People would rather work with someone who’s a 5/10 technically but a 10/10 to work with than with someone who’s a 10/10 technically but a 0/10 to work with.
Do you ever wonder why some people are in “higher” roles despite how technically skilled they actually are?
Or why companies seem to fall apart despite having the “best” talent in their ranks?
It’s because we’re human beings and the average human being likes to be around people that make them feel good about themselves.
Now, I’m not saying that technical skill isn’t valuable; it absolutely is. If a role requires you have a working knowledge of cloud architecture, you better dang well be sure you have it.
Instead, the point I’m trying to make is that all the technical skill in the world will not help you succeed if the people you need to team up with strongly dislike working with you (even at their own detriment).
I’ve seen the issue first-hand dozens of times. A company hires an amazingly gifted engineer or designer. Over time, friction seems to become more and more commonplace. You start noticing that goals are starting to get missed despite having the right talent on hand. People butting heads left and right. Fast forward, turnover; could be your newly hired talent, it could be others around them. Translation? Your new hire cost you a lot of time and money.
More specifically, your new talent introduced a toxic workplace. Would you want to work with someone who looked down upon your code? Who criticized your approach to a problem and not offer alternatives? Or someone who complained more about things not going their way, the “right” way, than collaborated to a solution?
Of course not! No one wants to work with someone who drags down the team and its spirits. People would rather work with someone who’s less skilled, but a joy to work with, than someone who’s extremely skilled, but a nightmare to work with. It’s plain and simple human nature.
What can we do to avoid situations like this?
For professionals, take a good look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, “would you want to work with you?” Fortunately, it doesn’t take much effort to be a joy to work with.
For companies, put more weight into questions around your candidates’ personalities and culture-fit. Too often are interviews limited to technical skill that they forget to uncover “what is this person like to work with?”
Bottom line, technical skill alone won’t get you very far in tech, especially if you need others’ help to achieve your goals. It’s just as important, if not more, to be someone that you would want to work with, too.
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