Awhile back I asked a question about the House character from the TV show of the same name. Apparently a number of the replies, even some I saw, got screened out as SPAM. See my post on the SPAM issue. Anyway, I wanted to catch up by posting some of the replies. First the question. Then the replies you did not see, to keep the posts reasonable length, I will do one a day.
Gregory House, MD, works at a teaching hospital in New Jersey. House heads up various teams of doctors, some of whom are students, in solving the most difficult cases. House could best be described as antisocial, gruff, addicted to drugs, a genius, hard to live with, inappropriate, and a medical insurance nightmare. House often ridicules his team and uses a version of the Socratic method. He often directs his team to break into the client’s house. Although the show does not say it, let’s argue on his side that he attracts a lot of grants and also huge donations from families of grateful patients. OK, so you are the VP of HR, and since no one else will decide, you have been asked to make the decision as to whether the hospital should keep or fire House (or engage in some other type of action). How would you decide and why?
First a thoughtful reply from Mark Hammer.
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As someone who tends not to watch shows with principal characters that I can not like as people, I don’t watch the show a lot, but I’m married to someone who does like it, so…..I catch bits of it now and then.
The “House test” actually illustrates some things, albeit unintentionally, that I suspect are too often overlooked. In the show, we see the main character in interaction with those who collaborate with him and in some instances depend on him, or maybe even benefit from him. They generally know him enough to be able to notice his pros, and use those to counterbalance the cons.
But what about the people in the cafeteria he insults? What about those in the elevator who have recently heard bad news that he makes snarky comments to? What about the people at the dispensary he gets impatient with when his Percodan prescription runs out?
In other words, the spinoff effects of a “bad apple”, to employees who may not necessarily be factored into the cost/benefit analysis done by management or peers of the problem employee, may be much wider than management realizes and be more deleterious to organizational functioning and productivity than is recognized.
Here, I am drawn to the “hassles and uplifts” model of stress that Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman have proposed. They advance the view that stress may well be marked, or even precipitated by major life events, but those life events actually translate into a myriad of little things that impact on our mood, or provide discrete stressful events. So, losing your job, as a major life event, translates into little daily experiences of having to experience the sense of defeat when you see something you’d like to buy (but can’t), dealing with the disappointment of children when you can’t let them go on the school trip, staring at those damn bills, arguments with your partner about money, not chatting with your work buddies on the bus each day, and so on. On the other side of the equation, we have uplifts. Finding $20 in a pocket that you forgot about, running into an old friend on the bus, finishing something properly just in time, being complimented on something you did or wo re, little bits of good luck or vindication, and so on. Lazarus and Folkman view us as being somewhat buffeted about by these positive and negative events, and our overall mood as produced by their combined impact. Having a constant source of hassles, like a miserable spouse, nasty neighbour, or irritating coworker, can raise stress levels.
So, while Gregory House may provide added value to the hospital, with respect to his individual performance, what is the impact of his interaction with all those around him? How many hassles does he contribute to the hospital staff, and what happens to THEIR performance as a result? How many times will they phone in sick because they just can’t face work today? How often will they alter how they do their work or participate at work just so they don’t have to deal with him?
If he could be brilliant but irritating and work in his own little corner, interacting with a few drained-but-understanding colleagues, that would be one thing. But if he is in contact with a broader swathe of the organization, there may be a much heavier price one is paying than one realizes, and his pros may be outweighed by his cons.
Then there is the symbolic aspect of employees like that. How on earth can you persuade staff that “we care about our people” when you let someone like that loose on staff? The “truth value” of encouraging or policy statements coming from management may be completely undermined by their apparent tolerance for things/employees that are antithetical to what they are saying. So, one always has to be wary of what a toxic-but-brilliant employee allows one to do in terms of messaging staff, or achieving buy-in. Of course, the show is focussed on the medical side and not on the HR side where turnover amongst orderlies and nurses who have to work with this monster, and accounting people tearing what little hair they have left out of their heads, go unseen by the viewer.
So, be careful in how narrowly you audit the net positive and negative impact of problematic performers. You may be losing more than you realize by letting them run wild.
