TotD

Good people like to work with good people, but there are two axes to “good”. The first axis is competence, and the second axis is moral uprightness. The duration of a partnership (between two people, between two organizations, between a person and an organization) often varies inversely with the distance on this two-dimensional parameter space. A highly competent and ethical individual would not join a circle of incompetent and unethical peers, or even if he joins due to insufficient information prior to joining, would quickly leave.

The ambivalence arises when the distance is not so large and only on a single axis. The competent and ethical individual, when working with competent but morally neutral individual, may be tempted to influence the latter’s morality for the better. Likewise, working with an ethical but ability-mediocre individual, the competent and ethical individual may be tempted to try to teach or assign lower complexity tasks. These guiding activities are worth trying. But beware that some/many people resist change and influence, and may ironically move in the opposite direction of intended due to stubbornness. Realize that your time is your most precious resource, and find the optimum time investment amount, which could be zero.