Brilliant Jerks

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Thrilling, scandalous and exposing… with echoes of The Social Network , Joseph Charlton’s Brilliant Jerks is fresh, cool and utterly engrossing.” West End Best Friend Brilliant Jerks briskly tells three parallel stories: founder Tyler (Shubham Saraf, star of last year's National Theatre hit The Father and the Assassin) latches on to being able to get a taxi on your phone when his friend conceives the idea in Paris only for the company to grow so fast it careers out of his control; company coder Sean (Sean Delaney, from Killing Eve, pictured above) falls in love with a male co-worker Craig while their female colleague Amy gets marginalised by the “brogrammer” culture; and Mia (Kiran Sonia Sawar), a Scottish driver reliant on working for the company to keep herself above the poverty line, recognises during one of her rides the teenage son she gave up for adoption. Brilliant Jerks began life a few years ago when I was working as a journalist. The play is about the beginning of the end of the tech boom era… This play is about the people behind the tech. It's about a driver, a coder, and a CEO - and what unites or divides those people all working for one company, but living very disparate lives,” said writer Joseph Charlton. If it’s not a professional trigger, then it might be a personal one. In some instances, a line manager will be aware of any problems outside of work that might have turned a previously ‘quirky genius’ into someone more troubled and disruptive. This play examines the tech industry and a particular ubiquitous app from all angles. It is an interesting and debatable choice to let the app founder (Shubham Saraf) have the last word on stage and the many ethical qualms thrown up by this keenly observed piece leaves plenty of fodder for a post-show debrief.

Atlassian’s five company values are at the core of all we do. We collectively strive to live by the values, make decisions that are in line with them, and interact with our customers and each other according to them. Why wouldn’t we then bring values into our performance assessments? And it’s not just a one-off instance or a focus on a single value, it’s about consistently living all of the values. Over the years, some employees have taken advantage of this freedom in various unfortunate ways. But those are the exceptions, and we try to avoid over-correcting. Just because a few people abuse their freedom doesn’t mean the rest of our employees aren’t Most organisations have put in place systems that encourage the emergence of high flyers and Champions at individual level, at the expense of team goals. That , in my view, is what creates and feeds jerks in organisations. The quest for individual recognition and promotion tends to override any considerations for the needs, feelings and aims of others. A number of suggestions were put forth for ways to tap into the value of the "destructive hero." Serene Huang: "I would talk to them about their behaviors to find out if they are actually aware of it … I would also make peer appraisal part of their year end bonus." Gerald Nanninga commented that "perhaps you are giving them the wrong numbers to hit." Before you fire the 'jerk', he said, "make sure he is upsetting things for the wrong reason rather than for the right reason." Joseph Seiler recalled that in growing companies where he worked, "I came across a few of these Type 4 people. What seemed to help was to load them up with big projects and to score their interpersonal skills often." Grant Stanley said "rather than dismiss them I have been able to use their skills and abilities to … create training materials to share their best practices."The next assessment pillar is an employee’s contribution to the team, which measures the degree to which they seek opportunities to elevate their teammates’ impact and overall team performance, take a team-view when solving problems, and foster an environment of trust and belonging. Employees that fit the ‘brilliant jerk’ description are often acutely aware of their own genius, but blissfully unaware of their flaws.” With echoes of The Social Network, Joseph Charlton’s Brilliant Jerks is fresh, cool and utterly engrossing.

These jerks appear outrageous because of their awkward behaviour. Most times, we as managers use our autocratic leadership approach to deal with them in the name of bringing about a change in behaviour. My late father once told me that behaviour cannot be changed but can be modified. If we attempt this simple and common suggestion of modifying behaviour rather than attempting to change them, then the untapped potentials in these jerks can be tapped to fullest utilised before we hurriedly exit them. But while examining such companies from root to branch seems like an intriguing idea on paper, in practice the jumping between the play’s three parallel stories lessens the impact of all of them.They’re extremely talented and intelligent, charismatic and persuasive, but they’re never pleased with results, driven to gain recognition, and blind to the costs of their behavior