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What's going on here, with this human?

grahamduncan.blog

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Re: What's going on here, with this human?

#51
post #30
post #3

> One of the greatest gifts we have for each other, for our children and spouses, for our teammates, is the positive feedback loop we can put someone into purely by believing in them, by seeing their genius and their dysfunction clearly and then helping them construct conditions for the former to flourish. Beautiful.

"He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches." In general, I think a teacher classifying genius and dysfunction is putting people into boxes and may harm his students more than helping them. I've never encountered a great teacher who talks like that. I've met many people justifying their existence and positions who do talk like that.

we're all contextually geniuses or dysfunctional - I think the thing the writer is advocating for is trying to find the right context based on an attempt at an accurate assessment of the person, and how you might go about assessing people.

Re: What's going on here, with this human?

#52

I read the description of a "self-authoring" mind. Can someone ELI5 how it differs from the description of a "psychopath"?

It's not very easy to explain like you're five (it's like he says, to understand this requries more "up-front investment").

Maybe look in Kegan's wikipedia to have a better overview of what they mean by self-authoring mind (stage four in the big table)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kegan#The_Evolving_Self

Re: What's going on here, with this human?

#53
This seems like a load of crap. More specifically it seems like a pre-scientific mindset. You use analogy and metaphor to describe phenomena and structures that are only half-understood to try to rationalize them and fit them into some sort of consistent narrative.

Wisdom is knowledge you can't describe. This seems like wisdom but just as it's really hard for a professional tennis player to describe exactly how they know where an opponent is going to hit a ball this guy seems to be grasping at straws to describe something he can't quite see and so can't quite describe to the rest of us.

If you think personality assessments have significant predictive power, or that using more than one of them increases predictive power, you don't know how they were made, how they are commonly applied, or the realities of psychometric assessment. It's exactly the kind of straw people grasp for when they want to, but do not understand a phenomenon of behavior.

If you follow this advice you will be participating in a cargo cult.

Re: What's going on here, with this human?

#54
post #24

> As the gaming company Valve puts it: “Hiring well is the most important thing in the universe.” Nope, Hiring is basically almost random no matter how much energy or tests you put in it, you can never know someone well until you actually work with them on a daily basis.

I'm struck by the analogy to investing. If asked to pick from among several stocks, there is doubtlessly the one great stock that will make you rich. Yet as a whole, stock pickers under-perform market averages. "The rest of us" are better off buying index funds.

Another problem with hiring is that in reality people will be flexible and adapt to the traits of a new person in their group, if that person has something valuable to offer.

Re: What's going on here, with this human?

#55

This seems like a load of crap. More specifically it seems like a pre-scientific mindset. You use analogy and metaphor to describe phenomena and structures that are only half-understood to try to rationalize them and fit them into some sort of consistent narrative. Wisdom is knowledge you can't describe. This seems like wisdom but just as it's really hard for a professional tennis player to describe exactly how they…

He literally discusses the origins and problems of various personality tests in his article

Re: What's going on here, with this human?

#56

This seems like a load of crap. More specifically it seems like a pre-scientific mindset. You use analogy and metaphor to describe phenomena and structures that are only half-understood to try to rationalize them and fit them into some sort of consistent narrative. Wisdom is knowledge you can't describe. This seems like wisdom but just as it's really hard for a professional tennis player to describe exactly how they…

He literally discusses the origins and problems of various personality tests in his article

"he knew the Big Five was solid as science"

His discussion is neither critical nor credible.

Re: What's going on here, with this human?

#57

The title should be something more like "an essay about why it doesn't make sense to trust HR"

Amazingly, HR even advertises that you shouldn't trust them in the name Human Resources.

I've thought about referring to my coworkers as "Resource " so many times...

Re: What's going on here, with this human?

#58
It’s become a trope that the news written about topics we know is woeful and unreliable, yet we trust the news written about anything else.

Now I feel the same about HN. I know a decent amount about this topic - and the comments on this article are a dumpster fire so far.

Hot take after hot take from people who didn’t understand the article, but act as if they did.

Is the rest of HN like this, too?

Re: What's going on here, with this human?

#59

This seems like a load of crap. More specifically it seems like a pre-scientific mindset. You use analogy and metaphor to describe phenomena and structures that are only half-understood to try to rationalize them and fit them into some sort of consistent narrative. Wisdom is knowledge you can't describe. This seems like wisdom but just as it's really hard for a professional tennis player to describe exactly how they…

He literally discusses the origins and problems of various personality tests in his article

He doesn't discuss the problems or limitations. Here's his section on "assessing" myer briggs

>I tend to test as an “INTP.” Everyone now understands the usefulness of introversion versus extroversion. The difference between the “P” (extreme comfort with uncertainty) vs. colleagues and romantic partners who are “J” (a tendency to nail things down, to be decisive and minimize uncertainty) has also been useful at times. When I interview people I also sometimes notice the “S” (sensing) tendency to be super literal and concrete, in good and bad ways, versus the more abstract “N” (intuition). I think it’s particularly useful to track S vs. N between yourself and someone you work for or who works for you, because communication difficulties may boil down to that dimension, and it’s useful to have a vocabulary for the tension.

He doesn't pause for even a second to consider that perhaps myer briggs could be a bad tool for determining these aspects of a personality or to acknowledge that even if this was the case, people don't behave honestly in professional situations anyway.

Re: What's going on here, with this human?

#60

It’s become a trope that the news written about topics we know is woeful and unreliable, yet we trust the news written about anything else. Now I feel the same about HN. I know a decent amount about this topic - and the comments on this article are a dumpster fire so far. Hot take after hot take from people who didn’t understand the article, but act as if they did. Is the rest of HN like this, too?

So you're going to complain that nobody is getting the point of the article and then not explain yourself?

Awesome

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