IIM LUCKNOW LEADERSHIP DISCOVERY PROJECT TERM VI

Competent jerks, lovable

fools & the formation of
social networks
Submitted to
Dr. Shailendra Singh
Submitted by: Group 2
Aditi Roy (PGP26260)
Kalyan Halley (PGP26347)
Nishanth RK (PGP26160)
Trupti R (PGP26178)
Vinayak Rakkasagi (PGP26188)

Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Informal Social Networks .............................................................................................................................. 3
Research Background.................................................................................................................................... 4
Choosing Work Partners ............................................................................................................................... 4
Likeability Bias ............................................................................................................................................... 6
Questionnaire ............................................................................................................................................... 7
Survey Results ............................................................................................................................................... 7
Steps to Deal with jerks and fools............................................................................................................... 10
Manufacture Liking in Critical Relationships............................................................................................... 10
Promote Familiarity ................................................................................................................................ 10
Redefine Similarity .................................................................................................................................. 11
Foster Bonding ........................................................................................................................................ 11
Leverage the likable .................................................................................................................................... 11
Work on the Jerk ......................................................................................................................................... 12
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 13
References .................................................................................................................................................. 13

Introduction
Our project is based on the June 2005,article published in the Harvard Business Review titled
Competent Jerks, Lovable Fools and the formation of Social Networks by Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel
Sousa Lobo. The article tries to find answers to the following basic questions:

Who do people like to work with?

Faced with a choice whom would one prefer to work with?

How do people choose work partners?

How to manufacture liking?

How to deal with the jerks?

Through our project we aim to delve deeper and validate the conclusion of the authors by
1. Applying and validating the findings to an Indian context
2. Studying the effect of situational variables on likeability and competency scores
3. The research methodology of the HBR authors focused on ratings of familiar employees. We
have tried to use objective criteria to determine the co-worker preference of employees. For
example employees were asked whom they would ideally like to work with, rather than rating
their existing colleagues. This helps to prevent any bias towards known people.

Informal Social Networks

One of the key challenges that face management in any organization is the inherent natural tension due
to:
Different types of people with different skills that are brought together
Competition for scarce resources
Fragmentation of organization into silos of specialized knowledge and activity
Cross functional teams
Thus we can say that it is very important to resolve this inherent tension. However it has been found
that formal organization structures and relationships only partly reflect the entire spectrum of

relationships in an organization. Informal relationships between employees play a major role in

determining whom people like to work with. Informal networks social networks go beyond the
organizational charts and to a large extent determine the work interactions in an organization

Research Background
The authors of the HBR paper conducted an extensive study to find out as to whom people like to work
with in organizations. A series of social network surveys were carried out in 4 different organizations.
Some of the key features of the study included
4 organizations studied with wide range of attributes
o

For Profit and Nonprofit

Large and small

N. American and European

The companies studied were: Multinational IT company, US University, Silicon Valley Start-Up,
Spanish Luxury goods corporation
A large group of MBA students in a business school were also surveyed
Data about 10,000 work relationships were collected
Employees were asked to their rate co-workers on their likability and competence
Data corrected for likely biases
The results of the survey were found to be strikingly consistent across all groups and organizations
studied by the authors

Choosing Work Partners

When choosing work partners people can pick one over another for a variety of reasons like prestige of
associating or benefits to oneself. However, the authors found that there were two factors which played
a major role in determining how people chose their work partners:
Likeability Is Joe enjoyable to work with?
Competence Does Joe know what he is doing?

Based on these 2 criteria the authors came up with a 22 matrix to classify employees based on their
likeability and competence

It was found that, irrespective of the organization

Everybody likes to work with the lovable star
Nobody wants to work with the incompetent jerk
The lovable fool was preferred over the competent jerk
Personal feelings played a more important role than competence in work relationships
Choosing the Lovable Fool over the Competent Jerk may seem unprofessional but people do not
like to admit it the themselves
Some of the characteristics of the competent jerks and lovable fools can be summarized as follows
Competent Jerks
Difficult to pry the out information from them
No explanations are given by them
Unpleasant attitude, opportunistic
Difficult to share vulnerability with as they may use it to their advantage
Difficult to brainstorm and ask follow-up questions

Lovable Fools
Freely share his limited knowledge with others
No ulterior motive, not opportunistic
Ready to help
Pleasant attitude
Reciprocate positive feelings

