Kim Scott

We'll call this person Alex.

And I liked Alex a lot.

Alex was smart, Alex was charming, Alex was funny.

Alex would do stuff like we're at a manager offsite playing one of those endless get to know you games.

And Alex was the person who had the courage to raise their hand and to say, I can tell that everyone is really stressed out.

I've got an idea.

It'll help us get to know each other better and it'll be really fast.

Whatever Alex's idea was, if it was fast, we were down with it.

Alex says, let's just go around the table and confess what candy our parents used when potty training us.

Really weird, but really fast.

Weirder yet, we all remembered Hershey Kisses right here.

And then for the next 10 months, every time there was a tense moment in a meeting, Alex would whip out just the right piece of candy for the right person at the right moment.

So Alex brought a little levity to the office.

Everybody loved working with Alex.

One problem with Alex, Alex was doing terrible work, absolutely terrible.

Sort of creative and unusual, but tons of sloppy mistakes.

I was so puzzled, I couldn't understand what was going on, because Alex had this incredible resume, this great history of accomplishments.

I learned much later that Alex was smoking pot in the bathroom three times a day, which maybe explained all that candy that he had.

But I didn't know any of that at the time.

All I knew is that Alex would hand stuff in to me with shame in his eyes.