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The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

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Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#31

Post by mgblogg »

cen4 wrote: post #18
trojanalert wrote: post #12

To be read in conjunction with the Babbler hypothesis - The amount of time some people spend talking gets them into leadership positions. It doesn't matter what they say, just how much they rant on. I read that, and realised how insanely true it is

Well these observations have nothing with to do with the main conundrum - How do you keep a group of chimps who all have different interests, personalities, needs, beliefs, values, upbringings, culture, religion, language, history etc etc in sync? And these days groups grow quite large quite fast. Historically, if you take rewards, bribery, force, domination and manipulation out of the story, the babblers/non threate…

> if you take rewards, bribery, force, domination and manipulation ...

That is a big "if". It works on the family level, but in the real world babbling is coupled with dominance, coercion, blackmail, exploitation etc.

It is easy to see in any average company that no one believes the babbler but is forced to listen to them and applaud.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#34

Post by AmericanChopper »

trojanalert wrote: post #12

To be read in conjunction with the Babbler hypothesis - The amount of time some people spend talking gets them into leadership positions. It doesn't matter what they say, just how much they rant on. I read that, and realised how insanely true it is

I would say it's more because companies and other organisations are social systems, and your ability to succeed in a social system comes down largely to your social skills. I think people with poor social skills don't understand the importance of them, and therefor don't understand why the people with better social skills are succeeding, and subsequently come up with these post hoc rationalizations that allow them to explain these outcomes without confronting any of their own issues.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#35

Post by dangsux »

nkrisc wrote: post #29
_odey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be surprised, but companies actually pay hard money to consultants to do these astrology readings and present them to shareholders as a "measure of workforce compatibility".

I had to do something like that once at work. I picked random answers for all the questions.

[dead]

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#36

Post by _odey »

nkrisc wrote: post #29
_odey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be surprised, but companies actually pay hard money to consultants to do these astrology readings and present them to shareholders as a "measure of workforce compatibility".

I had to do something like that once at work. I picked random answers for all the questions.

That's the easy part. Did you also have to do a 1 hour interview with the consultant after the questionnaire?

EDIT: also an hour long group meeting after the interviews to be presented your collective results?

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#37

Post by the_duke »

trojanalert wrote: post #12

To be read in conjunction with the Babbler hypothesis - The amount of time some people spend talking gets them into leadership positions. It doesn't matter what they say, just how much they rant on. I read that, and realised how insanely true it is

Correlation vs causation?

Management has to collect information, disseminate information, coordinate, make decisions and propagate them.

All of that requires a lot of communication, aka talking.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#38

Post by verisimi »

cen4 wrote: post #18
trojanalert wrote: post #12

To be read in conjunction with the Babbler hypothesis - The amount of time some people spend talking gets them into leadership positions. It doesn't matter what they say, just how much they rant on. I read that, and realised how insanely true it is

Well these observations have nothing with to do with the main conundrum - How do you keep a group of chimps who all have different interests, personalities, needs, beliefs, values, upbringings, culture, religion, language, history etc etc in sync? And these days groups grow quite large quite fast. Historically, if you take rewards, bribery, force, domination and manipulation out of the story, the babblers/non threate…

"the main conundrum" .. is not my conundrum.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#39

Post by verisimi »

bloqs wrote: post #25
trojanalert wrote: post #12

To be read in conjunction with the Babbler hypothesis - The amount of time some people spend talking gets them into leadership positions. It doesn't matter what they say, just how much they rant on. I read that, and realised how insanely true it is

This is because extraversion is partially composed of assertiveness (big five), which directly indicates your influence on your nearby human environment

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