How to deal with people who are jerks

Christian recently asked, in a comment on how project managers get power:

How did you work with those infamous programmer-jerks? How did you handle rough inner team situations?

The best place to start is empathy. Why is someone acting like a jerk? There are basic psychological reasons for this: Either they are insecure, unhappy, or angry about something.

Ok, there is a fourth reason, that they are psychopathic hell spawn put on the earth to torture all living things in a 10 foot radius, especially you, but lets assume that’s not the case for a moment.

In all three cases it’s possible they have good reasons for behaving like a jerk. Perhaps they are angry at upper management for the same reasons you are, but they see you as part of management (which, if you’re a PM, you are). Or maybe their last project manager was incompetent. Who knows? Not you. You don’t have a clue.

Odds are good it has nothing to do with you – it has to do with how they feel about what’s going on around them. Starting with a little empathy opens the door to finding a solution. If you start with “Fred is a jerk so I will treat him like one” you are likely perpetuating his reasons for behaving like a jerk, and everyone loses.

That said, there are four assets you have: charm, ability, roles and allies.

Charm to connect. Being likable goes a long way in dealing with people. I don’t mean false niceness or being a cheezeball. I mean using your sense of humor, your natural generosity, your shared interests with someone to establish some basis for positive interaction with another person. It could be almost anything, but look for it. Good morale events help make these connections happen. If you happen to like Metallica, or Porsches, and they do, you now have something positive to talk about where it’s safe for everyone to share and connect.
Demonstrate your ability to help . If they love making great software, if that’s really what they want, then you just need to show you can help. Even if it’s just helping meetings run better, or eliminating stupid annoyances in how decisions get made, defusing politics, reducing meetings, etc. There are a thousand easy things a decent PM can do that the programmer will noticeably benefit from. Start by asking “what can I do to make you more effective? more productive?” And listen to their answer. Do some of what they ask, come back and ask if it helped. Even if it’s a small thing, you’ve now built a tiny basis of respect for how you can help them.
Agree on the roles you both play. More than half the time PMs suffer because people do not understand what the PM is doing. What you need to do is sit down with the programmer and make three lists: what I do (write specs), what you do (write code), what we both do together (triage bugs). Invariably there will be disagreements as to who does what work, but by listing them you’ll find all the sore spots in your working relationship. If you strongly disagree on roles, and he thinks you should wash his car, you should be able to go to your respective bosses and ask for clarification.
Get help from your Allies. Which programmers do you get along with best? These are your allies. Ask them for input on working with Fred. Get their perspective on the frustrations on being a programmer in your organization. You may be able to see Fred in a different light. Have other PMs worked with Fred? What insights do they have?

Of course if after investing some of this energy you decide Fred is, in fact, demon spawn hellbent on destroying all positive energy in the universe, talk to your boss. If Fred is as bad as you say, others will complain and it will become your managers job to solve the problem (fire Fred, move him to more isolated work, get him a therapist).

Most of the time the real problem is people not sharing goals, and not listening to each other. Two things that your average project manager should be good at identifying and resolving.