Tag Archives: Employment

February 13, 2014 · 12:03 pm

Smart Can Be Stupid

I’ve written a number of times on the subject of hiring smart people.

The Thinking Man sculpture at Musée Rodin in Paris

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Raw intelligence and a natural curiosity about the world are two qualities I’ve found to be universal in the great executives I know and I always spent a lot of time when I was interviewing new hires trying to uncover those qualities in the candidates.  As I thought about the search for that brilliance the other day I realized that it’s just not enough.  No, I’m not retracting my statement.  I do think, however, I’m doing you folks a disservice by not providing context.  Let me do so now.

Suppose you knew a really smart ten year-old.  He is constantly asking questions about the world and more often than not can hold his own in a discussion with adults.  His logic is impeccable; his ability to express himself is superb.  Would you hire him?  Of course not (although you might tee him up for an internship in five or six years).  While he has two of the skills one can’t teach, he lacks many critical skills for success.  Emotional maturity is probably first on that list; the ability to contextualize (or not) is the other.

What do I mean by that?  When we get too caught up in a moment we need to have the ability to stop, take a step back, and see the forest as well as the trees.    That’s contextualizing. Math teachers would explain it as probing into the referents for the symbols involved – I like that.  Great businesspeople can also do the opposite – decontextualize – maybe even at the same time.  That’s the ability to abstract a situation and think about it symbolically without all the immediate pressures of what’s going on.  These abilities – as well as other critical thinking skills – take time and experience.  It’s why older executives such as me have value that our younger peers don’t: we’ve made the mistakes already and have learned.

Smart people can be stupid.  They need experience, a grounding in facts,  and the emotional maturity that comes with time to be successful in business.  We all know the brilliant jerk – the very smart executive who everyone respects and very few like.  They can crush a company. Our challenge is to find the qualities in addition to smart and curious that make for greatness.  You up to it?

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November 18, 2013 · 12:43 pm

Doing The Work

What would you do if you didn’t have to work?  Maybe that’s the wrong way to phrase that.  How would you occupy your time if you didn’t have to worry about the bills being paid and could live pretty much as you’re living now?  Would you hold down a job?  Would you travel?  Would you live where you’re living?

Men inside workshop in Melbourne

(Photo credit: IMLS DCC)

I have a friend who is a little older than I am and I happen to know has plenty of money in the bank.  Not enough to have a jet and a string of mansions, but more than most people will ever have.  He can live any way he chooses and work or not work as he sees fit. He just started another job a couple of weeks ago.  I asked him why he was working and he said because he likes it.  He enjoys the challenges and has been a senior executive at a number of companies during his career.  He is engaged.  Most of us are not.  Time reported on a Gallup study:

According to Gallup, 30% of U.S. employees are “engaged” at work, which the polling organization defines as those “who are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and contribute to their organization in a positive manner.” The rest of us are “emotionally disconnected” from our workplaces, making us much less likely to be productive. Fifty-two percent of employees says they are basically “checked out” at work, and 18% say they’re so unhappy they’re actually acting out their unhappiness in the workplace. “Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish,” Gallup’s report says.

So to start the work week, let’s all take a step back as figure out if we’re ready to do the work.  Maybe if we’re even wanting to do it at all.  Do we want a promotion because it means more money or do we want it because it reflects the effort we’ve put in at a task we enjoy?  Are we interested in developing our minds or our wallets?  Can we combine our avocations and our vocation?  After all, while it’s not called “work” because it’s meant to be fun, I know it can be.  It can also suck.  The choice is yours.

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November 13, 2013 · 10:41 am

Are You A Workplace Troll?

Anyone who runs a website or a blog is familiar with trolls.

By Åsmund Ødegård from Oslo/Ås, Norway (Hunderfossen Uploaded by Arsenikk)

You know them – the evil ones who pop up from underneath a log someplace, spew forth some usually unprintable comment or begin a flame war, and leave. You are then left to clean up the mess.  They’re not a new phenomenon:

Yet there is a certain race of men, that either imagine it their duty, or make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame, and value themselves upon giving Ignorance and Envy the first notice of a prey

That was Dr. Samuel Johnson in 1750, long before the internet. But trolls aren’t the topic today. Instead, I want to talk about criticism itself, since in a strange way that is how trolls see themselves.  I happen to think criticism is important, and done well it can be enlightening.  Dr. Johnson believed in critics too:

You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.

That gets to the root of people like me (who read or watch films or eat out) criticizing works (books, films, restaurants) even though we can’t create those things (books, movies, dishes) on our own.  It’s possible to be educated enough in something and to have an informed, cogent opinions without actually being able to do the thing in question.  If not, why do we have sports columnists or book reviewers?

The thing about good criticism is that it’s not of the “you suck” troll variety.  It is specific and measures the work in question against other works and benchmark standards as well as against the reviewer’s own experience.  Not all criticism is negative either.  A review that says something was great is just as useless as the “it sucked” variety if it doesn’t explain the “why”.

So ask yourself this – are you a troll in the workplace when you offer criticism without the appropriate additional information?  Telling someone their work isn’t good without explaining why and helping to find a road to making it better makes you one in my book.  It’s just as bad to compliment someone’s work without explaining why it’s good.  How is the recipient of your nicety to replicate what made it great if they don’t know what that was?

Criticism is an integral part of daily life.  The thing I try to remember is to be a critic and not a troll.  Are you with me on that?

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