I found the books by Tom DeMarco (who became famous for his novel "The Deadline") to be very insightful as well as instructive on that topic.
In particular, his book "Slack" (2001) has a chapter "Managing Eve" where he describes how to manage exactly that kind of great employees we use to call "geeks". He doesn't mention the word "geek", though. Instead, he calls those people "Eve" ... for quite interesting reasons!
Well, it's just the way he interprets the bible. He says that Eve was a courageous person. She ate from the tree of knowledge, thus breaking a rule that would otherwise have prevented her personal development.
In particular, his book "Slack" (2001) has a chapter "Managing Eve" where he describes how to manage exactly that kind of great employees we use to call "geeks". He doesn't mention the word "geek", though. Instead, he calls those people "Eve" ... for quite interesting reasons!