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Employers Find ‘Soft Skills’ Like Critical Thinking in Short Supply

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Re: Employers Find ‘Soft Skills’ Like Critical Thinking in Short Supply

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're definition of "get things done" is Orwellian in its inanity... Edit: as per your notion that critical thinkers should apparently just play the game better, rather than...I don't know...think critically/critique it. Are we even talking the same language?

please read the comments i am responding to. the comment i am responding to is positing that in large companies, the main product is political game-playing (i do not necessarily believe that this is true), stating that delivering and shipping what people typically think of as "product" is #4 and #5 at best (again, i think that is a distorted generalization). at the same time, the comment i am replying to posits that…

> i think that is a distorted generalization

It's a generalization, but it's based on my experiences. It's not wholly wrong.

> the comment i am replying to posits that "critical thinkers" are the effective people in an organization who are really the ones who get things done.

Critical thinkers are usually the people who want to get things done. They might be effective, if the organization lets them be effective. Or, they might be entirely ineffective if the organization is pathological.

> at the same time stating that these people who get things done are sidelined, punished and rendered ineffective by the organization.

You're reading a lot into a simple comment.

> at the same time stating that these same people are the ones who are focused on low-priority items in that organization.

You've read too much into my comments.

In a pathological organization, the high priority items are management politics. Those politics are the daily work product of the majority of managers. The way a manager gets recognized or promoted is via playing the political game. actually shipping something is a lower priority.

> i agree with you, taken together, those statements are rather inane.. not only that but also wildly inconsistent, an ironic example of sloppy critical thinking.

Well, no. You didn't understand my comments. So you constructed a straw man version and attacked that. Genius!

> i am stating the obvious (which apparently isnt), that you would expect truly effective critical thinkers to be very good at focusing on the main priority within an organization

Only if you believe that critical thinkers enjoy playing the political games, and that they're good at it. My experience is that the people most focussed on political games are utter shit at engineering, and shipping product.

> anyway, critical thinking and emotionalism (bitterness and resentment about the unfairness of it all) would seem to be mutually opposed.

You can engage in critical thinking, while at the same time being upset that people treat you like shit for engaging in critical thinking. The two are in no way mutually exclusive.

Re: Employers Find ‘Soft Skills’ Like Critical Thinking in Short Supply

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

critical thinking and Machiavellianism are orthogonal. if you read the comments i am responding to, you'd see that those comments are the ones which are making the assumption that critical thinkers are non-Machiavellian, which is just as inane as the idea that critical thinking should be Machiavellian in nature. perhaps the problem is that for most people it is more emotionally satisfying to believe themselves as non…

No, it's not confusing, it's just wrong. You're confusing objectivity, which is understanding how a situation really works, with a moral imperative to take advantage of every situation. You're also implying that Machivellianism works better for individuals and corporations. There's absolutely no evidence to support that position, and plenty of evidence to refute it - not least the incredibly stupid and destructive de…

> There's absolutely no evidence to support that position, and plenty of evidence to refute it - not least the incredibly stupid and destructive decisions made by corporate "winners" for reasons of political advantage which regularly sink companies and damage their own employment prospects.

In engineering terms, optimizing for local maxima doesn't mean you get the global maxima.

i.e. managers playing political games over crap "win" in the short term. And sink companies in the long term.

I know people who worked at DEC. They said it was a great company when it was focussed on products, and on engineering. Then at some point, "professional managers" took over. Management then became focussed on politics and infighting. And... DEC died.

> If you were truly engaging in critical thinking you'd be able to understand this. In fact all you're doing is projecting the inverse of your own emotional biases onto people who not only have different motivations, but are modelling outcomes as a whole more effectively than you are.

That sounds right to me.

The immediate labeling of people as "frustrated losers" shows that his reaction is emotional, and not rational.

Re: Employers Find ‘Soft Skills’ Like Critical Thinking in Short Supply

#133

Employers don't want critical thinking, they want compliance and results. They might say they want more soft skills, but what they mean is they want someone to solve their problems and make them look good. Usually, that means a yes man. This kind of article is delusional naval gazing.

Surprising talk on a forum dedicated to startup capitalism. Culturally, this forum is aligned towards BEING the employers.

90% of the people on this forum will never start a startup or possibly even work at a startup.

Re: Employers Find ‘Soft Skills’ Like Critical Thinking in Short Supply

#134
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yeah they are in short supply because you can't teach them directly. Why can't you teach them directly?

>Why can't you teach them directly? For the same reason that you can't learn riding a bicycle from a book.

Funnily enough, this along with failure is exactly how my learned. My family was not exactly "present" to help.

Libraries have books with that very title.

Re: Employers Find ‘Soft Skills’ Like Critical Thinking in Short Supply

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen this too. I have a theory about it. Most organizations only recognize negative intercessions as praiseworthy, and categorize positive intercession as "business as usual" to be expected, even if sometimes the positive intercession is much harder. "No!" moments are much valued in corporate culture these days. People think this promotes the propagation of critical thinking across an organization. Perhaps iro…

My experience is mostly in the other direction. While C-level executives out of their depth (which seems to be most of the time when it comes to technology) tend to have quite a few 'No!' moments, maybe because it gives them a sense of control, they don't like hearing No from anyone else. In fact, expressing doubts about the wisdom of pushing ahead with a project, even one already failing, is seen as very poor behavi…

My observation is not applicable to C-levels and other people in positions of extreme power. It really only occurs when an org develops a middle-strata of management and executors with finely-cut responsibilities. Truly big companies.
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