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About me: I'm an unrepentant generalist finding my way in a world of specialists. I started this blog to review books, but I now talk about topics ranging from management to cognition to social software.
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My social network would be considered poor by traditional standards, where more connections are better. Yet my network is powerful because I know connectors. I only know a few people in nextNY, but I know Charlie O’Donnell who knows everybody else. I’ve met a few people through likemind, but I’m friends with Noah Brier, one of the people who started it.
My network is structured differently than the connectors, who have direct links to hundreds of people. But I’m only one link away from the people in their networks. Last year, I called this quality being a social butterfly, but after finding the social network analysis page mentioned in that post, I like the term “boundary spanner”.
Thinking about my network got me thinking about the networks that each of the different networkers would have. The rolodex networker will have a broad but shallow network with very weak links. The connector will also have a network with many direct links but because of their personality, those links will be stronger. I have fewer direct links, but those links are entrances into other networks (I should note that I was not motivated by expanding my network, but by meeting new and interesting people, who tend to know other interesting people).
One of the limitations on the structure of personal networks is that social networks require maintenance or they fade away. We get together with our friends, we attend networking events, we drop people emails or postcards to let them know we’re thinking of them, etc. And that network maintenance takes time and effort.
How people choose to spend their “social maintenance budget” determines what kind of network they will have. Some will spend a few minutes with many people, shaking hands at happy hours and the like, creating a large network with weak links. Others will spend more time with fewer people, creating a smaller network with stronger links. Then there are the more typical mixed networks: strong ties with family and a few friends, weaker ties with coworkers, weak ties with folks at the gym or the bar, etc.
You can increase the size of your “social maintenance budget”, but that requires sacrificing something else in life. You only have so many hours in the day and so much energy. The agenda networkers who are seeking funding might be out every night looking for investors, but at the cost of time with friends and family.
Alas, networking is not an even playing field. Some people are naturally charismatic and memorable e.g. the connectors. They can get far more out of their “social maintenance budget” because they require less time with people to maintain a strong connection. Those of who us with wallflower personalities have to work harder to maintain a similar number of connections, so we have fewer connections. Different people, different types of networks.
So think about where you’re spending your time and social energy:
If you don’t have the network that you’d like, assess your personality type and choose the type of networking most appropriate. Because I’m not an extroverted connector, I have to concentrate on fewer connections so I need to make those connections count. If I’m going to spend my “social maintenance budget” on expanding my network, I need to find those connectors to get the greatest return.
P.S. Boy, that last sentence sounds really Machiavellian. In reality, I’m more likely to meet connectors because two introverts rarely start conversations with each other. And once I’m in a conversation, I can build connections with the people that reach out. But my larger point remains - in a world of limited time and energy, I have to make choices, so these posts are my way of thinking through the implications of those choices.
Feedback sessions are a powerful tool for generating forward progress in any aspect of life. Even though I determined that iteration and feedback don’t work as a management tactic, I still think feedback sessions are important.
One simple benefit is that regular feedback sessions force you to take action. It almost doesn’t matter what form the session takes - it could be a daily status meeting, a one-on-one with your manager or mentor, or even a journal update that you write for yourself. You can keep yourself moving forward by regularly being evaluated on what you’ve done since your last session, and what needs to be done for the next one. I feel like I have drifted less since starting the five minute daily journal report suggested by Gerald Weinberg. There’s no implied consequence in failing to accomplish my daily goals, but getting into the habit of setting goals and recording whether I reached them has kept me more focused and disciplined.
Another benefit of regular feedback sessions is to confirm which direction is forward. One tactic I use in rapid prototyping situations where direction is unclear is to create a first draft just to have something to criticize. I don’t spend a lot of time on that first effort because I’m not trying to solve the problem with it. Its point is to elicit criticism, and by analyzing and understanding that criticism, I learn where I should be spending my design efforts and what the final goal is as of today. By getting early feedback, I don’t waste time polishing a solution that doesn’t fit the situation. Because I intentionally didn’t spend much time on that first attempt, I’m not personally invested in it, so I am open to exploring other options in response to the feedback I get. With regular feedback sessions, I can work with my teammates in shaping our work even as goals change.
