You can be a star without being a rock star. You can be a star and contribute a lot without having to be the center of attention and without being this destructive spectacle that everyone else is watching out of more awe than anything else.

But you're in IT. I mean, do you see— so you fire this guy. And do you see a lot of people— I mean, is this common that people put up with these behaviors? And, and to me, it's like they're being emotionally blackmailed. They're believing the story, you can't live without me. But is this— I think it's getting less prevalent, but do you see this in IT? As an IT architect, is this something you run into a lot? Is it, you know, is it common? Is it getting less common? What's your take on it?

Yeah, I mean, I've been working in IT for about 20 years, and I've seen it a lot over the years. Now, you know, I've seen it less and Less and less now. I think teams are getting to be more diverse, and managers are getting to be more able to recognize that these behaviors aren't necessary. But I think there's a really big prevailing myth in the technical field that being a technical talent really comes with a lot of emotional baggage, and everyone else just has to deal with it. I think that's something that I've seen a lot of times over the years in a lot of organizations where you get You know, it's kind of like that TV show House. You know, it's like, as long as House is right, nothing else matters. He's— he could be a total jerk to everybody.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think that that's the myth people build.

It is a myth. And you busted this myth personally, because what I tell people, it's like, you know, people are like, yeah, but, you know, they're a little hard to deal with, but they're really great. And I laugh and I say, well, did we run out of, like, people that were easy to deal with and great? Like, is there some you know, some huge shortage. And what I have found is the biggest myth, and when I work with IT and engineers and some folks, is that people, this myth about they're irreplaceable or we will be so screwed if we don't have this person. And the first time I interacted with IT, I'm not an IT professional, but I was supporting a group. And no lie, they said this guy was irreplaceable. And I was coaching him because he was sexually harassing. He was doing all kinds of awful stuff. Oh geez. But they said this guy was a legacy system. He's the only one that knew the code. Like, the whole shop would come down. And so I'm trying to convince people just to let this guy go, um, to fire this guy. And they're like, no, he's irreplaceable. And as fortune would have it— not for the company, however— we got hacked. This very system no one else knew got hacked into by a couple of like 16-year-olds from China. And I was able to go into this meeting and I said, nobody can you know, work this system? I go, evidently 16-year-olds from China can support the system. And I joked, I said, let's get those kids green cards and get them over here because a lot of people think no one can do what they're doing. But what I have found is when we put young, bright minds who are great team workers together, there's just nothing in IT that willing, smart, collaborative people can't figure out.

Yeah, I agree. And also, let's create— my background is in physics, so if you'll excuse me, let's create a thought experiment here. Let's create a world where you do have a genius who is creating these systems that only he understands. And let's pretend for a moment that that's the reality. And I don't believe that, but let's pretend that that's the reality. That's not a model you want to be working in because that genius could get hit by a car tomorrow. He could get a better job offer tomorrow. He could just leave and then all of a sudden—

It's such a good point. It's so high risk. It's single point of failure.

Yeah, and not only that, but it doesn't scale. Genius doesn't scale. If you want to grow, you need a team that can scale. You need processes and ways of incentivizing people and standards and things that you can train other people on and get them on board and producing more great things. You can't copy a genius, but you can grow a team.

I love it. You can't copy a genius. this doesn't scale. You can grow a team. And I think at times people high in ego actually fear things like standardization and fear processes and things that will really open it up. And for me, you know, I tell people standardize everything you can get your hands on so we free people up to do the high-value work. You know, let's rely on our processes so that we can have people plug and play and they can— our processes can do the heavy lifting. You know, and take out variance from our systems. So I love your, your language, genius doesn't scale. So, so how's it end? How's it ended up? So this guy is out of the company and what happened? What was the conclusion? Obviously, if it's the best thing you've ever done, it was a positive one.

Yeah. So, you know, we ended up getting rid of him after a particular series of outbursts that were not, you know, that we just couldn't, couldn't continue to deal with anymore. And we went back to the customer and we negotiated 6 months to rebuild this 5-year project from scratch. Wow. Now, we didn't necessarily tell the customer that we were going to do that, but we said, we need 6 more months. We have a new team. So we spent the last ounce of our credibility on it and they agreed skeptically, but they agreed. Then we sat down as a team and we said, okay. I brought in the technical team that remained and I said, all right. We need to rebuild this product. It took 5 years to get to this point, but it was one person working alone and only his ideas were heard and he was tossing everybody else's work. So there's 6 of us, so the math doesn't quite work out, but if we work really hard, I bet we can do it. And I told them, I don't know how we're going to get there, but I know we can get there and I know the way we can get there is if we all work together. So we need to start brainstorming ideas right now. Because we need to get started working in an hour if we're going to have a chance. So then that's what we did. We started whiteboarding it together and everybody was— it took a couple of days for this to become normal because people were still kind of shell-shocked from their prior experience. But everybody got used to the idea of, hey, if I have an idea, I can speak up. I can put it on the whiteboard. We can talk about my idea and people will listen to me. So we ended up It took us 6 months and we were all working 60, 70-hour weeks to make up for lost time. But we ended up being able to succeed where this guy had failed for 5 years, primarily because we were really working together. The other area where we as a team succeeded where he failed was he was so arrogant and cocksure of his own genius that he would agree to anything. Anything could be done and he would just make all these promises. And he just kind of exploded the scope of work. Because anytime somebody said, I don't know, that seems like it might be a little much to add, he'd be like, oh no, I can do it, you know, because it was a threat to his intelligence, I guess. Oh

my gosh. So we overpromise and underdeliver and the client suffers.

Exactly. And so the other thing we did was we just said, no, we can't do that.

