The 8 Most Dangerous People To Have On Your Team

Dennis Zdonov
Sep 6, 2018 · 7 min read

There are great hires, and there are bad hires. While the benefits of great hires are well-known, the dangers of bad hires are a lot less obvious.

Great hires are your bedrock — the foundation on top of which everything else will be built.

For young companies, great early hires can make all the difference between a successful first year and a total flop.

Team members with intelligence, experience, and drive have the potential to assume leadership roles, manage and grow critical processes, and help define a company culture conducive to lasting success and productivity. I’ve seen this firsthand both while building my own startup, and right now as the Head of Studio at Glu Mobile.

Bad hires, on the other hand, are toxic icebergs.

And they’re important to address and classify because they pose a lot more risk than first meets the eye. Usually, this is because bad hires have some good qualities that can mask their fatal flaws.

In my experience, I’ve found you can break those bad hires into two general groups:

  1. High-skill Dangerous — which means they have the skill or expertise, but are lacking in another area.

But those two groups can, in fact, be broken down even further.

Here are the 8 most dangerous types of employees you can bring on, along with how to manage them in case you recognize one toxifying your own team.

HIGH-SKILL DANGEROUS

The Buzzword Junkie

  • The strengths: The Buzzword Junkie is someone with promise who’s up-to-date on all the newest trends. They’re communicative and vocal, and they take initiative.

Industry Vet With No Hustle

  • The strengths: The Industry Vet With No Hustle looks great on paper. They’ve held respectable positions at reputable companies in your space, and they understand the work they need to do.

The Ball Hog

  • The strengths: The Ball Hog, more so than the Industry Vet, is a strong individual contributor. They may be a domain expert and possess unique skills, making them difficult to replace.

Lazy Einstein

  • The strengths: The Lazy Einstein is intelligent and can crank out a lot of work in a small amount of time… when inspired.

LOW-SKILL DANGEROUS

Overconfident Ignoramus

  • The strengths: The Overconfident Ignoramus is skilled at convincing others that he or she is smart and savvy in a specific domain.

Inexperienced Academic

  • The strengths: This is a person who’s academically very smart and well-versed in theory…

Perpetual Self-Doubter

  • The strengths: The Perpetual Self-Doubter might be academically smart, eager to learn, and enthusiastic about the work…

Literal Translator

  • The strengths: The Literal Translator is highly skilled at following directions… and just about nothing else.

At the end of the day, you will make at least a few hiring mistakes.

And when you do, perhaps you’ll notice that those dangerous hires resemble one of the characters depicted above. They likely will.

But even if they don’t, what’s important is you recognize their toxic behaviors, and take steps to address them.

That starts with awareness.

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +365,945 people.

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Dennis Zdonov

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Entrepreneur, opportunist, applying game design to all walks of life

The Startup

Medium's largest active publication, followed by +527K people. Follow to join our community.

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