To take a specific counter-example, I once worked at a company where a software team interviewed end-users about what they needed, drew up a specification and disappeared for six months to code to that specification. They came back with software that did exactly what was requested and found that circumstances had changed drastically over the six months since the specification was written, making their software useless. But because they had spent six months writing that software, they were emotionally invested in finding a use for it, so they spent another couple months trying to fit it into what the end-users were doing. If they had re-evaluated the specification every two weeks with the end-users, they could have evolved the software in response to the changing landscape and not wasted their time or the time of the end-users.
Feedback sessions also allow us to overcome our innate desire to keep doing what we have always done. We humans are subject to the consistency principle described by Cialdini, where once we say we’re doing something, we become more committed to doing it. We don’t want to find out that we made the wrong choice, so we either don’t evaluate the results, or interpret the evaluation results in order to support the choice we made. Feedback sessions allow us to verify that our choice is having the intended effect.
In an environment where feedback is valued, the review informs what will happen next. If everybody involved has agreed to take action in response to feedback, designing the evaluation process is in some sense more important than designing the work itself, because the evaluation process will determine how the work evolves. This is the idea behind test driven development, where the evaluation (test) is actually written before any work starts on the software itself. This is also why students always clamor to know the grading scheme at the beginning of the term - they plan their work by knowing how they will be evaluated. A good evaluation process creates a good end result.
Feedback sessions play a large part in why I currently function better as a team player. I do not yet have the self-discipline to re-evaluate myself with brutal honesty on a regular basis. I’m working on that with exercises like the daily Weinberg journal. I’ve also started setting up regular phone calls with trusted friends to talk about my life goals, and even though they are friends, I feel a responsibility to have made some progress towards those goals between calls. These feedback sessions are increasing my ability to move forward and execute, and I think that is a good thing.
P.S. I wrote this post on a bus on the way to Cornell. Yes, the bus has wi-fi. Luxury!
When I worked at Signature BioScience, there were ten other software developers, all of whom wrote better and more sophisticated code than I did. Yet I survived through multiple layoffs as Signature spiralled into bankruptcy, and I was the only developer re-hired by MDS Sciex when they picked up the pieces from Signature’s carnage. Seem peculiar?
It was actually an easy choice for Sciex. At the time Signature went under, I had written the vast majority of the code actually being used by the company. The difference was that the other developers went to the biologists, asked them what software they needed, put together a specification based on what they were told, and coded to that specification. Yet somehow, even though they delivered code that did exactly what was requested, it never did what what the biologists wanted.
My skill as a software developer was not in my programming skills, but in my ability to identify and fix the underlying problem. When a biologist asked me for software that did A, I’d talk to them, realize that they were actually trying to solve problem B, and give them software that solved problem B by doing C. When I worked as a consultant, one of my clients said in admiring bewilderment, “You never give me what I ask for, but it always does what I need!” Similarly, the biologists at Signature eventually said “Eric just reads our minds!” when asked why they used my software over the software delivered by other developers.
I was thinking about this recently because identifying and solving the underlying problem seems to be a general concern of management. To take a concrete example, if sales aren’t meeting expectations, what’s really going on?
Is it that
As a manager facing this situation, it’s important not to dive into fixing the problem without first determining which of these possibilities apply, because you could end up like those developers at Signature, doing a lot of work with nothing to show for it. It’s also important to not to get too attached to a single solution (like making your people work harder), because that’s the “everything looks like a nail” situation.
As an aside, I think this is the idea behind the theory of constraints in manufacturing, as described by Eliyahu Goldratt in his books The Goal and Critical Chain, but I haven’t read those yet.
This idea of first identifying the real problem also applies in the softer side of management. When somebody isn’t doing a task assigned to them, what’s going on?
