SELF-CENTRED AND STRONG-WILLED
Ultra professionals are out for themselves. Make no mistake about
it, while they may appear to be team players, their prime motivators
are status, material rewards and power. They would never admit
to it but self-enhancement and self-advancement are their core
values. Charming on the face of it, they are strong-willed, unforgiving,
and determined to get their own way. You are dealing with people
whose inner-beings, essentially cold and calculating, are masked
by their charm and confidence.
HIGHER OPINIONS OF
THEMSELVES AND HIGHER ASPIRATIONS THAN CAN BE ACCOMMODATED
Ultra professionals aim high. Their self-imposed motivation
is to outshine everyone else. They start from a standpoint of
`I'm better than the rest, my views should therefore prevail'.
There is no humility, little understanding of the views or feelings
of others, little consideration of what is best for the team.
Quite the contrary. Time, energy and resources are constantly
manipulated to satisfy their own agendas.
Ultra
professionals believe themselves to be better not only than
their peers but also their manager! Their insatiable appetite
for promotion, reward and high profile responsibilities constitute
aspirations that organisations frequently cannot, and almost
certainly should not, seek to accommodate.
NOT GOOD AT MANAGING OTHERS- ULTRA PROFESSIONALS ARE NOT GOOD
MANAGERS OF PEOPLE
Instinctively autocratic, they are
frequently indifferent to the needs of others and choose to
believe that they can always do the job better than anyone
else.
Their
highly-tuned antennae are constantly alert to the need to
defend this self-image. As a result, their natural style is
to value loyalty over effectiveness in those who report to
them and their delegation skills are rarely employed beyond
parcelling out the tedious, the unimportant or the unavoidable
support activities.
Encouraging
growth and development in others is not on their agenda. Those
who are not allies represent a threat and their motives, abilities,
style and decisions are constantly monitored and criticised.
The
ultra professional's credo can be summarised as 'if I snuff
out your candle, mine will appear brighter!'
INTOLERANCE
AND CRITICISM OF OTHERS
Ultra professionals are intolerant. Intolerant
of mistakes, intolerant of anything that isn't absolutely
clear, intolerant of systems, intolerant of people and their
opinions. Intolerant in short, of anything
that fails to meet their precise professional requirements
and intolerant of everything
that fails to enhance their ability to deliver.
Dealing
with ultra professionals is akin to dealing with the insatiable
desire of a child for more possessions. Because they are constantly
dissatisfied they have a perpetual need to win. And when things
don't go their way it is never their fault and they throw
tantrums, broadcasting their disenchantment with you, to others
and the whole organisation!
PERFECTIONISM
AND MOODINESS
Ultra
professionals are perfectionists at heart. They tend to see
things as black or white, right or wrong, good or bad, working
for them or against them. Obsessiveness characterises their
view of the world. Things are not just wrong, they are terribly
wrong. Things are not just going well for them, they are terrific!
Everyone in the team knows when they are down, the whole world
knows when they're on an up.
Unbalanced
in their perspective, they unbalance others. And their impact
extends far beyond their immediate colleagues. Leading a team
is never an easy task but leading one whose morale can skyrocket
or plummet according to the prevailing mood of the resident
ultra professional is nigh on impossible!
HIGH
TASK CONCERN AND LITTLE PEOPLE CONCERN
Ultra professionals are essentially
task driven. They like to get results, do deals, complete
transactions, achieve material or numeric success. If they
are frustrated in this their energies become internally directed
into politics, manipulating people and trying to influence
decisions to get a result that best suits them. In all of
this it is the result itself, not the people involved in getting
it that matters most to them.
This,
then, is the conundrum, for while ultra professionals do not
make good people managers, they can be wonderful lead performers
who with the right resources and back-up can achieve the most
extraordinary results. But this requires the support of the
very team that they seek to ignore, divide and diminish. Here
lies the tension and challenge for all of us as managers.
How do we square the circle?
Just
as there are six hall-marks of the ultra professional there
are six ways to manage them as part of a team.
RELEASE
AND HARNESS
The key to managing ultra professionals
is to release their talents but harness their contribution
to the team. While they may feel that they do more than anybody
else, are more capable than anybody else and make a greater
contribution than anybody else, the truth is that they could
not deliver without the organisation which employs them and
the team of people around them.
