High-maintenance people? Not around here

Mark McClain at SailPoint explains why he is more than happy to make the tea at work

 

I have worked with some incredibly talented people over the course of several decades. Some people are gregarious, talkative and emotionally intelligent. Others are more introverted, reserved and analytical. As long as they are talented, it doesn’t really matter.

 

In fact, different personality types are welcome, especially as businesses increasingly look to foster cultures of inclusion where people are encouraged to bring their true, authentic selves to work each and every day. 

 

Yet there is one exception – the type of person who is not welcome at my company, nor any other business I know, is the “prima donna” (or, in the interest of being non-gender specific, the “primo uomo”).  There are savants in every field and watching them at work can be breath-taking. But not when they’re the ones sucking the air out of the room.

 

So, for me, there’s no bigger priority than bringing in talented people. But I avoid the difficult, demanding, selfish types. No matter how talented, no matter where they were educated, and no matter how much their CV sparkles, they are never, ever worth it. 

 

Especially when you go up the corporate ladder, there are things you scrupulously avoid doing because you’ve purposely hired other people to do them for you, so you can focus on more complex things. But there are still things you can do to help those around you that are never beneath you. 

 

One example of something you can do for others is making a tea or coffee. My co-founder Kevin Cunningham makes a killer pot of java. Once, soon after we’d hired an exec away from a very large, highly respected tech firm (which, of course, shall remain nameless), our new joiner, Harry, arrived for an early morning meeting to find Kevin in the conference room, making coffee. 

 

“Kevin,” he said, “why are you doing that?” 

 

Kevin looked a little perplexed, then said, “Well, I was the first one here. And I figured some of us would want coffee.” 

 

Many years later, Harry is still with us, and still tells that story. Where he’d come from, the leaders sat around and waited for the staff to come in and make coffee for them. Call me indelicate, but there is apt description for that sort of behaviour and mind-set: high maintenance. 

 

So that’s my secret. When I’m adding people to our team, whether leaders or players, I have my radar up for high-maintenance people. 

 

This includes: 

• People who walk past a piece of rubbish on the floor because they assume someone else will pick it up. 
• People who don’t say thank you to the person who helped them find the right conference room. 
• People who are dismissive to the server at the restaurant.  

There are of course exceptions to the very concept of a high-maintenance person. Now and again, we all go through something in our personal lives that may affect how we treat people at work: those who are suffering a bereavement, a medical issue, a divorce or other heartbreak may have other things on their mind, and so the odd lapse in how they treat people may occur.

 

If this is a temporary state, we allow room for them to deal with what it is they are going through, and support their route back to their normal self.  

 

But for those for whom it’s a permanent state? They can move on. Because, as I’ve said to a lot of people in my life, if we’d all just treat others the way we’d like to be treated, life would be a lot more pleasant for all of us.

 

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Mark McClain is CEO and Founder of SailPoint

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com