Beware of the self-absorbed

At a recent dinner, one of the guests, a manager at a company, asked me why people who work in IT are so “special”, and above all so self-absorbed (another word used at the table was autistic, but for reasons I’ll keep to myself, and out of respect, I prefer not to use that term).

I ventured an answer, which really just leaned on the cliché that IT people are like that. The truth is I wasn’t satisfied with what I said at that table, because later I came to the conclusion that this manager probably has a problem with how she selects her team.

In my jobs I have been in charge of software engineers. For four years I was deputy development manager, and now I’m in charge of an entire technology area. Then and now, I was responsible for choosing the people I would work with.

Choosing your team is crucial. The first step is the selection interviews. A couple of months ago I had to interview candidates to pick my new team. Since it had been years since I’d done job interviews, I decided to catch up and read something on the subject, like Joel Spolsky’s famous article: The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing and the reply (not as famous, but very necessary) from Steve Yegge: Done, and Gets Things Smart

If you have to hire IT people, I think these articles are worth reading.

The problem is that both articles concentrate mainly on a single aspect: the candidates’ intelligence.

Spolsky opens his article with the cardinal criterion he uses to select people, which, as Yegge points out, has become an aphorism: Smart and Gets Things Done.

Yegge’s criticism is that Spolsky’s method gets off on the wrong foot. I won’t explain his reasons, I suggest you read the article, but Yegge’s principle is that you should hire people smarter than you.

Well, both positions are interesting, but if you concentrate only on people’s IQ, you can end up with the problems of the person who asked me the question at that dinner.

Because she has problems with her team’s performance, but on top of that, she notices she has a bunch of self-absorbed nerds, and that worries her too.

I think the problem is that this model of the software engineer, the nerd, nice and quiet but very intelligent, is a mistake.

If you see that the engineers you hired hide in a corner whenever the company holds a social activity, and don’t interact with the rest of the employees, let me tell you: you’re in trouble.

Because a person who is too quiet, with zero social skills, is a problem you need to solve, and soon.

Developing software is a social endeavor. You can’t build good software with a set of engineers who have zero social skills.

A person who only expresses their feelings through chat, email, or by taking part in web forums is a one-dimensional person, and to develop software you have to think in four dimensions.

Thinking back, my worst experiences with the people who have reported to me came when I chose the self-absorbed type. Often they are unable to express their real problems. When they deal with users they can’t get the necessary information out of them, or in other cases they behave arrogantly. And they are a problem for you, as their boss: it is frustrating to work with someone when you don’t know what they think or what motivates them.

I won’t deny that we IT people have a “special” personality: somewhat rigid, obsessed with precision. Still, the good software engineer, in my opinion, is the one who is flexible and knows how to communicate with users, and for that you need normal social skills.

The self-absorbed one may be a coding genius, but without social skills he will become an obstacle for the team and for its leader.

I’m not going to give you advice on how to pick people; more qualified people have written about that, like the ones I already mentioned. The only thing I’ll tell you is to use “the third eye”, “the Force”, whatever you want to call it. The intuitive side matters. It’s good to pull that person away from technology, where they probably feel safest, and ask them about other things: general culture, books, movies, what the recipe for a good mojito is, whatever. The psychological report is important, but trust your instinct. And remember that the evaluation doesn’t end with the initial interview. The technical part is easy to measure, but the social side gets evaluated in social activities.

I knew someone who worked with young people, and one of the first things he did was invite them over to his house to play “Ataque” (a Risk-style board game). It was his way of getting to know the kids’ personalities. It’s unlikely you’ll get together to play Ataque with your team (though it wouldn’t hurt to try), but there are plenty of opportunities to assess their social profile: a lunch, a happy hour, or a company outing.

Don’t make the mistake of choosing people based only on technical criteria or IQ. It is always better to choose normal people than self-absorbed geniuses.