95%-ile isn't that good (2020)

When I was in high school I was really into math. I was way ahead of my year group and I figured it was more interesting to do special problems of the "what is the last digit of 2^2022" variety, the kind of thing that didn't turn up on normal homework, but also not terribly complicated, the kind of thing you can figure out with a short burst of concentration.

So I went to math contests around Europe with other schools. The thing was that most kids I met there were totally ordinary at maths. Sure, some were really quite good, but most of the bottom 75% were indistinguishable from your normal kid who doesn't know at 15 what an integral is. The friends on my team weren't even in the top set math class at my little school, but my observation was that most kids from the other schools weren't either. Most were along for the ride, much like myself at school sports events where you also got a trip across Europe for participating.

I did okay at it, and in my final year we had a couple of really good kids on the team and won the contest. I thought that was pretty cool, but I also knew I wasn't close to the pinnacle of math contestery. Fact was I was like that kid who just had some natural ability but I didn't really practice a huge amount and nobody suggested there was a way to get much better. If you added up all the extra practice compared to just sitting in math class, maybe it was a couple of extra lessons a week, with more interesting homework. My math teacher was a great motivator whom I still keep in touch with, but we only had him and his experience.

Fast forward to now and I recently discovered a friend of mine got a top 10 at the IMO. Basically top 10 among all high school kids on the planet. I can ask him the occasional interesting question that I see on FB, and he'll know how to do it. He did proper years of training in math, had a very famous coach among others, and went through the eye of the needle several times. There's a world of difference between that and your casual have-a-go person.

On the other hand, your handle is "xbox, no life".

The whole OP premise is:

"Reaching 95%-ile isn't very impressive because it's not that hard to do. I think this is one of my most ridiculable ideas. It doesn't help that, when stated nakedly, that sounds elitist. But I think it's just the opposite: most people can become (relatively) good at most things. Note that when I say 95%-ile, I mean 95%-ile among people who participate, not all people (for many activities, just doing it at all makes you 99%-ile or above across all people). I'm also not referring to 95%-ile among people who practice regularly. The "one weird trick" is that, for a lot of activities, being something like 10%-ile among people who practice can make you something like 90%-ile or 99%-ile among people who participate."

It might not be impressive if you have a monomania on the specific subject, but it is very impressive when you also have a life, and this is just one thing you do...

Even more so if you're 95% on more than one things (imaging meeting someone that's 95% programmer, conversationalist, cook, guitar player, marathon runner, business owner, ... He would automatically be hella more impressive than the huge majority of people you meet)...

This has been central to my life the last several years, this culture and person-fit issue. I've seen it play out with friends and family and it's surprising to me it isn't recognized as such. A close friend went from almost literally rockstar status at one place, and moved for reasons that had nothing to do with him or where he was at. He completely fell apart performance-wise at the new place because he didn't fit in to the same extent, went back, and now is doing great again. I don't think the new place was bad, or him, it was just this poor person-culture fit issue.

My spouse was somewhere she was treated like dirt, never quite welcomed into the team (she wasn't the only one, but it was the case nevertheless), and then treated her like a failing employee when she wasn't acting the way they wanted her to (however that was). She left, and now is bringing in more money for the new company than any other employee, in large part in my opinion just because they actually let her be part of the team (this second place is actually a much larger company).

The experience of being siloed is awful, and even if you are intrinsically motivated, can be completely demotivating, because if it's bad enough, it leads to this feeling of complete loss of control where you're at. There's also all these little things that even if you're super competent, you might need help with, just as a function of being a human being as part of a larger organization.

I could go on with stories like this, but suffice to say I think in a lot of places management often doesn't look inward enough. I think the churn continues because for whatever reason the culture change is more painful for them to contemplate and implement than whatever losses are incurred by high turnover in a given position. The last place I was at had entire key units just resign completely together en masse, and the response after they left was "well I guess we're not good at [key function] so we'll just go on without that." In an important sense they had to narrow the scope of what they offer because of culture problems.

And yet we end up having these discussions of displaced employees not being "intrinsically motivated" enough, as if that happens in a vacuum.