It would be easy to assume any of these and take action, but picking the wrong one could exacerbate the problem.
As an aspiring manager, I believe it’s impossible to distinguish between these various possibilities without actually talking to the employee in question. All the project management software in the world won’t help you figure out what’s really happening - such software can only provide an idealized abstraction of the situation. Five minutes of conversation can often identify the obstructing issue, and make it clear what the appropriate response is. I also believe that such conversation shows interest in the employee and makes it clear to them they are valued, but that’s a personal bias.
The difficulty of identifying the underlying problem is why the characteristics of reflection and thoughtfulness are so important in a manager. It’s too easy to jump on the first solution presented and spend resources without having any impact on the problem. You can tell the companies that do this - they unquestioningly adopt the meme-of-the-year from Re-engineering to Six Sigma to Total Quality Management to Agile Programming, hoping that this time it will solve their problems.
So when faced with a problem, don’t assume you know what’s going on and immediately start yelling out orders in an attempt to exude authority. Take the time to talk to everybody associated with the problem, figure out what they think is going on, get agreement on the problem and possible solutions, and go from there.
I’m almost halfway through my summer “vacation” from classes and it’s time to pause and reflect on what I’m doing with my time off. One of the joys of having free time again is being able to waste it, but I’m finding that spending time in certain ways doesn’t make me particularly happy.
For instance, it’s very pleasant to spend the evening laughing with friends over drinks. But it’s a fleeting, transitory experience. There’s nothing I can hold on to the next day besides the bonhomie of being among friends.
I’ve also spent too much time recently playing a silly Flash game called Desktop Tower Defense. It’s fun and involving while I’m playing it, but there’s no real sense of accomplishment afterwards.
In contrast, I recently played in a ultimate frisbee tournament on the beach at Coney Island. It was fun, running and diving in the sand. Because it was a hat tournament where teams are chosen randomly, I was playing with people I didn’t know. By the end of the day, I felt like I had proved that I belonged on the same field with these club team players. Even though it was a transitory experience, it felt more satisfying because it was a tribute to my continuing improvement at frisbee.
Blogging is also curiously satisfying. When I write a good post, it leaves me feeling happy for days. I feel like I’ve expressed something of value and articulated something meaningful, and that feels like a lasting achievement. It also plays to my desire to show improvement, as the blog format provides a history so I can compare my writing to previous efforts.
I don’t want to make myself out as a monk who refuses to appreciate the baser desires of life. I enjoy the pleasures of a good meal and drinking with friends. But I get greater satisfaction out of working hard towards an achievement. Anybody can go out drinking. Not everybody can play frisbee or write about the things I write about. I apparently have a desire for uniqueness and achievement that outweighs the good feelings generated by serotonin receptors.
One activity that confounds these boundaries is conversation. I love good conversations. If I can have an exchange with somebody at a party or bar that sparks my interest and gets me thinking, it makes the whole evening worthwhile, despite a conversation’s transitory nature. Perhaps it’s that a good conversation synthesizes new ideas out of the experiences of the participants, so it’s a shared achievement.
In some ways, this post is a re-statement of my post about discipline. I am starting to find it more satisfying in the long term to set goals and to achieve them than to do what feels good in the short term. I’m still working on living this way consistently, with too many lapses into playing computer games or re-reading fantasy novels. But posting about it should remind me that I want to do more, and time is ticking away.
P.S. I am going to try to make Noah Brier’s happy hour on Friday. Noah’s one of the organizers of likemind, and it looks like another attendee will be Grant McCracken, whose blog I really enjoy. Join me if you’re interested.
A friend recently told me about his vacation where he felt surprisingly productive despite not having access to his normal resources (he only had a carry-on bag of clothes, a laptop and a couple books). Because he had fewer choices about what to do, he just picked a task available to him and started working on it.
In a similar vein, I read harder books when I’m on vacation. If I’m on a plane flight, my only choice is to read the book I have, so I will read it and enjoy it even though it’s difficult. When I’m at home, I’ll start it, but then I’ll check my email, watch some TV, or re-read a favorite sci-fi novel, and then it’s time for sleep.
