If management is listening to the superstar and translating it to the team to support them it is great.

If management expect people to just listen to the superstar directly it’s terrible, as the superstar has no time to do the actual work and is expected to lead instead.

That is the easiest way to kill talent, and strange enough most people are encouraged to go this way to grow within the company.

A long time ago I was the superstar in 3 teams, 2 different companies. In the first one, 25 years ago, the management made me the team lead, it worked well. The second case, 10 years ago, the company was a huge corporation but not yet rotten, my manager put me in charge of the rest of the team went well for time time I was there, when I was moved to another team unexpectedly everything crashed and burned (most of the team left the company). In the last case the management did nothing, it was pretty bad, after a while most people were listening to me because they trusted me, but some (career driven) were constantly sabotaging everyone else and it got worse. It was the same corporation going DIE and the E rule was that everybody is equal at all cost, the dumbest idea was the same value as the best idea and everyone was paid the same. We had no above average people since.

The best thing management can do is to listen to Steve Jobs: "the best managers are the great IC who never, ever want to be a manager but decide they have to be a manager because nobody else is going to be able to do as good as jobs as them". [Youtube ID QplyFXgIx7Q].

That makes sense until you consider that the world (and any team) is "sprinkled" with a lot more narcissists and know-it-alls than geniuses!

It still makes sense. The group that listens to these people instead of real superstars (assuming it has any) is at disadvantage.

If I mentioned the company, and you would recognize it, you would understand the catastrophic non performance of this company for a decade.

All the old management are still in place despite several ceo changes and it has become the poster child for failed big company.

you can even read the glass door reviews. Thousands of posts say the same thing I am saying: The bad people gang up on the good people and that’s why I left.

You misunderstood me - I agree with GP, I'm just pointing out that the GGP's comment still holds. The company is at a disadvantage because of that. But yes, it is difficult to change company culture.

I personally have known several people. They are not narcissists. They are literally 100x talent. One of them built out a half dozen hit games, doing all the art and programming for one employer which represented half the companies profit.

Then he left, started a 30 person company, got frustrated, quit and built another game entirely from scratch doing all the art direction and sold millions then retired.

One person.

What a rollercoaster of a life.

[Edit: I was trying to make a joke reference but after reviewing the facts, no it doesn't look like the person referenced was Chris Sawyer of Rollercoaster Tycoon fame. He could fit the description though]

Care to share this person's personal website?

> I personally have known several people. They are not narcissists. They are literally 100x talent.

I guess this can varies per company. It’s not difficult to be a super star in a dinosaur company. After all, “In The Land of The Blind, The One Eyed Man is King.”

This is really common in many European companies. Most developers are doing the bare minimum and it’s common for the department to be carryover by a single guy that is passionate by software development.

My understanding is that people don’t put any effort because of a mix of factors: no technical career; low salaries; no financial reward for putting extra effort; management is mostly non technical and don’t value developers; companies can’t increase salary for a single individual in the same role because of unions or country laws; people can’t be easily fired; etc.

> It’s not difficult to be a super star in a dinosaur company.

It is extremely hard to be a superstar in a dinosaur company, if we are talking about software development.

The thing to consider is called "technical debt." You will not believe what can be accumulated through years if technical debt is not addressed. And usually it is not properly addressed, of course.

> My understanding is that people don’t put any effort because of a mix of factors: no technical career; low salaries; no financial reward for putting extra effort; management is mostly non technical and don’t value developers; companies can’t increase salary for a single individual in the same role because of unions or country laws; people can’t be easily fired; etc.

Or they just plain don't care about software engineering and just do bare minimum for salary.

I met a small number of exceptional people. Most were very good people, smart and very passioned and that made them very productive. Unfortunately not all of them were positive additions to the team, one was counterproductive as he was creating a lot of tension and conflict.

Superstars are why I don’t try harder and am less engaged. They take all of the interesting ownership and inject themselves into every process and space for communication. I wait for these people to burn out and want to actually be a team member instead of a productivity bully hoarding opportunity for themselves. They want to be the first on everything so they can influence it to be more how they like, the rest of team be damned. They don’t care if the rest of the team feels unmotivated from a lack of ownership, at least they got theirs? I don’t understand the mentality.

"Superstars are why I don’t try harder and am less engaged. They take all of the interesting ownership and inject themselves into every process and space for communication. I wait for these people to burn out and want to actually be a team member instead of a productivity bully hoarding opportunity for themselves."

Are you sure you've got a "superstar" there?

I think the term ought to be reserved for people who truly do a lot of good work, and not the many varieties of people who manage to make it look like they're doing lots of good work. Which absolutely exist, and need terminology to talk about them, and sharing strategies to deal with them is a good thing to do. But while I'm sure there's a non-zero set of people who are both superstars and very good at giving the appearance of doing a lot of work and being very political about it, I doubt there are many. That's a very particular order off the metaphorical menu of attributes.

