The 800-pound gorilla

Years ago, at secondary school, there was a star player on our track and field team. She topped every race, copped every prize and was the highway to the team’s success in athletics.

In true “800 pound-gorilla” fashion however, she flaunted all the rules – didn’t attend practice, or if she did was “wrong and strong on top of it again” as we say. She thought that she was indispensable and acted that way.

I can’t remember the competition, but it was pretty prestigious. The principal, who had had enough of the Diva, made the painful and unpopular decision to cut her from the team. The whole school was in disbelief. How would we win without her? We were nothing without the diva/800 pound gorilla! Past demoralization, past self doubt and pure fear, the team began to pull together, and on the day of reckoning, won the championship with flying colors.

I only remember the Principal, who was usually phlegmatic, and the epitome of grace and poise, standing on that stage, and to much applause saying, not only had we won, (her whole face beaming, her whole body trembling with pride, her voice unusually emphatic and emotional) but we had won “without _________!” (800 pound gorilla’s name deleted)”

Every small business perhaps has one of them, an employee who is the best at what he does, and so outpaces others in expertise or ability, that very soon he (and even his colleagues and perhaps the naive boss) starts to think of himself as indispensable within the organization. The downside to that however, is that such an employee often buys so deeply into his unsurpassable importance that he thinks that he is entitled to certain privileges, exempt from the rules and above correction and discipline, leaving the Supervisor or Manager in a quandary.

David Maister, leading authority on professional business management, says that managers have to find ingenious ways of making the attitude of such employees match up with their indisputable talent. You don’t want to pander to the 800-pound gorilla, because pretty soon you are going to demoralize the rest of the staff. On the other hand, if you deal with the attitude the wrong way, you might just lose one of your best – notice the operative phrase there is “one of your best” – workers.

Dealing with such an employee requires gumption, risk taking and strategy. Management has to start from a philosophy that no one should be indispensable in a company – not even the managers. This is not to downplay the importance of each employee’s uniqueness, but to impress the urgency for creating a culture of succession and development, so that crucial roles are not the domain of a chosen few.

Secondly is the strategy of exclusion. The 800-pound gorilla most times thrives on attention, on knowing that he or she is the center of importance. Without saying a word to the attention grabbing employee, a Manager can help to foster a culture of compliance amongst other employees, thus shifting the focus from one person’s rebellion to another group’s collective goals. Pretty soon, grunting and all, the gorilla will want to make his presence felt in that circle, just to continue to be who he is.

Thirdly, if this employee really needs to be disciplined or even let go, Managers need to be courageous and seriously consider the positive possibilities of life beyond the 800 pound gorilla. Your view just might be clearer.

Lisa Dublin is the Director of OSSi, a six year old training company that facilitates presentations, seminars and workshops in effective public speaking, customer service excellence, employee motivation and excellence in the workplace, career guidance, business etiquette and image management. If you do have a comment on today’s article, drop us a line at OSSi: [email protected].