Likeability Bias
The findings of the authors proved that there exists a likeability bias in choosing co-workers. People
prefer likeability to competence even though it may seem unprofessional. However ones likeability is
relative and varies from person to person. Likeability also depends of the situation we find ourselves in
and thus management needs to keep this in mind while trying to manage the preference of different
people. Social Psychologists have determine 4 factors responsible determining why we like someone
Similar Values, Backgrounds, Beliefs, Interests and Personal Style
Familiar Avoids wastage of time and explanations. Greater comfort and acceptance
Reciprocal - Positive feelings, empathy and generosity
Attractive Appearance or personality
However there are both pros and cons of the likeability bias

Likeability Factor

Pros

Cons

Similar

Business and psychological benefit. Limited range of perspectives

Smooth flow of work

Familiar

Comfort, acceptance, avoids wastage Hesitation in challenge familiar

of time and explanations
people, lack of fresh perspectives

Reciprocal

Free sharing of knowledge, trust

People may end up have a good time

and doing nothing else

Attractive

Makes the job more enjoyable

Not a measure of capability

Questionnaire
The following questionnaire has been administered to the respondents. The channel of administration
has been online- predominantly Facebook & Gmail. The questionnaire can be accessed through
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dEEtS0RsRzRjRXd5bm15bExyeWV6Q1E6MQ#gid=0

Survey Results
As shown below the survey has been administered on a population size of 35. This involved a mix of
both people with work-experience and those with no organizational work experience. The ones who
havent worked elsewhere before have responded based on their learnings from working in teams in
their institutes and beyond.

Work experience details

29%

With Work Exp

Without Work Exp

71%

The two bar charts below show the results based on frequency distribution of the answers to the
questions on Most preferred Co-worker and Least preferred Co-worker. Most preferred Co-Worker is
clearly someone who has average-high competency and likeability. However, clearly based on the size of
the bar on the right, likeability is a more important factor as compared to competence. More
importantly some respondents didnt mind rating a Co-worker with low competence as an MPC while
this was not the case with Likeability. Similarly, for LPC some respondents rated a Co-worker with High
Competence as an LPC while this was not the case with Likeability. So the original assumption about
Likeability being more important than Competency is further reaffirmed.

Most Preferred
Co-worker
MPC - Competency

MPC - Likeability
20

15 15

Least Preferred
Co-worker
LPC - Competency

LPC - Likeability

20 20

15

15
10

5
0

Low

0
Average

High

Low

Average

High

The two bar charts below show the analysis of the results for the questions on the qualities of an Ideal
Colleague and that of the best alternative to an ideal colleague. The ideal colleague is clearly the
Lovable Star who is high on Competence and high on Likeability. The alternative to the ideal colleague
tends towards being a Lovable fool than a Competent Jerk. This result corroborates with that of the

study. This is also clear from the fact that almost 10 respondents out of 35 didnt mind preferring
someone with low competence as an alternative to an ideal colleague

Ideal Colleague

Alternative to Ideal

Ideal Colleague - Competency

Alternative to Ideal - Competency

Ideal Colleague - Likeability

Alternative to Ideal - Likeability

20

35
15

15

25
10

10

10
0

Low

0
Average

0
Low

High

Average

High

The survey also had a hypothetical situation based question comparing the Competent Jerk (Subhash)
and Lovable fool (Karthik). Clearly as per the stacked bar chart below, in most situations people prefer
the lovable fool, unless the situation demands a level of technical competence where the expertise of
the Competent jerk is needed. Also, as per the pie-chart below it is clear that people clearly have a bias
to work with those people with whom they have worked before.

Prefer working with

people worked with
previously
Certainly
11%
45%

22%

Subhash Vs Karthik
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

Most
Probably
May be

22%

Never
Subhash

Karthik

Steps to Deal with jerks and fools

If you keep hiring only people you like, you can kill a company
There are obvious downsides to choosing only people you like to work instead of choosing people who
are competent. However, this practice largely prevails among us. Here we list out a few steps through
which we can tackle this bias:

Manufacture Liking in Critical Relationships

Familiarity is one of the reasons why physical proximity affects the degree to which people like each
other. Research has shown that regular exposure to someone generally increases the comfort and
pleasure of interaction.

