
Don't be addicted to losers - eykanal
http://blog.erikdev.com/post/166713860257/the-pain-of-being-addicted-to-losers
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ev0lhanson
This is extremely bad advice. Firing people because you think they are
"losers" is a sure fire way to make your work place toxic. This is what lazy
managers and companies do.

Someone who is underperforming should be informed specifically how they are
underperforming and what they can do to become an excellent performer. They
may not be aware they are underperforming or believe they are overperfomlng
but they are doing the wrong thing. Having open and honest discussions with
people, giving them chances, offering guidance/training, and treating people
like adults is how you build a company that is not full of "losers".

It's not being lazy to work with an underperforming employee to turn that
around it's lazy to just fire them because to you they appear to be a "loser".

Positivity is super important especially when you are a manager. This article
has such a negative tone it's disappointing that it's author might actually be
a manager some place.

Additionally comparing poorly performing employees with serious drug addiction
is just not super cool.

~~~
mikestew
Hopefully when I return from my dog walk, this will have displaced my comment
as “top comment”. Insightful, and says what I wanted to say but didn’t have
the words.

(EDIT: now I'm back with tired dogs, and I see that my wish came true,
hurray.)

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mikestew
I really do wish sometimes that there were a downvote button for articles.
This one is not so egregiously offensive that it deserves a "flag", but the
quality is poor and brings nothing new to the table. And the metaphor sucks.

~~~
cema
Yes. Another consideration is that sometimes a submission may be upvoted not
so much for the quality of the article as that of the discussion.

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hobofan
TLDR: "A-players hire A-players; B-players hire C-players"

Beyond that, the article doesn't offer much and doesn't even explore the
possibility to deal with the "lazy problem employee" in any other (humane) way
than to get rid of them.

~~~
r00fus
All this talk of A-players is somewhat sketchy too - I've seen A-players go to
the wrong team and become C-players. I've also seen B-players become
indispensable and stellar.

So sure, hire the best folks you can, but if you have a great team, you might
find it easier to a) integration even not-so-great folks into that team and b)
it's cheaper not to hire rockstar ninjas for all your hires.

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evanlivingston
A workplace that promotes characterizing people as losers sounds like an
awful, awful place to work.

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learc83
This article was ridiculous. Comparing humans to heroin might be forgiven if
the analogy provided any insight at all, but it didn't.

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wirrbel
uh, yet again one of those blog posts that offer simple solutions for simple
problems. As if life was so simple.

In a workplace situation, you'll realize, that sometimes "looser" person is
just a looser in the mind of that one manager, and the person that holds
together the CI infrastructure of the team, putting in countless hours
integrating changes from colleagues (because the rock stars cannot be bothered
to do that). Or that grumpy looser is in fact the only one with the guts to
speak up. Or, the tasks assigned to that person do not match their expertise.

I have often heard people recount stories about how a transfer from one
manager to another manager in the company turned their situation upside down.

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rm_-rf_slash
The "loser" in this post is somewhat of a straw man. How can one tell the
difference between an incompetent/ineffective employee and one that might be
undergoing home life stresses (my family had 2 deaths and another near-death
this year, and it was not excellent for my productivity), or perhaps they are
not completely motivated for their job. In the case of the latter, couldn't
one argue that it's actually the _manager 's_ responsibility?

Real world examples with anecdotes or statistics - rather than a somewhat
clumsy metaphor for heroin addiction- would have made the argument more
convincing.

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Areading314
This article and whoever wrote it just ... _sucks_

~~~
panzerboy
You could say he’s a ... loser.

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sevensor
Any properly functioning bureaucracy institutes performance improvement plans
so that there will be a paper trail for firings. Indeed any not-entirely-
dysfunctional bureaucracy has this. Also, being on a performance improvement
plan means they want to fire you. Sometimes this doesn't happen -- I know a
guy who was subsequently elevated to middle management after having been on a
PIP as a junior employee, but it delayed his advancement by at least 5 years.

Edit: typo

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rrggrr
TLDR: businesses depend on their employees, including their weak hires. Have
enough weak hires (or a few key bad hires) and you can't function with or
without them. The article misses the real exposure most businesses face in
this regard... good employees who become weak over time. The dependency crisis
this creates is very real, especially in small businesses without the
resources to rehabilitate and retrain struggling employees.

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pdimitar
Archive.ORG link since the article seems to be gone:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20171023190221/http://blog.erikd...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171023190221/http://blog.erikdev.com/post/166713860257/the-
pain-of-being-addicted-to-losers)

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tentakull
Lol what a dork. Flippant comment aside, I can see this guy sitting in the
shower trying to divine a relevant metaphor for such a dumb opinion - and
coming up with the least relevant but most offensive option. That combined
with the confidence to sit down and write that out takes talent.

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athenot
I get the point of not hanging on to mediocrity but I don't think the term
"losers" is what's most appropriate here. It's too reductionist.

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bb88
I've seen losers in management too. Usually they're too wound up in spinning
their own positives to upper management than actually managing people.

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curtisblaine
Apart from the heroin comparison, is it only me who thinks that yes, people
who are not good at their job should be fired?

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yowlingcat
I would call this a poorly written article, but it's not an article. It's
someone's half baked thought on a blog, but unfortunately, it reflects an
attitude common enough at most tech firms to warrant a comment.

Employees don't "suck" in isolation. What do you think happens when you try to
hire and coach a group of people together to solve a problem? You're building
a team. No, you're not building a "band" of "rockstars", you're assembling a
highly functional team of professionals. Someone who was hired who's not at
the bar of seniority to be functional on the team? Hiring process and manager
take responsibility. Someone was hired who wouldn't professionally gel and fit
in with the team/organization? Same problem. Someone on the team has concerns
and they're not going heard? Someone on the team is not finding the growth
opportunities they need? Same problem.

As a middle manager, it is your job to find the right team members for your
specific organization. If you're wasting time whining about how certain
organizations are "addicted" to "losers", all you're doing is passing the
buck, which by your own admission would make you...a "loser". See how stupid
that is? You're not a loser, you're just incompetent.

Probably the only thing this half baked piece got right is that a
dysfunctional organization of a certain size is going to have a much more
difficult time ridding itself of that dysfunction than a smaller one -- you
can't just fire your way to healthiness in such a situation. But, that's what
real crisis leadership is about. It's not impossible, just very rare. You can
see why, though -- it's so much easier to place the blame on others
(especially your reports) by grading them into adder/subtractor buckets. And
of course, when the team, division or organization folds, it's not your fault.
Then, you take that toxic attitude with you to the next organization unlucky
enough to get saddled with you.

Looking at the world through the lens of losers/rockstars reflects a childish,
simplistic view of how humans work and are motivated. Those who subscribe to
it are bound to live through a life full of unnecessary hardship and
mediocrity. The competition for talent is fierce, and managers who can't
effectively hire, retain and develop talent will stunt the growth of their
organization. Obviously, this is not uncommon, and many organizations
deteriorate to this level of dysfunction. But, there are plenty that don't.
They'll poach your talent, as they should, and you'll be too oblivious to
understand why.

Learn your lessons the easy way, or learn them the hard way.

PS: Don't even get me started with that egregiously inappropriate heroin
analogy. The author should hope that their HR department never finds this blog
post, because that would be a PR disaster.

