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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)

#11

Post by orthoxerox »

bananaflag wrote: post #7

See the Scott Alexander review: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-gervais-pri...

Scott took it too literally. See also how the broader rationalist community took issue with Sam Kriss for inventing a not-obviously-fake historical figure.

The biggest takeaway for me is that you shouldn't expect to succeed as a manager by meeting (or exceeding) KPIs. It's about as effective as being a "nice guy" and expecting intimacy in return.

The KPIs are there for assigning blame, not for identifying key personnel. You can game them to increase your compensation if you are already doing something that an even bigger manager finds useful and important. Conversely, you can get away with half-assing every official performance indicator as long as you keep delivering the real thing.

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

#12

Post by k__ »

I liked that model a lot, but it made me a bit sad too.

All my life I was bad at being a loser, somehow I never really felt I fit in. I thought this was because of psychopathic tendencies or something. However, after reading this I realized there was another option and I was just clueless.

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

#13

Post by tdrgabi »

bookhimdano wrote: post #9

This is interesting enough, I’d buy a book about this (audiobook at least). I’ve tried to limit myself to only the best and most practical books about leadership that didn’t start corporate speak, and I doubt Gervais Principle would be quoted or used in work conversation, so it’s perfect.

What other books did you find in that style?

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

#14

Post by OgsyedIE »

The most interesting parts of the essay are the ways that Rao (a full proponent of the niche psychotherapy school of transactional analysis) applies his view of psychoanalysis to describe the social dynamics between coworkers with differing levels of nihilism.

He argues that the 'sociopath class' of social-climbing nihilists map 1:1 onto the leaderships of large organizations but it's rare in the real world. Usually there are people of all levels of naiveté and nihilism at all ranks of organizations, with naive true believers mixing with nihilists at the top, the middle and the bottom fairly equally, because the world has too much churn to settle into the kind of density-separation equilibrium he describes.

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

#15

Post by OgsyedIE »

gsf_emergency_7 wrote: post #8
bananaflag wrote: post #7

See the Scott Alexander review: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-gervais-pri...

Liked this comment: "If we could convince [any] Sociopath that we were all Losers, we might be able to entice them into spilling their secrets as 'Straighttalk'. (Arguably that's what this book is..)" On one hand Rao doesn't say much about Gametalk (he basically defers to Eric Berne) which is the Loser's sociolect and should well be our default. On the other, Rao much more optimistic than Orwell, who declared doubles…

The Berne books Rao cites as explanations of Gametalk are solidly good entries in of themselves, although it's probably best to use an LLM to get search results of the best introductions to TA first to see if they've been surpassed.

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

#16

Post by OgsyedIE »

k__ wrote: post #12

I liked that model a lot, but it made me a bit sad too. All my life I was bad at being a loser, somehow I never really felt I fit in. I thought this was because of psychopathic tendencies or something. However, after reading this I realized there was another option and I was just clueless.

Give the Melting Asphalt blog a try, it's a solid resource on those two tiers.

Suggested starter essay: https://meltingasphalt.com/personality-the-body-in-society/

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

#17

Post by ajb »

gsf_emergency_7 wrote: post #8
bananaflag wrote: post #7

See the Scott Alexander review: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-gervais-pri...

Liked this comment: "If we could convince [any] Sociopath that we were all Losers, we might be able to entice them into spilling their secrets as 'Straighttalk'. (Arguably that's what this book is..)" On one hand Rao doesn't say much about Gametalk (he basically defers to Eric Berne) which is the Loser's sociolect and should well be our default. On the other, Rao much more optimistic than Orwell, who declared doubles…

I guess one day there will be a massive leak of executives chats with their LLMs, and we'll find out what they really think.

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

#19

Post by gsf_emergency_7 »

OgsyedIE wrote: post #15
gsf_emergency_7 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liked this comment: "If we could convince [any] Sociopath that we were all Losers, we might be able to entice them into spilling their secrets as 'Straighttalk'. (Arguably that's what this book is..)" On one hand Rao doesn't say much about Gametalk (he basically defers to Eric Berne) which is the Loser's sociolect and should well be our default. On the other, Rao much more optimistic than Orwell, who declared doubles…

The Berne books Rao cites as explanations of Gametalk are solidly good entries in of themselves, although it's probably best to use an LLM to get search results of the best introductions to TA first to see if they've been surpassed.

Adhering to the predictable/ritualistic/comfortable nature of "Gametalk",

Here's one question I asked:

"How does Eric Berne's Gametalk as interpreted by Venkatesh Rao signal to the sociopaths that those who engage in them are losers worth talking to? Distinguish between "channels" that Eric has identified as well as new signals that Rao or others have discovered."

https://youtu.be/9B3oem_56jg?t=52s

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