Researchers have found that the real story is more complicated. When faced with a real-life choice, most people ignore their stated preference for competence and actually choose likability first.
Ideally, of course, we wouldn't have to choose between competence and likability. We'd work exclusively with people who are both. These are the "lovable stars"---highly sought after folks in short supply. Once the "lovable stars" are all taken, we must then choose between the "competent jerks" and the "lovable fools." Or when desperation strikes and all we need is another warm body, it may be time to recruit from the pool of "incompetent jerks."
For more on this phenomenon and how it relates to professional social networks, see June 2005's Harvard Business Review, which includes the article "Competent Jerks, Lovable Fools, and the Creation of Social Networks," by Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo. (The artcle PDF is also available for free here.)
The authors describe a three-pronged approach to managing the tradeoffs of competent jerks and lovable fools: (1) manufacture liking, (2) leverage the likable, and (3) reform the jerks.
Under leveraging the likable, the authors describe how lovable fools can help organizations in the role of "affective hub." Joe Labianca (Professor of Organization & Management at Emory University) once told me a perfect story of an affective hub. A client of his was about to fire someone who was seemingly incompetent and/or lazy, until Joe's social network analysis revealed that this person was very much liked by and connected to every corner of the organization. So instead of firing him, the managers recognized this lovable fool as a key resource in winning widespread support for their new initiatives. Their ability to promote sustainable change improved dramatically as a result. Wow!
Thanks to my friend Todd Harris for the tip on this, and I also recommend you see Patti Anklam's post on this same article, as well as this nice review by Four Groups.
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Taking a step back from this article, I'd say one thing that makes it so catchy is its use of "jerks" and "fools." The authors deliberately contradict the SNA tradition of focusing just on positive relationships, with dramatic effect.
Once again, this reminds me of Joe Labianca. He has been doing groundbreaking research in balancing the social network ledger by including negative relationships as much as positive relationships. As he explains in this thoughtful paper, negative relationships have received far too little attention. In fact, Joe suggests that negative relationships are more critical than positive ones in affecting key organizational attributes like performance.
Joe is certainly not the only one uncovering the dynamics of positive and negative social networks. Rob Cross and others have been doing related work on energy in organizations. But this post is too long already, so I'm going to save that discussion for later.
2 comments:
A member of my research team and I had a similar discussion a few weeks ago, but our breakdown was different.
People who know what they're talking about and are helpful without being pompous.
People who know they're talking about and love to point it out.
People who don't know what they're doing and admit this.
And finally, the people who don't know what they're doing but insist they do.
You have a great blog by the way.
The "jerks and fools" part is also rendolent of conservative cant. That could contribute to its popularity. Using an emotion matrix as a measurement device rather than a model for a specific situation is kind of odd. I think it could perpetuate distorted conceptual models. There are also lots of other factors that contribute to the outcome of any collaboration. Because they represent a complex system, when you make a particular change it is *most* likely that the outcome will be unpredictable. I liked H M Ross' comment on the additional personality types.
Love what you have to say!
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