I have a small team and lately my star performer has been marching to a different tune. This person feels that no one else is good enough and doesn't seem to like it if others offer a differing design or opinion on the scope of work. I would like to provide feedback to this person without affecting their ego.
How can I best handle a star performer on a small team who feels no one else is good enough?
This question has two possible answers, and it depends entirely on the accuracy of the assessment of the team by the star employee.
The first possibility: This person is overly impressed with their own skills, or has some insecurity about them and is projecting that onto their teammates. I'm going to skip this possibility, as Kent Anderson's answer covers the response to this scenario very well..
The second possibility, and the one I believe is probably more likely: They are correct. You call him a "star performer," which I infer means his skills really ARE that good.
The good news is that this person is loyal to your team. If they weren't, the frustration would have driven them out by now. The frustration is in being surrounded by mediocrity, possibly bordering on ineptitude, and having no one seem to care about it.
That "no one?" That's YOU. You are the manager, and if you accept the mediocrity, you are killing your team's performance, and you are driving this person out. Development is an art, and anyone who is "satisfied" with their skill as an artist is deadwood. I worked in television for many years, and did a lot of arts programs along the way. I've never met a dancer, painter, singer, musician, lighting director, prop builder, or any other artist who was "satisfied" with their own work. They are constantly striving to be better, and that's what makes them great. Developers should be the same way.
When you put these people in a team with those who feel they are "good enough," it drives them absolutely insane. (You can change that to a first-person sentence, from me, if you wish.) It's like putting Aretha Franklin in a dive bar band, or having Nico Rosberg do valet parking. You are destroying this person.
Now, what are you going to do about it?
Option 1: You take the employee aside, and say, "We accept mediocrity in this team. I realize you're better than that, but we aren't going to be able to let you reach your potential, here. I understand if you need to seek better challenges, but please contribute to the team as long as you're here." And be sure you MEAN it. If you accept mediocrity, then you've already lost this person. Accept it.
Option 2: Listen to them. (I'm betting they're right.) Ask him point-blank, "OK, you're right. What are 5 things we can do in the next 6 months to get better?" Put it on him to tell you what skills the team needs to develop. It sounds like their biggest issue is architecture (although I'll bet that there are more issues than you're aware of). Are there analysis practices or design patterns that your team needs to learn?
Now implement it. Don't give it to this employee to do, as they're likely already at odds with their teammates. Give it to another team member. Completely out of the scope of this discussion, assign another team member to become an expert at a particular design pattern, and train the rest of the team. Assign another to an analysis practice, etc. Stagger the rollout so that it doesn't overwhelm your team.
The star performer will see that you're demanding the team improve, and they will (likely) understand if it takes some time to build momentum.
The team member's ego appears to be the problem, and your purpose should be to affect it in a way that benefits the whole team.
Assuming you are the team manager/leader, an objective assessment might help provide a good foundation for the potentially difficult conversation you are about to have.
Are the others' ideas (the ones being rejected/ignored) reasonable?
Is this person's behavior causing the team to miss deadlines or to have a higher frequency of issues in the product?
Have you, or has anyone, talked to this person about this issue before now?
Has anyone else in the team mentioned that they feel mistreated, or have concerns about the team or the product?
A 'Yes' to any of these questions would be a good place to start a direct conversation between you and the team member. It would start with a statement along the lines of, "I have a concern about the team's work and I believe you can help correct it..." You should then describe the behavior you have observed, then determine whether the person recognizes their behavior as undesirable (a direct question is best here).
If the person was unaware of the impact of their behavior, this is a teaching opportunity (there might also be other reasons for the change in behavior, such as personal problems outside of work). Teams that are made up of mutual respect operate better than teams where some members dislike or distrust others.
If the person is aware of their behavior and its negative impact and is unwilling to change, then as manager, you will need to be direct as you tell them it is unacceptable, and lay out the desired changes you expect to see and the consequences that will happen if the behavior is not corrected. Set a time period where you will observe and evaluate, then get back together to go over results.
Hopefully the results will show the desired improvement, but if not, you may have to take a more formal action. If you have an HR department, consult with them.