It’s the inverse of the paradox of choice, which is when you become paralyzed by having to choose from among too many choices. When you have no choices, you can just get started.
It reminds me of a story from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig was teaching composition in a college in Bozeman, Montana, and gave his students a 5,000 word assignment. One student came to him at the deadline and told him that she was unable to complete the assignment because she couldn’t think of anything to write about her chosen topic, the United States. He told her the U.S. was too big a topic for this composition, and to try again, with the topic of Bozeman. She remained stuck. He suggested the city hall of Bozeman. She remained stuck. Finally, in exasperation, he told her to write about the front of the city hall, starting with the top left brick. When she was constrained to that extent, she was forced to start writing, and ended up with a 50,000 word essay.
Sometimes it’s better to give ourselves constraints, to give ourselves less choice. It goes against our instincts - Stumbling on Happiness cites studies showing that we tend to choose options that give us more choices in the future. But the book also demonstrates that having those choices doesn’t make us happier. Sometimes the right thing to do is to embrace a lack of choice.
We’ve all done it. When you needed to study for a big test in college, you didn’t try to do it in your dorm room - you went to the library where there were fewer distractions. Writers don’t sit at home all day - they go to cafes where they’re alone with their manuscript (or laptops these days).
Giving yourself less options puts you in position to succeed. One of my beliefs about management is that good managers put their employees in roles where they are more likely to be successful. What I’m saying here is that we need to manage ourselves in the same way, and maximize our chances of success.
When I have a hard book to read, I need to head to the library or the park or a cafe where I won’t get distracted by easier pursuits. When I need to get a paper done, I need to turn off the Internet connection. When I plan to exercise, I need to prepare by getting all of my gear in one place so it’s easy for me to get myself out the door before I lose my momentum. Twyla Tharp’s “rituals of preparation” are the same idea - get oneself in a place, both physically and mentally, where you can do the task.
It’s similar to my idea about an attention management system. To-do lists can be overwhelming because there are so many things on there that we feel like we can’t make a dent so we never do anything. One of the key ideas was that the to-do list would only gave you one task at a time. No choices. Choice introduces uncertainty and the cognitive overhead of trying to make a good choice.
I need to remember this idea. Pick one thing, forget about my other options, then put myself in an environment where I can only do that one thing so I’m not tempted by the other options. Get away from my pathological need to increase my options and start choosing some of those options and getting things done. Something to think about.
Twyla Tharp, in her book The Creative Habit, tells the story of working on the musical Moving Out, set to Billy Joel’s work. She listened to all of his music, watched all of his music videos, read or watched every interview with him, watched iconic movies of the Vietnam war like Full Metal Jacket, read and watched correspondence of the war, watched TV dance shows from the era to remember what the dances looked like, reviewed news clippings from the era, etc.
Do all of these influences make it into the final work? Probably not. Do they play a part in how the final work evolved? Almost certainly.
It reminds me of a conversation I had a few months ago with Joel Johnson, a professional blogger and freelance journalist. I was picking his brain about the craft of writing, and we were talking about the ruthless process of editing. He told me that great journalists do interviews with everybody associated with the story and spend time in the library, accumulating an enormous amount of background material. Their challenge isn’t finding enough words to fill their piece. It’s finding the room for all the words they want to put in, so they have to cut every unnecessary word, every sentence that doesn’t contribute to the central idea of the piece.
Joel claimed you could tell the hacks because they hadn’t done the research and could afford to ramble. Alternatively, they went in with an idea, and only did the bare minimum of research necessary to find supporting evidence. The good journalists do the research, collect all sides of the story and then sift through their accumulated material to find the core of their piece. Once they have that core, it gives them the focus to cut away everything else.
As an aside, he recommended the work of Gay Talese, especially his profile Frank Sinatra Has A Cold, where he never actually got to interview Frank Sinatra but made the piece work anyway.
