My second management assignment was to lead a team of technical designers who sat at computer terminals for most of the day, designing schematic networks for large complex engineering systems. Unusually, there was an opportunity for this almost "back office" team of technical people to become a leading group in the department, driving forward the technical aspects of the programs that we delivered. I was really looking forward to the move. I had only been in management for six months, but my new bosses wanted me to head up the team and really shake things up. I sat with the outgoing manager to discuss the team's current workload and to understand more about the personalities within the team. Then he delivered a crushing blow: he had agreed to bring Brian into the team.

Brian was a very experienced designer who had worked all over the world for some really large corporations and in some very exotic locations. He had been with this particular organization for some ten years or so...