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This is a very naive analysis. It defines toxicity as propensity to be fired, only looks at big corporations, and uses self-reports in interview tests (like paper tests) as the independent variable.

I suppose the reason this piece strikes this community as so silly is that the general philosophy of the startup is that a group of 5 or 10 people can best multi-million dollar corporations because corporations are so inefficient. To turn to such a company's firing decisions as the source of truth of worker quality feels profoundly backward.

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I think it's also because people on this community have worked at corporations where toxic workers aren't the problem--it's toxic managers.

If they are going to do a study on the impact of toxic workers on the workplace, surely they should do one on managers.

Psychopaths rise to the top. Until the human race finds a way of dealing with this, it will continue.

you first need to make the link between toxic managers and psychopaths, rather than throw out this trope without a second thought.

Aspects of a toxic manager:

* Grandiose sense of self-worth

* Pathological lying

* Cunning/manipulative

* Callous/lack of empathy

* Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

* Appears to do a lot of things, but in reality does nothing for the organization

Ponerology

I guess there's a place for this type of research, but it seems like a fool's errand to try to make any kind of objective analysis about such things.

In any business you have a fairly unique problem and a unique set of people, the only way to succeed is to be aware of the specifics you're dealing with and react appropriately. Management trying to apply insight from academic research so often ends up looking clueless and alienating the rank and file.

Also, their analysis that avoiding toxic workers is twice as good as hiring a superstar makes no sense, because it doesn't account for the fact that some jobs have vastly more leverage than others. The obvious example is software developers, whose work easily scales at least 100x as much as emissions testers. But even basketball coaches are a good example. (Mark Cuban anyone?)

I'm not claiming that we hiring toxic workers is a good bet by any means, but the analysis also doesn't make any sense.

For what it's worth, I've found that quantitative economics research coming out of Harvard tends to be complete nonsense. I have no idea why this would be the case, it's just something that I've observed.

Harvard trades on a reputation earned centuries ago. Since people don't really care about the accuracy of the research, there is nothing to challenge in the content. People who agree with the vague conclusions get to say "Harvard is on my side", and then twist the vagueness to suit their purposes.