The annoying habits of highly effective people • Hacker News Board

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#201

Post by 113 » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #168

113 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is prudent to make decisions based on evidence though. Not just something you think might have happened to you.

Well, when you're not supposed to be doing a universal study, what happened to you is your first line of evidence. If all scientific evidence says oranges are harmless, and you eat one and have to puke, then you'll avoid it, and rightly so, based on your empirical observation of 1.

You would avoid that orange, but you wouldn't say to someone "don't eat oranges, I had one once and it was bad", which is what you are doing.

You can't always do a large study, but when you're presented with one it doesn't help do give anecdotes in response.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#202

Post by mmjaa » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:13 PM UTC

phakding wrote: post #3

Never understood people's infatuation with reading CEO biographies. I've read a few and never found anything in it that could relate to. May be I am not meant to be one of those people. Even if I worked hard, got in at work at 5 am every day, I don't think I could go from being a lowely team lead to cto or CEO of a multi billion dollar corporation. I don't think it just works that way. I could be very wrong, but that…

There are CEO's who haven't written a book. Maybe you're like those guys.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#203

Post by barrow-rider » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

a008t wrote: post #183

haihaibye wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I've had more success than many colleagues due to me spending time every day to improve myself Conscientiousness is ~44% heritable. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8776880

Are you saying that each individual person cannot decide to and then become more conscientious?

56% -- the majority of conscientiousness, it seems -- is not heritable. They can decide to, and be, but it sounds like a decent chunk of that is due to genetic predisposition.

Genetically I'm not much of a runner compared to my brother, but I work hard at it 3-4 times a week. But if he got around to hitting a treadmill as much as I do I'm sure he'd outperform me.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#204

Post by sonnyblarney » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

tomgp wrote: post #127

sonnyblarney wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, some are harder than others but I can't think of a CEO job that isn't hard. It's always fraught with political risk, changing times, etc. etc.. From the 'inside' we might think it looks easy, we get a paycheque, it's all hunky-dory ... but from that top spot it's almost always hard.

How hard is it really though? If someone said to me: "you can either work in an Amazon warehouse (either shift 7.00am-5.30pm or 5.45pm-4.15am) or be the CEO of Amazon but you're going to get paid the same whichever you choose" I know which I'd do.

You would be a reliable stock picker, surely, but you'd also run Amazon into the ground, probably.

I think you are misinterpreting what 'hard' means.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#205

Post by sonnyblarney » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #138

sonnyblarney wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, some are harder than others but I can't think of a CEO job that isn't hard. It's always fraught with political risk, changing times, etc. etc.. From the 'inside' we might think it looks easy, we get a paycheque, it's all hunky-dory ... but from that top spot it's almost always hard.

> but I can't think of a CEO job that isn't hard. It's always fraught with political risk, changing times, etc. etc That makes it volatile, not hard. And the stakes are much less for volatility when you already have several cool million in the bank...

No, it makes it hard.

The CEO of an Ambulance company I know has about 500 staff, he's been doing it for 25 years, it all seems like a smooth operation but they're constantly facing issues. Labour and training problems, international actors that won't pay and their governments won't help, shipping problems, supply chain problems. Liability issues. IP issues with some special things they do. Orders come in batches, they might have a down year and possibly have to play people off. And I'm not even getting into the very basics of product development, financing the working capital i.e. the regular stuff employees do.

People who think CEO's just show up and wear suits and have meetings, and kiss up to the board ... I don't think have any exposure to what the job entails.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#206

Post by sonnyblarney » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

CaptainZapp wrote: post #72

gitgud wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, regardless of the industry. Most people would consider the tasks of: -leading a company -dealing with finances -constantly making important decisions As a hard job.

I hope that any company worth its salt has a CFO to deal with finances. Not that the CEO should be completely out of the loop (she has to sign off, after all). But if a CEO is dealing with nitty, gritty details if finances there's a severe delegation issue at best and a detail obsessed control-freak at worst.

No, there are many cases where the CEO will be involved in financial issues, especially where it will affect the company as a whole.

A European company with major cash holdings may want to diversify currency, but that could be seen as speculative. The working capital requirements and details of the revolving loans they have from the bank. The list goes on.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#207

Post by justtopost » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

cube00 wrote: post #192

siruncledrew wrote: post #2

I think another thing that influences annoying habits of "effective" people is that no executive/manager is going to hold a CEO accountable for being late/strolling into work, whereas if a CEO didn't like it that person would be be immediately told to stop and change their behavior.

Just on "late shaming" in general, sometimes people have legitimate reasons for starting later. They might have been up until early morning in conference with another time zone, they might have family responsibilities, etc. If they're late to scheduled meetings by all means hold them to standard, but if they're just arriving in the office later then everyone else I'm not so sure that's cause to be held "accountable"…

Most see those who can't reliably reconsile family responsibilities and the responsibility of having a job to provide for said family, as bad employees. Maybe only bad because of lifestyle fit, but bad for your org. Being unreliable is worse than not being there at all for most jobs.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#208

Post by coldtea » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 5:42 PM UTC

113 wrote: post #201

coldtea wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, when you're not supposed to be doing a universal study, what happened to you is your first line of evidence. If all scientific evidence says oranges are harmless, and you eat one and have to puke, then you'll avoid it, and rightly so, based on your empirical observation of 1.

You would avoid that orange, but you wouldn't say to someone "don't eat oranges, I had one once and it was bad", which is what you are doing. You can't always do a large study, but when you're presented with one it doesn't help do give anecdotes in response.

>You can't always do a large study, but when you're presented with one it doesn't help do give anecdotes in response.

No, but it's healthy to be skeptical of a study in face of contrary immediate experiences. After all it's a product of a flawed human process (and most are crap, even according to researchers themselves).

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#209

Post by dang » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

uratool wrote: post #119

data_spy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you are saying to a degree, however I've had more success than many colleagues due to me spending time every day to improve myself (usually technically). What you are saying is like saying some people are thin due to genetics, which can be true, but also many people are thin because they workout.

1. how do you know you are not a screaming asshole that other people tolerate, with your inflated sense of self worth about your technical ability being your motivator for demanding more - so you call it success. Have you overcome any longstanding relationship issues with anyone in your life? have you supported someone through a mental breakdown? The very fact that you measure your success "over" your colleagues to m…

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the site guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

(Also, it's not ok to have a trollish username on HN, since that basically trolls every thread the account posts to.)

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#210

Post by Broken_Hippo » Tue, Oct 02, 2018, 6:36 PM UTC

tomnipotent wrote: post #199

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure a few of those wake early simply because it is expected, not because of discipline. They aren't the only ones that have discipline either.

Did anyone bother to read the definition? 1. verb "train (someone) to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience." 2. noun "the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience." So yes, having to wake up to make it to a job at a certain time or else you get in trouble is actually the very definition of discipline. If people on m…

You don't gain discipline by waking up earlier than necessary. If you don't need to be at work until noon, waking up at 5am doesn't add discipline to your life. Waking in time to go to work is discipline, but if you don't need to be at work until 9am, there is no need to wake any earlier than it takes you to get to work on time. Waking early for the sake of waking early or having general "discipline" isn't such a thing.