Princess to talent ratio

original publish date: 9th April, 2010

decades on …

This is one of the premises covered in the comics (more than once) that still resonates with me the most.

Notwithstanding the genuinely regrettable gendered framing, the trade-off between capability and the ability to engage constructively is real, for everyone involved.

Treated like an “equation”:

As the ‘talent‘

• Even if you’re talented, your behaviour can still make it not worth having you around.
• Best not to push your luck if you’re overestimating your value.
• But do push your luck if you’re not leveraging your value.
• Your value goes up even more when it isn’t offset by being a dick.

As a manager of talent:

• You should be ok with tolerating more from people who genuinely add more value.
• You should tolerate less from people who don’t.
• And (as per this comic), there are limits.

See? So useful.

transcript

FTE #1: Look, I’m the best technical guy you’ve ever had. If you’re not going to listen to me, I’ll go work somewhere that will.

FTE #2: Let me know how that works out.

Caption: Don’t let your princess outweigh your talent.