I would expect a real superstar to be happy to find that you can carry a meaningful portion of the load. There is always more work to do than can be done. Being able to not do some of it allows them to focus somewhere else.

I agree, if they are interjecting themselves into everything and taking all the “cool projects”, they aren’t superstars - they’re supera$$høles.

A real superstar would empower the team with that extra sprinkle of confidence so they can tackle the cool projects and succeed. They should be SWAT, not Mayor.

I’m sorry you feel this way and you should bring this up with your manager.

They truly do a lot of good (great!) work and for quite a few years straight, so much so that the rest of the team atrophies as they continue to fill larger and larger gaps.

> They don’t care if the rest of the team feels unmotivated from a lack of ownership, at least they got theirs? I don’t understand the mentality.

Because when the "team" undoubtedly fails, it falls on shoulders of the superstar to fix it.

What happens when rest of the team does not rise to the occasion? You now have a happy but very mediocre team for the task on hand. Decision making is very democratic but seldom happens in time.

I feel you need pace setters but not excessively reward individual heroics.

A very mediocre team that does not rise to the occasion (aka fails at delivering) probably will look bad for management and will be sidesteps (aka outsourced) if not fully replaced.

Actually, a superstar will welcome and mentor other capable "superstars". She or he will not have patience for one that expects to be taught everything. One thing they understand very well is while everyone won't be at the same level as them, helping other people skill up leaves them space to go do other interesting things as well

So what you have isn't a superstar. That's a jerk who will burn out fast and your management isn't responsive enough.

They are really good at what they do and they've been going strong for years, so I think there will be more waiting necessary. I like to rise to the challenge and this person covers all gaps so there is no pressure which builds.

> They take all of the interesting ownership

How do they get to "take" as an IC.

Every team and individual have their own norms, but some people just take the agency to get shit done. In other words, when there’s work to be done they don’t feel the need to ask permission.

Can't OP do the same then instead of waiting on a team member to burn out . I think OP is barking up the wrong tree because the problem seems that their manager doesn't believe in them or maybe OP doesn't believe in themselves to step up and take responsibility .

I want them to do less and let the team fail instead of personally holding the team up. Our team needs to fail and learn lessons but this individual is so astoundingly good that they can carry us.

Lowest common denominator. If you happen to work with people who are slower / have less ability than you.. you'd be the "superstar".. Now everybody is just picking their nose... welcome to Shitco. inc.

The type of person you are describing is not what others are talking about.

>Actually, that's how the world works most of the time. Superstars also know it and are used to it from early childhood. They are expected to carry the load and equally importantly, the team is expected to listen to them. It works like this in all walks of life, because simply put, human beings are not equal in ability.

Yeah this is spot on. My time in engineering has taught me that the world is falling apart, always and forever. There is a relentless decay eating everything around you and it's often only the heroic acts of surprisingly few high-quality people that keep it going to tomorrow.

Those people are rare, perhaps around 0.5-5% of the population or less depending on where you draw the boundaries. But they can be found in all different walks of life. I know one that was a UPS driver for 30 years. Not a remarkable profession, but he is a remarkable guy. School was about the only thing he wasn't a high-performer in with the exception of high-school sports. But he can solve basically any problem. Even those out of his depth, because he knows when something is out of his depth and he also knows who to pull in to consult. He knows EVERYONE and everyone that knows him owes him a favor because he uses his undying energy and hard work to help them all. At work, they begged him to become a manager but he refused the position over and over. But they would screen every new hire through him to see if they were worth keeping. When something would go wrong, they called him. I remember one instance when there was an interruption to the entire local area fuel AND power supply and the warehouse was therefore out of operation because their backup generators didn't have enough fuel. So... they just called him in the middle of the night and by God, he had the problem solved by 4 am that day and still showed up for work. His breadth of skill and knowledge is also incredible, but I'll save the reader some time and omit those stories.

Despite being rare gems of people, you paradoxically seem to run into these people everywhere because they tend to be so prolific and well connected. Effective managers learn to just funnel their problems through these people with enough lead time to keep the whole team operational.

Speaking of the world falling apart and there’s decay all around you, you should try sailing.

The corrosive forces of the ocean combined with what-ever-that-is growing on your bottom hull reminds you it’s a constant battle between human nature and Mother Nature.

Here in Germany, we had a bad experience listening to our superstar Adolf and decided we should try democracy next time. Some parts of.the political party AFD is trying to change that, unsuccessfully, so far.

What the heck are you talking about?

It's been a while since I've seen Godwin's law, and this time by a real German!

Adolf Hitler

It is interesting to see this dynamic playing in music bands, in situations where one person writes the songs, and the others just follow along.

Then the talent gets fed up and leave, leaving a mere "cover band" behind, unable to replicate the magic beyond what an average amateur band could do.