Good luck!
I've left quite a few places for being too large a fish in too small a pond (I'm a self taught game programmer now working at a top company, so had to climb up the ladder from the bottom). It isn't good for your career or your morale if you aren't continually learning and growing. If I were you I'd find a way to make him feel like a small fish. Not by pushing him down, but legitimately. Maybe also letting him push his own personal boundaries a bit so he doesn't feel tethered by the abilities of the others. Also, he should learn that people of different levels have a place in the organization, and that its by design that its that way. IMO. Maybe also somehow seeing the value of differing opinions or what others bring to the table. We have biweekly 1 hour technical presentations where I work currently, by whoever volunteers for them, which is a really neat way of letting people show what they got so to speak, or where they are coming from etc.
I'll go out on a limb and point out that your underlying assumption is the other people are "good enough" and that their opinions and designs are just as good. But are they really? If so, then what makes this guy a "star performer" -- isn't he on the same level as everyone else? And if not--i.e., if his designs and opinions truly are better -- then where exactly is the problem?
To go to an extreme, if I worked with Elon Musk and he acted as if I wasn't good enough, then I would be inclined to agree with him rather than try to blame him. You just can't entirely ignore the correctness of what he says!
Firstly you've got to appreciate that you have a gifted team member. You want to continue to reap the benefits of this person's contributions. Then you've got to appreciate that people aren't a buffet where you can pick and choose the bits you want.
The next thing to consider is the old maxim about being the best player in the band: You're not challenged, and you're not learning, and you need to find another band.
It is quite likely your friend has come to realise he's the star performer, and perhaps he has come to realise he's flanked by people who's skills or level of contribution don't measure up, and he's frustrated by this. He may feel he's not learning. He may even be contemplating joining another band ...
For a start you should be recognising his exceptional performance by assigning more responsibility. You should couple this with conference of a small amount of seniority upon him, just to recognise his superior contribution. I'm not saying to give him a promotion or more money, but in team meetings for instance ask him what he thinks of things before others, or take him into confidence about plans you may have or about how things should work.
You might also assign him some tasks that put him in a leadership role. Again, not giving him a promotion overall, but giving him some things to do that might help him exercise his potential and give him some sense of being in control.
Beyond that, if his behaviour is still poor you now have a position from which you can call him on it. If he's just being rude, you can raise that with him. If he's not sticking to agreed plans you should explain to him the virtues of having a team where everybody understands what's going on. If none of this works, then you may just have a guy who just isn't very nice, and you should start asking yourself if his superior contribution is worth the impact that he is having on you and your team. Perhaps subtract those costs from his individual contributions and re-evaluate as such.
Knowledge work is not like an assembly line. The difference in productivity between the best and worst workers can be multiple orders of magnitude - worse, there are things the best workers can do that the worst ones would not be able to replicate given almost unlimited time.
Given this basis, your diagnosis that you don't want to damage your star performer's ego seems sensible; apart from anything else, the most productive can change jobs without much effort on their part. Even if your star's being a big arrogant baby, their moving on will likely hurt you more than them.
However, I'm a little concerned by the manifestation of their intolerance: design and estimation. It is not obvious that they are being unreasonable if they take a strong stance on either.
Assuming we're discussing an engineering discipline rather than an aesthetic one, design is a process full of costly pitfalls for the novice and often it will fall to the more experienced to point these out. Whether the engineer is a star or not, though, they should be forced to make their case as to why a design is good or bad through argument and not just through asserting their authority. This gives the other team members a chance to learn.
Estimation is altogether thornier. I suspect if your star performer thought the scope was smaller than other team members did there wouldn't even be a discussion about it, and their word would be believed. Estimation is hard, and made harder by the omnipresent desire to report good news to those above you. I suggest you quietly track the different estimates against the eventual outcome; that way, if your star is further out than anyone else, you can reason with them on that basis next time. If they are genuinely better at estimation, that's worth knowing too.