Their
attitudes, insights, knowledge, skills, and behaviour need
to be harnessed and driven by what is best for the team.
...READ ON
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Ultra
professionals are like thorough-bred race-horses being required
to become one of a team of six horses drawing a carriage, of
which the other five have valuable but different talents. The
issue is one of accommodation and acceptance by both parties.
No accommodation and there can be no releasing and harnessing
of the talent and therefore no going forward together.
INCREASE
THE CHALLENGE AND THE DEPENDENCY ON OTHERS
Ultra professionals tend to believe that
they are indispensable and that they can achieve without the
help of others. They constantly need to be stretched and to
understand their dependency on others. There is only one way
for them to recognise this and that is to increase the challenge
in their jobs in such a way that they are increasingly reliant
on fellow team members.
They
need to understand that unless they are supported by the skills
of others they cannot succeed. The issue is one of mutual respect.
INCREASE
THE REWARDS BUT NOT THE POWER
To keep ultra professionals motivated you need to satisfy
their motivational agenda. More money, more recognition, more
status are all important motivators for them. But increase
their power and influence over the team or within your organisation
at your peril. It will not be long before you witness splits,
sub-groups and lobbying of an intensity that you had never
previously experienced!
Power
is the life-blood of ultra professionals. It is also their
undoing because, unused to handling it wisely, and incapable
of seeing anyone's views but their own, they corrupt it, employ
it to their own advantage and to the detriment of the team.
Their ability to influence must be controlled by you and the
team. The issue is who makes the decisions. Teams are built
on strong leadership with genuine integrity and participation
in decision-making. These values must be protected at all
costs.
KEEP
OUTWARDLY FOCUSED
Ultra professionals let loose on internal
issues devote their energies to fault-finding, endless debate
on matters which are not their responsibility and countless
discussions on structural and decision-making issues. If ultra
professionals are not outwardly focused on achieving greater
success for the organisation their energies can create havoc.
Competitor
information and results, league tables, market share surveys
and ratings can be used to have ultra professionals do what
they
do best-compete! Direct their efforts constantly into the
market-place against competitors, and give them the best resources
possible to achieve success, and you will derive most of the
benefits and few of the risks of employing them. Use their
talents externally versus internally.
USE
AS MENTORS NOT MANAGERS
The one thing that ultra professionals can bring to the team
is expertise. Provide every possible forum for them to share
their knowledge, insights and skills with team members. Their
job is to share everything they can to make the team successful.
Build that into their accountabilities and make sure it happens.
Their
job is to make others as knowledgeable and competent as them,
not to ensure their own employability versus others. Do not
let ultra professionals manage, they are usually disastrous
managers for all the reasons previously given. If they have
to be managers to give them the required status, keep them
focused, manage them strongly and make sure they have good
management skills in their teams to support them.
CREATE
WIN/WINS
You will only achieve success with ultra professionals if
you can manage to create win/wins with them. They are usually
highly regarded by your customers, they are probably well-known
in the market place, and it is likely they are held in high
esteem by your seniors.
You
will only keep them by managing their dependence on you (and
by providing personal wins for them), in return for delivering
a performance that is to your satisfaction. Understand their
needs and work to meet these consistently, but insist on getting
what you want in return otherwise you will not earn their
respect and they will take you for all they can get!
The
ultra professional versus the team. If you had to choose a
winner which would it be? Teams need that rare talent for
genius that so often only ultra professionals can bring. Ultra
professionals need the team and the organisation to exist
(otherwise they would be running their own businesses). There
is the potential here for destruction or enormous success.
What
is the answer? The answer is simple but never easy. Kept in
their place, ultra professionals are an incredible corporate
asset. If allowed unbridled freedom, they are a real corporate
liability. In the years ahead, organisations will become increasingly
reluctant to indulge the unreasonable demands of ultra professionals
for teamwork is perceived to be key to corporate survival.
Yet real corporate success may be reserved for those who can
successfully manage the ultra professional as part of that
team.
Who
is to train and harness the ultra professionals into this
new way of working? It has to be you. If not, you will struggle
to achieve success as a manager, and you may well become another
victim of the ultra professional's struggle against the team,
a struggle which is likely to go on forever. Are you up to
it?
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