Team story: X is the smartest member of the team.

Team story: X is the smartest member of the team. Make sure to take care of him, Vivek!

From 2015 to 2018, while working at ZS, my manager often said this about the "smartest" team members. He believed in giving them high-end tasks to keep them engaged. Over these three years, there were five such “smartest” resources at various time interval out of a 15-member team. Interestingly, these top performers left within 1 to 1.5 years, while "regular" stayed for three years or more.

These “smartest” resources handled 20% of the revenue-generating ad-hoc analytics work, while the "regular" resources managed 80% of the revenue generating work, i.e. operational tasks. In 2018, with no “smartest” resources left, I advocated for a "regular" team member to take on an ad-hoc analytics project. My manager reluctantly agreed, and after working on the IC design project, he realized that this "regular" team member was also highly capable.

I then explained to my manager that everyone at ZS is smart. Some are just more outspoken and quick to grasp things (termed by him as "smart"), but that doesn’t mean "regular" can’t rise to the challenge. It's just that the “smartest” resources kept getting ad-hoc work and work directly with the manager, which made them better at it and more valued in the manager’s eyes, while the "regular" resources were undervalued.

This is a classic example of “perception bias” and how it led to a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

P.S. I was also considered a “regular” resource by him, and I was perfectly fine with that to avoid working with him directly! And honestly, I’m not that smart - my wife can vouch for it! 😃