It is hard to say what the key problem is without more detail. Your star performer may be underperforming and defensive. They may be right but tactless. You may be dealing with other team members who fancy themselves as far more competent than they are and feel slighted on personal grounds. A careful investigation into what they have to say for themselves is called for, and if some of the fault is theirs, make sure they know you value them even as you ask them to ease up on other team members.
Let your star performer know that others' opinion are valued for the same reason that his opinion is valued and that their opinion must be heard. Let him know that his intolerance of disagreement creates a subtext of intimidation and that subtext is unacceptable. He needs to step back and let others speak their mind. The fact that he is a star performer does not mean that he is right 100% of the time or that he has a monopoly on the best answers.
I don't think any of us can call ourselves competent professionals if (1) we are not technically qualified; and (2), we don't work well with our colleagues and management. None of us lives on a desert island,none of us is irreplaceable - I'd hate what would happen to the business if your star performer were actually irreplaceable and you all found his carcass under a bus - and we all have to work as a well coordinated team.
If you are more worried about your 'star performers' ego than how your team is working together then you may be looking to solve the wrong problem.
In any team you are going to have people with different strengths and weakness. So long as they are all team players this is fine. If they work together then they will be aware of this and organize to optimize around it.
"I know sue is really good at test coverage so I'll ask her to see if there is anything else I should be doing."
Or
"Bob is great at interface design so I will run this by him."
However if one (or more) people in the team assumes they are better, it often leads to arrogance. Which leads to huge friction in the team.
"Your just not good enough to see why this idea is great"
Ego should not have a place in a team. Yes some people are better in some areas than others, but they should use that as an opportunity to mentor others not to stamp their authority.
In difference to many of the answers here, I suggest the last thing you should do would be to promote them. They do not sound like they are team leader material yet. Your team will suffer even further if they are promoted. If it is an option I would suggest that would be enough to cause people to leave. (I know it has been for me in the past).
IF you accept that the issue is one of team bonding, then look at ways to do that. It could be as simple as everyone going out for a team lunch. You may want to look at some kind of team building activities to try to get people to work together. Your product is the shared responsibility of the team, if they feel this they will work well together.
I would also question weather the person is actually a star performer. I don't know what metrics you use to judge this. I would say a fairly high percentage of "Star Performers" that I have encountered are good at self promotion and deflecting criticism rather than actually good at the job. The behavior you describe leans towards this being the case.
Both Kent and Wesley have posted answers with merit, but perhaps the best way to deal with your SP will emerge after a few coaching techniques. Ask an open question, along the lines of "how do you feel about the team dynamic at the moment?" Follow it up with questions about root causes and similar... Explore the issue in as much detail as possible. If SP doesn't bring it up, you can gently lead the issue, or use one of the prompts in Kent's answer. Your SP may surprise you with their answer and come out with something none of us have thought of. Or they may admit fault, blame the rest of the team, or even blame you. Don't be too hasty to jump to solutions.
When you feel the issue has been thoroughly explored, if the solution hasn't naturally emerged, ask the SP what they can do about it. If further action is required by you (e.g. talking to another team member), reassure SP that you will do so. But don't be afraid to say you will go away and have a think about how to proceed. And also make it clear that SP shouldn't expect a "status report" on your actions; you're their manager, not the other way around.
Assuming that he is actually doing a really good job, I would try and put him in a more prominent role as a team leader. I would explicitly tell him to be responsible for the team and the result, and that he has to teach its members as necessary so they can achieve their goal. This will
If he really outperforms everyone, this is only sensible to do instead of suppressing him. Make him shine!
I am adding this answer because I feel this aspect was underrepresented in the other answers. Obviously, if his results are less than great, this does not apply.
Tell him it is more important to get everyone's input than it is for him to be right.
You need to let this person know what behavior you want him to change. Let him know that you are going to ask for the "team's" opinion, he needs to let everyone else offer an opinion whether he likes it or not. He can state his and then be quiet while everyone else gives their opinion.
Take more control over the debate. You can either decide which solution to implement, take a team vote, or assign someone to make the decision. This may be decided on a case by case basis since it may not be practical to take a full team vote on every matter. You're in charge. You decide.
