I had this exact situation come up with an engineer that I can only call brilliant, with the most conservative of overtones. He was more than that. Being a maker myself I gladly encouraged him to work when he wanted, sometimes that meant he'd work 48 hours straight and sleep for two days and show up Friday. His 3 days of work (as his peers would describe it), easily was double the quality and output of his closest colleague. I loved having him on my team.
Eventually, other people started asking to work 3 days a week, suggesting that they too would pull all-nighters in an effort to have 2 mid-week days off. I let a few experiments happen but sadly in most cases the result was less than 50% of what they had been previously able to accomplish.
This led to a new merit based working system when we placed emphasis on sprints and achieving. This too ended up failing because the interconnected dependandcies of sprints were always bottlenecked by the slowest operator.
The final result was the eventual departure of my most prized teammate, and mostly due to peer pressure. I often think about how I could have better allowed his brilliance while not alienating the rest of his team, but in the end I failed.
Eventually, other people started asking to work 3 days a week, suggesting that they too would pull all-nighters in an effort to have 2 mid-week days off. I let a few experiments happen but sadly in most cases the result was less than 50% of what they had been previously able to accomplish.
This led to a new merit based working system when we placed emphasis on sprints and achieving. This too ended up failing because the interconnected dependandcies of sprints were always bottlenecked by the slowest operator.
The final result was the eventual departure of my most prized teammate, and mostly due to peer pressure. I often think about how I could have better allowed his brilliance while not alienating the rest of his team, but in the end I failed.