Gather No Moss

As everyone in New England now knows, the Patriots’ star wide receiver, Randy Moss, was recently traded to the Minnesota Vikings for a fourth round draft pick. For those of you who follow this blog but don’t necessarily follow professional football, a fourth round draft pick isn’t worth very much. So, how come smart people like Owner Bob Kraft and Coach Bill Belichick traded a future Hall of Fame player for such a bargain basement price? The answer is simple: Randy Moss may be talented but he has a bad attitude! And, attitude trumps talent every time.

At last week’s meeting of the AIA Large Firm Roundtable I had lunch with a CEO colleague who expressed frustration with one of his top design principals. It seems that the guy just can’t keep his ego in check and is causing enormous frustration within the firm and compromising client service. He asked for my advice. The more this CEO talked about his problem, the more I realized that not once during my thirteen year tenure as CEO have I had to deal with a bad attitude from our immensely talented design leaders. They are among the most collaborative and selfless employees at TRO Jung|Brannen.

I told him to get rid of the Moss.