Fire the Prima Donna! Three Reasons it Will Save Your Business.

Oh my do I know this energy thief all too well. Luckily not in my current company but plenty in the past and my poor husband is having to deal with one in his company now.

GIGO. Cuz you never know how much the wrong person with the right revenue in, is costing you in what they drive away.

I just wish you could have given that youngster the axe sooner.  :)

I've been lucky to work over the years with people who were talented, dedicated and generous with their moral support.  I also worked with some talented jerks. Guess which ones are still going strong, and getting the most out of their folks? 

OMG Gini - when I was first promoted to VP of Sales after only 3 years with my company, I had one of these - and he was LOUD. He'd been the first sales rep. to gross $2 million, and even though that had been YEARS before and in a territory I knew should be doing more than double that, he carried this aura of mystique with him.  Most of management couldn't stand him, and he was horrificly rude to our beloved and absolutely top notch customer service staff.  When I was promoted I promised I would try to work with him. My very first phone call was to him; I told him I wanted to make him the number one rep. in the company again. It was a nightmare, and at a sales conference an old, wisened manager from another company gave me this piece of advice: when you know they need to go, do it quickly. Don't expend any of your energy on them - use it on the good ones.   At the 30 day mark I went to the President and said: I can't do it.  He was fired, and the entire sales force breathed a collective sigh of relief. They kept asking "why did it take so long."  It also gave me some serious street cred.

Sorry for the long ramble, but it brought back so many memories. 

I know YOU don't need this, Gini, but I want to add a caveat: "AFTER giving them clear feedback on why they're the prima donna and how that needs to change."

I've seen a few situations--but worked at too few companies in my life to feel comfortable giving details--where the prima donna rules the roost. But I've also seen situations where someone has never been given feedback before they're fired for "cultural fit" reasons, despite being effective in their job.  Yes, prima donna behavior is grounds to fire. But the right thing to do is to instruct someone as to how they need to improve, or offer to transition them mutually out if they would be a better fit for another culture. One firing can make someone essentially unemployable in the current job market, where even people with glowing references sometimes have trouble finding work.

Now, if someone has heard, "You need to do X, Y, and Z to keep your job," and there are not BIG changes RIGHT AWAY... absolutely fire them. I've seen this one, too, and was glad to see the back of the coworker concerned! But I was also reassured to see that I was working in an environment where someone who was behaving badly got clear feedback and a timetable to improve. Keep in mind that the strongest performers may not be the most confident people you employ (even if they seem like it outwardly) and that a coworker being fired seemingly without a chance to improve sends the message to everyone else, "This is what may happen to you if you screw up," which can poison morale.

Caveat to the caveat: Of COURSE there are situations where behavior is so out of line that instant firing is a necessity. However, if I'm ever in the position of inheriting a prima donna who has been rewarded for it in the past, I hope I will have the patience to give them clear and firm feedback and a timetable for improvement--and the courage to fire the prima donna if s/he doesn't shape up even with that!

So very freakin true! Great post!

Great stuff, Gini.  It took me right back to a conversation you and I had over coffee three or so years ago :-).

Pmayze has it exactly right as well, although I use slightly different words to describe it.  You want 100% of your people to be "Right Person/Right Seat."  Right Person means they fit the culture.  Right Seat means they fit the job.  The 2 x 2 gets you this:

Right Person / Right Seat - a keeper.  Find more of these!

Right Person / Wrong Seat - fits the culture, but doesn't fit the job.  Try very hard to find a role for this person in which he/she will excel.  If you can't, then give them a hug and help them move on.

Right Seat / Wrong Person - this is the prima donna, someone who is great at the job but doesn't fit the culture.  Fire this person for all of the reasons Gini cited.

Wrong Person / Wrong Seat - fits neither the culture nor the job.  I disagree with PMayze that this person is benign. He/she is toxic to the culture.  It is an easier decision to release this person from the company because he/she doesn't perform well.  That doesn't make it less toxic or less important.

I agree completely with, and have personally witnessed, Scott Eblin's three reasons to fire the prima donna.  I would add one more. . .if you're clear about the values that drive your culture and you hire to them, you'll replace the prima donna with someone who propels the company forward rather than dragging it down.

I enjoyed this one so much, Gini - that I decided to link to it in my blog post today. It is a little case study on Sloppy vs Disciplined - Leadership Lessons learned from the Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos

Prima donnas can be an outright cancer. I couldn't stand Carmelo Anthony when he was in Denver because he was a prima donna. Give me a team mentality, and the high morale and productivity that comes with it, vs petulant and spoiled superstar any day.

Great post @ginidietrich . This works for clients as well. I have had quite a few prima donna clients who suck the joy out of life for the entire crew that works with them. Eventually they all push their demands far past their value and begin to cost money instead of generate it. It took a long time to learn that clients have to match your culture, just like new hires. 

When I interviewed at the firm where I now work my current employer said to me that they don't hire people who don't roll up their sleeves and get the job done. No prima donna's in this firm, he positioned. Did I believe him? Not really. I have never worked in an Architectural firm that doesn't have at least one.

Well, I had a tough time finding one and when they hired one mistakenly last years the guy only lasted 2 months. Gone! I now use the same line when interviewing for my team. If you don't think you need to work then this is not the place for you.

BTW, I think they're call douchebags in Canada.

If you let the cancer eat your insides it doesn't matter what the outside looks like, the bough will break.

I think we often mistake "one hit wonders" for geniuses. This , it seems often leads to the prima dona acting like, well..a prima dona. Managing a prima dona sometimes means restraining yourself or key members of your staff in creating one in the first place. So, I'd have to add, after hiring smartly, make sure you check yourself when your star does something outstanding and remember, behind every star is a tremendous team of talented people.

Yea, it's hard.

Wow, I hope my boss doesn't read this!

 @jasonkonopinski Another great one I love is "failing up" - and it's usually the prima donnas who are the ones doing it. In fact I left a company once for this exact reason - where the amount of "failing up" of certain people was never ending. 

Thanks a lot  for this. The importance of getting rid of prima donnas reminds me of a counter-intuitive model for spotting the most detrimental staff in your business.

Imagine a 2 x 2 matrix, with axes representing good fit <-> bad fit (where 'fit' refers to cultural/social fit within the organisation), and highly effective <-> ineffective .

Your best staff are, logically enough, good fit + highly effective. So, intuitively you expect the worst staff to be bad fit + ineffective. 

Of course, in reality these people are fairly benign... and the worst case is bad fit + highly effective. It is these people - like the prima donnas you're speaking about - that spread a negative culture in the most insidious way, and who need to be removed.

I hope that description makes sense... y'know it's much easier to explain with a magic marker and flipchart!! :)