As co-founder of Atari, Nolan Bushnell was one of the few people to be Steve Jobs' boss. Bushnell says a key aspect of his leadership has long been to tolerate abrasive personalities as long as the people in question have the skills and expertise to justify their arrogance. "Sometimes when you've got a technical problem and the smartest guy in the room happens to be obnoxious, you really want him on your team," Bushnell explains.I was ready to write that you might want a smart person involved to solve problems, but if he/she is going to be obnoxious all the time, it's going to be detrimental to the team. Eventually, others will lose loyalty and trust. They might even resort to sabotaging the loathsome teammate's efforts. Instead of a high performance team, dysfunction will reign.
Then I read the article and found that Bushnell doesn't quite advocate hiring obnoxious people despite their smarts.
People who are obnoxious for obnoxious' sake, no company needs them. But a lot of times, people who are very arrogant are obnoxious, and the company needs to be able to find a place for those people, and somehow isolate them from the mainstream so their obnoxiousness doesn't become pernicious. Sometimes when you've got a technical problem and the smartest guy in the room happens to be obnoxious, you really want him on your team.Bushnell's advice includes not keeping them in the mainstream. He advocates isolating them so they don't cause damage. Well, that probably keeps them from being 'permanent' members of any development or trouble-shooting teams. The smart guy becomes a hired gun to shoot the problem and then ride off to the next town.
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