Weighing Competence and Wrongdoing

[harsh.ag]

Competence here is defined as being able to generate profit. If a highly competent employee turns out to have wronged a much less competent one, what should be the appropriate response from the company's pov? Is it better to cut them loose, or should the possibility of them being snapped up by rivals and taking away business and profit be held more important? What if they are central to the operations of a company and very difficult to replace in the short run? Would you consider this an easy question if you were the top management/shareholder of the company? Is the old wisdom of "they will cost you too much in the long run" applicable? Perhaps groom someone to replace them and then let them go?

Is there a sliding scale here, some threshold of loss beyond which your answer would change?

 

[sledger]

What do you mean "wronged"?

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Dog eat dog world. Management would give the ***** a promotion/

 

[harsh.ag]

What do you mean "wronged"?

Could be anything which renders a professional relationship between the two untenable. Fault lying with the competent guy.

 

[fredfertang]

I think the sliding scale is more likely to apply to the size of the business - a small business will hang on to the **** who makes the money every time, but the bigger the company and therefore the less statistically significant the **** is the more likely it is that eventually someone will get fed up with him and tell him to foxtrot oscar

 

[Burgey]

Be a bit like football. If you’re a star you’re likely treated differently to a bloke who’s just a workhorse.

 

[Ausage]

I feel like most of the time it's better to cut the prototypical talented troublemaker in favour of promoting a co-operative team culture. It's obviously better from a morality standpoint, but in most cases your output is more related to the performance of the entire team than you might realise. You jeopardise your broader team culture at your peril.

The hardest part about these situations is that disruptive individuals tend to be pretty good at covering their behavioural tracks, particularly to people that matter. Detecting the problem tends to be harder than acting on it.

Obviously all of the above is broad comment. The specifics of the business, team, the individual involved and their actions can change the dials on this stuff.