As efforts to reject “brilliant jerks,” who are highly capable but lack teamwork skills, gain momentum, this article explains why they are no longer tolerated through examples including Netflix’s guidelines, Google’s research and the bad apple experiment, citing 3 reasons.
A “brilliant jerk” is a term for a person who is highly capable at their work but lacks teamwork skills and has a negative impact on those around them. Such people also existed at Japanese companies in the past, but the movement to reject them as part of a new set of values spread in the United States after the dot-com bubble. A turning point came when Netflix explicitly stated around 2010 that such people would “not be tolerated.”
Why, then, are they no longer tolerated? 3 reasons have been identified. First, “we have entered an era in which a single genius cannot win.” Second, “psychological safety” came to be regarded as important. Third, “the losses from leaving the problem unaddressed were quantified.”
The first reason is that teams with diverse expertise are required to complement one another, reducing the relative value of people who continue to pursue solo performances. The second is that research including Google’s studies showed that environments free from fear improve productivity, and brilliant jerks are said to undermine those environments. The third is that a study known as the bad apple experiment showed that a team’s performance declines by 30–40% because of a single negative individual. Taking the cost of employee turnover into account, the resulting losses are considered substantial.