3
Steps

Fig 1: Three step process to Manufacture Liking in organizations

Promote Familiarity
In order to promote familiarity among the employees, office space can be redesigned to ensure more
employees are acquainted with each other. Also, before a cross functional team starts to work, a small
informal meeting or dinner could be arranged so that the team gets to know each other informally.
One can also set up processes in the office which gives more opportunity for employees to acquaint and
get comfortable with each other. Some such examples which are followed in the offices include PeerAssist program and Buddy program.

Redefine Similarity
Similarities can be created where they may not arise naturally. Organizations should work in this
direction to promote similarity. Certain common traits among the employees or their nature of work or
background can be used to foster this relationship.
Ex: Bringing together the R&D and marketing people of a particular product. The common association
with the product might help promote bonding.

Foster Bonding
Bringing together people who normally work as antagonists against each other requires much more
stronger effort than establishing a mere informal acquaintance. Promoting positive feelings in those
circumstances require stronger methods such as putting people through an intense cooperative phase.
Bringing together such antagonists and making them face a common enemy or an adverse situation may
promote harmony and cooperation among them. They may start focusing on the common enemy and
override the differences between each other. However, duplicating such circumstances in an
organization is very difficult.

Leverage the likable

There are certain groups of people who are generally liked by the majority of people and get along with
everyone. As they spend significant amount of time on maintaining good relations, their performance
suffers at times, they are more likely to be average performers.
Identify Them:
These people need to be identified in the organization. It is the role of the manager to be attentive and
identify people who can play such a role or already playing such a role.
Protect Them:
Usually the worthiness of such people in the organization is usually not easily identified. Hence there is
likelihood that in cost cutting periods such employees may be asked to leave the organization. However,
it is very important that such individuals are identified and ensured that they stay in the organization.
360 degree performance appraisal may help in identifying such individuals as it includes parameters
such as how pleasant the employee is to deal with.

Position Them:
Having ensured that such individuals have been identified in the organizations, they need to be
positioned in roles where they interact with largely diverse group of employees and teams to foster
relationships. Making them languish in roles which have little connectivity with other functions is a huge
waste of such talent.

Protect
Them

Identify
Them

Position
Them

Leverage Liking
Fig 2: Three steps to Leverage Liking

Work on the Jerk

Competent jerks are equivalent to missed opportunities in an organization. They are potential sources in
executing work but are difficult to get along with colleagues. Hence it is vital that their softer aspects
need to be taken care of to help them get along well with their teams.
Reassess their contribution
Individual performances of these competent jerks are great, however their contribution to the overall
performance of the organization as a whole needs to be considered. Also, whether the individual helps
other people or hinders others work need to be considered while assessing their contribution.

Reward good behavior, Punish bad behavior

Once the contributions of these individuals have been assessed, try to determine if they are significant
enough. Only if yes, then the organization can work towards helping these individuals improve their
behavior. Changing the behavior of an adult is always difficult. However if we closely observe these
incompetent jerks, they are known to respond to incentives. This could be used effectively to bring
about the change to acceptable levels if not to star.
Socialize and Coach
Immediate and regular feedback is of prime importance to bring about the change in behavior. Rational
reasons need to be given to the suggested changes to win the confidence of the employee and make
him motivated and committed to bring about such changes.
Reposition
There are niche roles which have little contact with other functions or employees in the organization. If
the above methods fail, in order to retain talent, these competent jerks can be repositioned into such
roles.

Conclusion
There is an obvious bias to choose a lovable fool compared to incompetent jerk in todays organizations.
However, for the organization to function effectively, preferring lovable fools alone is not the way
forward. Incompetent jerks need to be identified, and if they are adding considerable value to the
organization, they need to be motivated to improve their social behavior. Also, in cases where such
improvements are not possible they need to be shifted to roles which have little interaction with other
functions. Lovable fools need to be identified in organizations and placed in roles which are connected
to several functions to derive the maximum benefit out of them. Effective utilization of both these
categories is pivotal for the success of any organization.

References
1. Competent jerks, lovable fools & the formation of social networks, Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel
Sousa Lobo, Harvard Business Review Article June 2005
2. A Practical Guide to Social Networks, Rob Cross, Jeanne Liedtka and Leigh Weiss HBR March
2005