Managing Clever People

In the current global marketplace, innovation and ability are crucial to any enterprise with ambitions to grow.

According to Gifford Pinchot, a Harvard academic and expert on innovation, "intrapreneurship" – encouraging talented people to focus on innovation and creativity within the organization - is vital to such growth. [2]

Issues Commonly Found With 'Clever' People

Clever people tend to have little respect for the rules, regulations and politics of an organization. This means they will not automatically follow conventional processes simply because they have been laid down by management.

In a speech to the Australian School of Business, Rob Goffee listed the main issues found when working with clever people as follows:

“These clever individuals [also] know their worth, have a low boredom threshold, are organisationally savvy and are unwilling to recognize leadership by thanking their bosses.” [3]

Let us break these characteristics down and look at what they mean for a manager:

Low Boredom Threshold

Repetitive or mechanical work which requires little initiative will bore and demotivate clever employees, and can ultimately lead to a downturn in volume and quality of work. It’s therefore important to ensure that clever employees remain challenged in their work. This means involving them in complex tasks that require dynamic, strategic thinking, and which make good use of their specialist skills. Once a clever employee has finished a task or solved a problem, they like to move on to the next challenge. This means regularly reviewing the employee’s workload, to ensure they are being sufficiently stretched.

Organisationally Savvy

Clever people recognize the complexities within their organization. They are aware of their importance within their team, and to the organization as a whole, and may use this as leverage to pursue their own agenda. They will also be aware of the importance and kudos attached to particular tasks or projects, and will try to avoid being involved in more mundane activities.

The challenge is to fully engage clever employees in order to maintain the employee’s focus and make sure they have bought in to what the department – and the business - are trying to achieve. Let them know that their contribution to the department/organization is highly valued, and that as well as encouraging them to contribute to collective success, you will support them in their individual endeavors.

Unwilling to Recognize Leadership

This is the biggest problem with clever workers. Often, they simply do not want to be led. They are also unwilling to accept others’ input into solving any issues they have. It is important to recognize that clever people are not always as confident as they may appear, and such behavior may belie their need for reassurance and support. According to Professor Goffee, “If you try to push your clever people, you will end up driving them away. As many leaders of highly creative people have learned, you need to be a benevolent guardian rather than a traditional boss.” [4]

Clever people will not respond well to micromanagement or being asked to constantly account for their performance. This means allowing talented individuals more latitude to be creative, though within set parameters.

Overcoming Issues

Managing clever people is a challenge for any organization, but given their ability to produce exceptional results, it is important to create an environment which will allow them to thrive. There are a number of key issues which this presents for those who lead them, e.g.

• keeping a clever employee motivated
• preserving authority
• leading someone who doesn't want to be led

These challenges can be met in the following ways:

Empower Employees

Because of their mindset, clever people respond well to challenging problems. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, states “the more you can get [clever employees] to feel that they’re helping to come up with a solution to a tough problem, the more likely they are to perform in a way that works for you.” [5]

It’s important to give employees task control. This covers issues such as objectives, planning, responsibility, quality, competition, challenge and accountability. Initially, objectives should be set for tasks that provide a challenge, e.g. reduce cost or increase quality. Motivation may be increased when the employee is given greater control over their tasks. Managers should also provide task variety, whenever possible.

Many clever people are strong on detail. This is particularly true in technical disciplines. With tasks and projects, technically skilled people use their expertise to work out how to achieve the goal. The more a clever individual is challenged, the more engaged they will be in the process.

Talented employees tend to seek reassurance only when they encounter a problem. It’s therefore important not to micromanage mavericks. Clear reporting guidelines should still be set to help establish how work is progressing. Setting up boundaries is important because then the clever employee can test their ideas in this context.

Showing faith in clever employees’ abilities is also important. Telling talented individuals what to do risks eliminating their creativity from the process. On the other hand, giving them the freedom to experiment provides an ideal environment for them to deliver results.

Preserve Authority

Leaders should be confident in their own skills and abilities when managing clever people. As Goffee notes, “It’s important to make sure that clever people recognize their interdependence: you and other people in the organization can do things that they cannot.”[6]

Because clever people don’t tend to recognize authority, they can’t be managed like other employees. They are, however, excellent judges of other clever people. This means they seek recognition from their peers, so organizing peer-to-peer presentations can be an excellent way of providing feedback that clever employees will listen to and value.

Clever people also react positively to praise. While they prefer to be left alone during a task or project, it’s important to recognize their achievements once the work is complete. Harvard leadership expert John Baldoni suggests: “Treat everyone fairly – but not necessarily equally. That is, the more an individual achieves, the more recognition he/she will receive.” [7]

It is important for leaders and managers to remember that they have ultimate responsibility for the success of tasks and projects. Creative people tend to be strong-willed. They will believe in their own creativity ahead of the ideas of members of their team. It’s therefore important to balance their expertise with the strengths and needs of the team, and the task/project as a whole.

Consult With Peers

Other leaders and managers within an organization can provide invaluable insights into how to manage clever employees. This is particularly true if they have been involved in similar types of work, e.g. complex research projects. They can also act as sounding boards to discuss ideas on how to best manage clever people. They can provide a detached view, whereas a line manager may be too close to the situation to view it clearly.

Construct a Calm, Assured Environment

Exceptionally intelligent or creative workers will look to their manager to retain composure and lead by example in stressful times. It’s therefore important for leaders to communicate clearly what they are doing, why they are doing it and how the department is going to achieve its aims. Clever employees will tend to focus on tasks but will rely on their manager to have a definite strategy and appropriate goals in place.

Summary

Clever workers are a vital component of any successful team. However, they provide a multitude of challenges for their managers. Fundamentally, they do not want to be led.

In order to effectively manage clever employees, it’s important for leaders and managers to:

• be aware of the potential areas of conflict arising from the employee’s reluctance to be led
• recognize the employee’s awareness of their own, and others’, significance within the team and wider organization
• recognize clever people need reassurance about the value that they bring to the team
• appreciate that there can be no 'one-size-fits-all' solution - each member of the team will have different drivers, which the manager must identify and then address
• regularly challenge talented employees, as repetitive tasks will trigger their low boredom threshold and lead to de-motivation and reduced productivity
• adopt a ‘hands-off’ management style which still offers reassurance and support

By recognizing and utilizing the abilities offered by their most talented employees, leaders and managers can help to deliver improved results for their department, and for the organization as a whole.