Number one: How much did they like me? Now you don't know how much they like you. What's important is - How much do you think they like you? You see, we all say we hate suck-ups. We hate obvious suck-ups. We hate blatant suck-ups. We like those good subtle suck-ups that don't look like suck-ups.
Number two: How much are they like me? How much do they remind me of me? A different type of favoritism. A lot of engineers play favorites to people they don't like. "He's a jerk! He's an engineer. She's a great person, not an engineer."
Number three: What's their contribution to the company and customers?
And then number four: How much recognition do I give them? If we're honest with ourselves, in 15 to 20 percent of the cases, recognition is highly correlated with one or two than three, and we may be falling into a trap we despise in others, teaching other people to suck-up to us and playing favorites.
Last updated January 24 2008: 1:37 PM ET
