Eccentrics are often misunderstood. Being “Eccentric” implies to most as someone
who is odd, quirky, free spirited, whimsical, inventive, envelope pushing, and
nonconventional. At the surface, this Risk Factor seems quite benign with regard to leadership or professional
effectiveness. It is true that often times the peculiarities do not impact
overall performance in a substantially negative way. These individuals are frequently viewed as
fun or irreverent characters with some unusual ways of expressing themselves or
in the ways they dress or act.
Let
me caution you to not cavalierly dismiss the derailment danger awaiting the
Eccentric leader or professional who may step beyond the boundaries. They can create costly or embarrassing problems
for businesses, relationships and that can be damaging to their own careers. Their weirdness sometimes hinders what we
like to term “common sense” thinking or the ability to stay within appropriate
social expectations. Here are some actual
examples:
1) The Too Much Information Communicator. We worked
with an executive coach who didn’t know when to say when. As soon as a
particular leader client started to mention having had a tough childhood during
a coaching session, this well trained and credentialed coach, wandered off injecting
her own personal views of sexual abuse and ranting about societal evils. This rant had nothing to do with the leader's case. Obviously, the coach lost credibility, the
session went down hill, and the coach was removed from any further coaching on
the project. In fact the scope of the
project was also reduced due to this erosion of trust which hurt the company.
2)
The “Doesn’t Fit The Part” Guy. An executive
was reviewing candidates’ CDR profiles to screen for the position of vice president
of business development. Out of the four experienced candidates we reviewed together,
one (Sam) was an exceptionally good fit based on his assessment scores. The other
three did not remotely fit the job profile. As it turned out, the executive
client rejected this one best-fit candidate, who incidentally, was the only internal
candidate. The executive explained, “Sam
just does not fit in as an executive with ABC Company.” I prompted a discussion
to see if there wasn’t something that could be done in terms of image coaching, executive presence training, wardrobe support, etc. that could help this obviously gifted employee “fit” as
an executive. This discussion was a no go.
The candidate was a high Eccentric and had alienated the executive
culture just enough to be an unacceptable weirdo. The sad part was, Sam had the business and
customer knowledge, loyalty, (CDR) profile and capability – but his oddness was
over the top and knocked him out of consideration.
3)
The Nutty Professional. Some
years ago we were at a business proposal meeting with a major energy company’s
executives and the highly esteemed, well-regarded expert (Ph.D.) consultant we
brought with us stepped over the line.
He was obviously getting bored and blurted out, “Well it is a slow process… it is like watching two old people have sex*.”
It was no surprise that we did not land the project. Lesson
learned: we never brought this highly
eccentric consultant with us again for a client or prospect meeting. *He actually used a more vivid, inappropriate term.
These three cases were very costly to their
companies. The first resulted in a client complaint, reputation
damage for the coach, and loss of revenue for future work that had been
contracted. The second case prevented a highly capable employee from being
awarded a promotion to a job he and the company could have mutually benefited
from. The last case was a large business project opportunity lost.
So the next time you think the Eccentric risk is just
a silly, unimportant tendency that is left to musicians and artists with nose
rings and tattoos, think again.
By Nancy
Parsons
©2013
Rev 2015, CDR
Assessment Group, Inc., All rights reserved.
