Winners addiction

Some 20 years ago I worked closely with a brilliant scientist to develop a mathematical model of a complex chemical reactor. He was a nice guy, whose main satisfaction was to be right in the modeling field.

That was a good thing.

However, he extended this behavior—the insistence to be right all the time— to matters of strategy, project execution, and people judgment.

He was opinionated, argumentative and he slowly became estranged from the team. This lone wolf behavior resulted in the painful decision to cut him loose from the project.

This behavior is called winners addiction: The tendency to wield the scepter of logic anywhere, anytime, anyplace to batter your coworkers into submission

You may be right, but won’t be successful.

Pick your battles carefully and develop a reputation that you play along well with others.

When you’re part of a team it’s more important to be effective than to be right.

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