A competent jerk or a lovable fool?

Yesterday, Mr Ghost sent us a very good article from AsiaOne.
This should interest most of us who are working in organisations
(Miss J, u reading this?)

Who do you prefer to work with: A competent jerk or a lovable fool?

Very interesting piece of article.
Pardon me as I steal some snippets wholesale.

--------------
(1) Most companies have four basic archetypes among their staff: the competent jerk, the lovable fool, the lovable star and the incompetent jerk.

(2) People choose their work partners for two main reasons: job competence and likeability.

(3) No matter which organisation they studied, they found that everybody wanted to work with a lovable star and nobody wanted to work with an incompetent jerk.

(4) They say things got more interesting when people faced the choice between competent jerks and lovable fools. Turns out that Lovable fools > Competent jerks.

(5) They found out that if a colleague is strongly disliked, it's almost irrelevant whether or not, he or she is competent; people just won't work with such a person. Full stop. By contrast, if someone is liked, his colleagues will seek out every little bit of competence he has to offer.

(6) Too many managers fail to appreciate the benefits that a likeable person can offer an organisation, particularly if those benefits come at the expense of some measure of performance.
--------------

How true.
I'm sure all of us can find people that fit into these 4 types of people.

That's what I love about my department - almost everyone is lovable.
But too bad my projects involve mingling with some people who are jerks.
Sigh, why do most jerks (both competent and incompetent) get promoted?



Now and then, I have this thought of applying for another job. But I can't help but wonder, is it worth getting more money to work in a place with potentially even more jerks?

Someone pass me a Death Note.
I need to write names. =p