There are things I've learned from close to 20 years in the industry...

1. Arrogant people typically can't learn well. If your pride has you convinced that you already know it all (or most of it anyway), then you can't/won't learn what you don't know.

2. Superstars have a tendency to hoarde information, code, etc. To keep their superstar status, they keep their techniques secret and they often claim exemption from "the rules". Like frequent source code library check-ins. They don't share well. Once someone finally looks at their code, guess what? It wasn't that great.

3. For the organization to succeed to you need move everyone "up a level", through shared information, cooperation, and training. The best organizations I've worked for have everyone aligned along a common set of goals, or at least fighting a common enemy or having a common purpose. It goes downhill fast when groups conflict about what should be done, when they hide information from each other, when they compete for work. But "superstars" have a strong tendency to do just those things. Today, I'm turning people who basically answer phones into operations support personnel for our pharmacy processing system running 5000 batches a day (60-80,000 claims). That involves training these people to properly diagnose common system problems, and respond to them correctly. That involves much more than just rebooting a computer after a blue screen.

4. The favoritism shown to superstars demoralizes the rest of the team, when people are broken into A's, B's, and C's. I was in the "B" group for a lot of years, and in the "A" group a year or two (out of 11 in one company). I had friends who championed unpopular, but correct ideas for the company put into the "C" group and eventually eliminated. It frustrated me and others to no end, that someone would get "fast-tracked" into middle management because they did something that appeared "brilliant" to upper management. Most of the time, it was an ugly quick fix that worked a short time to skew the numbers to their favor, then left a huge mess for someone to clean up. No one got a "post mortem" evaluation, where their results were seen 1-2-3 years after they left. By the way, in politics, that's exactly how I judge presidents. Look at the way the country is 3-4 years after a president leaves office and you have his track record. Very few presidents SHOULD be defined by 1 speech or 1 decision.

Glen Austin