Superstars, Prima Donas and Mavericks
The Media feed off them. Top teams buy them. Meanwhile the rest of us can seldom escape hearing, seeing or knowing about the football megastars. But these outstanding performers can also be a complete nightmare to manage.
Business too has its fair share of superstars, prima donnas and mavericks who pose challenges beyond the normal bounds of talent management. On one hand they possess an enviable ability to infect teams with their passion and intensity; for example they drive by example and stimulate others to perform outstandingly, re-enforcing team loyalty and commitment.
On the other, they are also rebels, often going their own way, regardless of what goes on around them. And if you can’t discover the key to their energy and commitment don’t expect them to hang around long, even when offered all kinds of inducements. In a 2006 study, for example, over one third of newly recruited star performing stock analysts jumped ship within 36 months and another third baled out in the following 24 months.
In football, the megastars usually outscore the rest of the players by several orders of magnitude. Business megastars also exceed the rest of the pack by at least 25% and in some industries the difference between the average and the best soars to 1000 per cent. These jewels in the crown don’t merely shine; they magnify what is best in a firm. Equally, though, they can create havoc with excessive demands, impossible standards and impatience with lesser mortals.
No one really sets out to hire a prima donna or a maverick and the true superstars are hard to come by. But if you’re thinking of hiring one to transform a team or the entire company, you might want to think again.
Those who have successfully recruited a superstar, for example, frequently regret it, watching dismayed as the newcomer’s shine rapidly fades, group performance plummets and the company’s own valuation suffers. In the study of high performing stock analysts, the company that focused on growing its own talent proved far better at creating stars than a competitor who poached as many as possible.
Grow Your Own
Why is it best, then, to grow your own stars? First, the star’s performance may be heavily reliant on the previous company’s particular environment. You can’t take it with you when looking for greener pasture. Secondly, you can seldom grow a company by recruiting stars. Many financial institutions that relied on this to build a new business, for example to crack open the US market by luring away their rivals’ best talent, found it did not work.
Jack Welch of GE, a famed breeder of superstars, strongly resisted buying- in outsiders, relying on his endless supply of envelopes containing the names of those slated to succeed someone in the company, including him.
Whether homegrown or imported, talented stars need managing. “Herding cats is easy, compared to getting these people pointing in the direction you want”, says one experienced talent manager.
The more talented the individual the more you need to uncover exactly what keeps them motivated and involved. So the essence of managing the megastars comes down to building strong relationships with them, treating them as individuals and using various other techniques such as ambitious goals, to get them wired up.
A legendary co-leader at Goldman Sachs once warned a colleague: “At Goldman Sachs we never say I”. Imported stars tend to possess outsize egos to match their inflated remuneration. So expect to hear a lot of “I”, rather than “we”, at least in the early days. This is particularly so with the prima donnas who are narcissistic and want the organisation to fit itself around them.
Whilst the genuine stars, for instance, need support and encouragement, the prima donnas need strong boundaries and containment. The mavericks need listening to and appreciating, but don’t ask them to take responsibility.
The stars usually want brutally honest feedback, but the prima donnas may be too vulnerable to handle it. Whilst all are self-motivated, they are driven by different passions; like all other employees, rebels need to be treated individually. Click here to view table which exlplains the distinctions.
All the different kinds of megastars tend to be impatient with a passion to work fast. So they too need to be dealt with quickly; they don’t take kindly to obstruction, delays or bureaucracy.
Megastars also want highly specific, not generalized, feedback. Theatrical performers often bask in the words “you were wonderful darling” but know this does not help them determine what they need to do to keep succeeding. They prefer truth to flattery.
“Nobody wants to tell a big star to crank things up, because he is such a big star. But the fact is, real artists or geniuses or whatever you want to call them especially need the truth. They’re not fooled by false praise and empty encouragement. Only honest recognition of their real accomplishment means anything to them at all.”
Mark Morris, International Dance choreographer and founder of the Mark Morris Dance Group
The inner world of the superstars can be surprisingly fragile. They frequently act with flamboyance while inside can be deeply vulnerable. The constant demand to deliver outstanding performance makes them feel exposed. This makes it important to deal with them with care, whether they’re a stage star or a super-sales person.
For all their successes, megastars fear being one step away from failure and humiliation. This breeds demanding behaviour as they strive for ways to shine.
Cick here for tips on managing the superstars
Sources: The Risky Business of Hiring Stars, Harvard Business Review April 2006
Talent Management in Financial Services, conducted by McEvoy Associates Signium International, Finance Magazine.com, Wednesday, 22nd March 2006
Also: Are Leaderss Portable? by B.Groysberg and others, Harvard Business Review May 2006
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