Prima donnas: Are they worth keeping?

Excerpted from the Executive Report: The 7 Most Disruptive Workplace Issues - and How to Handle Them

No question, prima donnas are often valuable to companies. Start-ups especially benefit from the high-powered energy that prima donnas can bring to the table.

But there are times that these employees are simply more trouble than they're worth. And then management has a critical decision to make.

A few questions to ask:

• What's this person's effect on morale? Did good employees jump ship because of this person's behavior?
• How much extra staff time is spent dealing with this person?
• Is he/she really the only employee who can handle this assignment?

The answers will indicate whether it's appropriate to make internal adjustments or end the relationship. Sometimes, jettisoning the top-performing prima donna may be less painful than managers fear it's going to be.

Other employees (rejoice) step up to fill the vacuum, and morale gets a boost.

There's an old saying: "The cemetery is full of indispensable people." That sort of puts it back in perspective.

DIGGING DEEPER
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Comments

[Christopher]

Very old-school management thinking. Instead of labeling an employee a prima donna, wouldn't it be more effective to evaluate their behavior, performance and relations based on the organization's mission? Perhaps their energy and focus is really where everyone else should be but got into ruts after a few years, etc. In any case, sometimes this kind of conflict can be very helpful in both showing hidden unproductive institutional behavior and attitudes and in providing an opening for all involved to finally DEAL WITH IT!

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1613581430]

Obviously, you have not worked with a Prima donna, Christopher. The very definition of one does not let you deal with them in the way you described. With a prima donna, the only way is their wa, and most everyone else is an idiot.

I've found it's never worth keeping them. They end up destroying teams and undermining management.

The problem is with weak managers who feel they can't remove them for the sake of keeping the place running. By then it's too late because they are no longer managing, the prima donna is.

[Beryl]

Prima donnas are usually a big pain and maybe not worth the effort it takes to deal with them.Organizations need to be pro-active in letting all their employees know they are valued as a first step in counter acting the negative impact Prima donnas can cause.

[Richard Rushton]

The question "Prima Donnas: Are They Worth Keeping?" ...like most tabloid style questions, designs its own answer.

The term "Prima Donna" originated from opera and they were rarely worth the trouble until you had the answer to the underlying question which was: "How many tickets do we sell with her or without her?"

If making money wasn't the objective then the question never needed to be asked...