Why he is there and I am here • Hacker News Board

Re: Why he is there and I am here

#21

Post by jotm » Thu, Dec 05, 2013, 3:13 PM UTC

henrik_w wrote: post #2

Yes, focus on your strengths. I like this quote: "For years I have urged managers to concentrate their efforts in areas in which they are strong and to waste as little effort as possible trying to improve the areas in which they don't have much competence." Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005), Austrian author of management-related literature

Yet you won't know what you're really good at until you've tried it.

And that takes time - basically, the 42 year old just had more time to figure out what he's good at.

Re: Why he is there and I am here

#22

Post by userulluipeste » Thu, Dec 05, 2013, 3:24 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #7

Well... sorry, but without more details, that's just fluff. * How did they handle the stuff they weren't good at? * Was this tested with other people? Is it possible to apply the method to people who were previously doing stuff they weren't good at and see results? * With a startup, that does not have much money, the founders are responsible for doing everything. Presumably, they are not good at all of it. What shoul…

* Delegate the stuff you're not very good at. (As a consequence, get good at recognizing the delegates' quality.)

* That man wasn't doing that for the first time, and he had partners (if that qualifies as "other people"). The man also did stuff he wasn't good at and only gradually changed his habit, the results are what inspired the post writing.

* Chose your enterprise wisely.

Re: Why he is there and I am here

#23

Post by userulluipeste » Thu, Dec 05, 2013, 3:34 PM UTC

frobozz wrote: post #19

This is somewhat impotent advice, you don't just magically make money by giving up everything you're no good at. There are two reasons for this: 1) I'm good at making things. I'm bad at sales, marketing, hiring and delegation. I concentrate all my efforts on making things. Where's my 5 million? 2) You have to give it a reasonable punt. For example, there would be no professional musicians if everyone followed this ad…

1) Partner up with people good at sales, marketing, hiring and delegation.

2) You're right, «nobody is "good" straight away», there is a constant self-improvement required. Yet, one might have inclinations which would make more sense to invest in instead of stretching oneself thin all over.

Re: Why he is there and I am here

#24

Post by userulluipeste » Thu, Dec 05, 2013, 3:48 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #6

henrik_w wrote: post #2

Yes, focus on your strengths. I like this quote: "For years I have urged managers to concentrate their efforts in areas in which they are strong and to waste as little effort as possible trying to improve the areas in which they don't have much competence." Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005), Austrian author of management-related literature

This is in contrast to a lot of recent advice on improving cognitive skills, which tells us to do things that are hard, not those we are already good at (basically the old specialist vs. generalist debate).

One may have "improving skills not already good at" in his agenda, but then shouldn't expect the resulted performance to be the same as with "being already pretty good at". That was the underlying idea of the blog post - the performance comparison.

Re: Why he is there and I am here

#25

Post by lazyjones » Thu, Dec 05, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

henrik_w wrote: post #14

shubhamjain wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another quote that comes immediately in my mind: "97% of advice is worthless.". Honestly, I can't think of any reason why a person must not extend his / her scope to different activities.

Or "A witty saying proves nothing" (Voltaire). Taking myself as an example: I like programming, and I am good at it. I don't like administration. So I don't try to become a manager, or a project manager or similar. I am sure I could if I tried, but I would not be very good at it. So for me it works out really well to focus on my strengths (making sure I am as good of a programmer as I can be). The result is that I pr…

> I like programming, and I am good at it. I don't like administration. So I don't try to become a manager, or a project manager or similar.

I like programming and was quite good at it. In fact, people bugged me to start a company based on a website I'd built until I gave in. 13 years later I've been a "manager" for all this time, still rather bad at managing people, but successful enough for 7-figure dividends. I can't say I regret trying it and not focusing on my strengths instead (I'd probably be a somewhat highly-paid employee in tech somewhere if I had done so). Also, I can still program every day and enjoy it.

Re: Why he is there and I am here

#26

Post by goshx » Thu, Dec 05, 2013, 4:45 PM UTC

Great quote: "Raw talent is wasted if it’s busy doing the wrong stuff."

The key is figuring out what one is good at. Some people believe they are good on something, trying to prove that to peers, but they are not.