Nice. Some healthy boundaries. And I think being authentic, if you're, if you're beyond ego, you're authentic, and you're, you're in touch with reality, you have this direct relationship with reality that says, you know, those might be great things, but first let's deliver on the core of what we've promised. And let's keep that really, really straight up. Wow, the ego can really screw some, some things up. I love that you said that, you know, even though they were shell-shocked, it took a few days. A lot of the people I worry about, or that I consult with, they worry about if I make a move, like let somebody go who's just wreaking havoc on the team, you know, how do we even recover from that? And I have found people Really appreciate the courage of resolving the problem. The high accountable people want you to differentiate and to name it, and that they're resilient. They'll rally back up even if they're a little gun-shy. They'll rally back up and make things happen working 70 hours a week. But I have found on teams that I can do that joyfully when I know we're in a collaborative space and that we're not being asked to deal with really tricky personalities and situations.

No, exactly. And the thing that it took a couple of days, I think the reason why it took a little bit of time was because these people had been exposed to this kind of abusive behavior for so long that they really needed to see that this wasn't just one jerk being swapped out for another, but that we really were committed to the change. Yeah.

That happens a lot. I had some folks in different teams where it's almost like We got rid of one and HR heard, you know, please send us another jerk. And we got another one because, you know, if somebody goes but you're still blaming the circumstances or you're still blaming the setup, you're going to bring the wrong person in. But you guys really did what we call ditch the drama. And so I love this. So what if you were to advise folks right now that, you know, are facing that fear point? Where they've got some people on their team that are maybe salvageable, because if you coach people on their drama, sometimes they change. But those folks being held hostage right now, what's some leadership advice that you want to go down with having put on the air, Jonathan?

Well, you know, I think courage is definitely required, and I think humility is the other thing that's required. I think that the most important trait that That's a good point. That is really hard for, I think, people in technical disciplines to really understand is that you need to be humble and you need to be vocally humble. You definitely want to make sure that you are holding yourself accountable for what you do know and what you don't know and that you are working with other people to shore up where you need it. I think that if this individual had been humble from the beginning, we never would have gotten to that point. He still would have worked with us to the end. But when we started it again, it was the humility of leadership to say, okay, we recognize that this horrible situation was created and we don't have all the answers for how we're going to get out of it and that's why we need you to help us. I think that's what brought people back in. So I would say the courage to act and then the humility to recognize that we're all just part of a greater team and a greater organization and that we can't do it all by ourselves. is really the key takeaway that I would have for anybody out there.

I love it. I love it. And the humility, you know, a lot of people, when we talk in this podcast about ego, is ego ever positive? And I say, you know, ego is really about it's my way or the highway. I'm the genius. I know best, you know, with a lot of judgment. But confidence is— confidence is different. It's like I have something I can bring to the party. And I know it's a piece of it. And I'm also confident that together we're genius. Not just, you know, genius isn't scalable, but if together we're genius, that is scalable. And so I love the humility piece because for those of us who are in consulting internally or externally, and a lot of us in IT are, as consultants, we've got to come in with listening and expertise knowing there's 100 ways to get there. And if I listen and stay humble, I can maybe help find one of the best ones for you, the client. But if I come in and I'm just more like telling you, here's what you need to do, you know, it really destroys the consulting relationship. So it's like using your expertise to figure out how we can, rather than that ego to tell you how you have to. The difference between being kind of the policeman and the lifeguard in our consulting roles. So perfect. I just, I love all that you've shared with us. What else do you want to add?

I don't have much to add except to, based on what you just said, I do believe that confidence begets humility. I mean, you need to be confident if you are going to be humble because you need to not be afraid that by exposing what you don't know or what you can't do by yourself, that you're going to be making yourself weak. And so I think that you're right that confidence is the other key ingredient. In order to be successfully humble and be publicly humble.

And there's no shame in not knowing what you don't know there, because of the world right now that we can crowdsource and collaborate and, and there's just so many connections we can make. But that connection has to be acknowledging that, you know, I need help and that I have part of the puzzle I'm glad to give. And then I need some other people to join me. So, you know, we talk a lot in bypassing our ego, going beyond ego, and I believe that all of us If we're not in ego, are collaborative, are innovative, are really capable of great things. And I just, I loved how, how well you expressed those ideas in your posts on the Medium. And we will definitely link to that post, listeners, so that you can go find that. Jonathan, I so appreciate you responding to our call. I just needed to get somebody who Is real life out there happy they made these courageous calls and able to get leadership on board and really appreciate it. So where can we find you? Where can people tune in more to some of the work that you're doing out there? Are there some calls, letters that you can give us or follows? Where should we follow you at or how do we get more of your information?

Yeah, so I post on Twitter @jhSOLOR. So it's my initials, JH and then SOLOR. And then I also post on Medium @peachpie because I realized peach pie is a lot easier to spell and remember, but I already had a Twitter handle. So, and it's my favorite dessert. My grandma's from the Deep South, so I had a lot of peach pie growing up.

Yeah.

But, but yeah, so you can find me on there and I post on Twitter pretty regularly just other you know, tips and ideas about technical leadership and the soft skills that are required to succeed in technology. So if that's something that interests you, you know, you can find me on both those places.

Great. And a lot of my listeners are leaders in a variety of areas. I've got a lot of engineers and IT folks that listen, but I have HR folks that listen. And so HR, make sure that you're plugging your IT and engineer and any of your technical folks into Jonathan's work. It's really top-notch, and I just love that we've got people out there in IT really talking about this set of soft skills that are needed and I think will really take us far. Jonathan, thank you so much for being on the podcast, and I look forward to learning and, and following you and learning more from you. So I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you very much for having me on the podcast. I really enjoyed it.

Okay, one second. We'll end the recording here. I've just got to find that blip of a box.