This approach also applies to the business world. While working on my master’s project, my mentor kept on pushing me to dig deeper, researching the competition, reading more material, etc. He reminded me that while the nominal deliverable was a brief business plan and a ten minute presentation, those were just the visible results. The real deliverable was an expert in the field, somebody who had done the research and could be trusted to make the right decision.
My mentor emphasized finding the core of the idea. The research was a necessary precondition to finding the idea that filled a market need by positioning the proposed product in the market, and that core idea evolved as I did more research. But finding that idea is what allowed me to construct the final presentation and business plan deliverables. I had too much to include in my ten minute presentation, so I had to pare away everything that wasn’t relevant to that core.
That “extraneous” research wasn’t wasted, though. I needed to have done it to find the core idea, and it informed what I ended up doing. It definitely made it easier to answer questions at my presentation because I had considered other options and knew why I had rejected them.
I find it fascinating that the same process is used in three seemingly divergent fields like art, journalism and business.
Doing that research up front lays the foundation for everything that comes later. You can’t find the best ideas unless you have considered them all. If you go in with a preconceived idea, your research will necessarily be limited to what will support that idea. And while it seems wasteful because that research isn’t used directly in the end resuit, it informs all of the creative decisions in the process of developing that result.
Research requires discipline, to keep seeking new sources and confirming that you aren’t missing anything. It can be drudgery, but it makes the end result better by laying a solid foundation. And so we return to the theme of discipline. Discipline is needed to not take any shortcuts, and to do the work necessary for the desired final result.
Are we sensing a theme yet in what I’m concerned about in my life right now?
P.S. We’ve been asked at work to start writing a corporate blog. If you want to know what I sound like in salesman mode, you can go read my articles about the company and its products.
P.P.S. I circumnavigated Manhattan on my bike yesterday for the first time. It’s about 30 miles and most of it is a nice ride, as there’s a bike path that goes about 90% of the way around the island. Yesterday was the first time I tried to maneuver my way through the 40 blocks of Harlem where there’s no bike path - I found a way through, but it wasn’t pleasant and I’ll probably just turn around and avoid it in the future.
Following up on the previous post about discipline, I think another reason for discipline is that it’s necessary to achieve mastery. I was reminded of this while reading Artful Making, by Robert Austin and Lee Devin. They relate the process of management to the making of collaborative art, such as putting a play together. I’ll review the book in a future post, but the point that struck me was their emphasis on iterations - trying things over and over again in different ways to see what works and what doesn’t.
Their description reminded me of being in the chorus. There’s always a rehearsal or two in the middle of preparing for a concert where it gets really tedious - we’re past the point of learning the notes but not quite to the point of making music. The notes are there, but they’re not quite locked down to the point where we can forget about them and concentrate on the higher level music. So we have to run parts over and over again until it becomes automatic. It’s boring, it’s annoying, but it’s necessary to get to the point where we’re not singing notes, but making music.
This relates back to my theory of cognitive subroutines. When we do something over and over again, we’re ingraining it deep into our brain so that it can be handled unconsciously, leaving our limited conscious brain to concentrate on other things. While the adage says “Practice Makes Perfect”, my music teachers told me that it should be “Practice Makes Permanent”. If we do something enough times the same way, we’ll do it automatically without thinking about it.
Why is it necessary to be able to accomplish the task unconsciously? So that we can think about other things. In chorus, it’s only when I can sing the notes automatically that I can pay attention to the lyrics and the musical shape. In volleyball, I have to be able to hit the ball consistently and automatically before I can start paying attention to reading the court and “hit ‘em where they ain’t”. In frisbee, I have to be able to make the throw without thinking before I can start reading the field and figure out how to beat the defense. And then, all of these can be taken one step further when that level of expertise is mastered (but I haven’t gotten there myself).
This idea of mastery is also covered by Gary Klein’s Sources of Power, where he describes how firefighters make rapid and correct decisions in the field. They have been in so many situations that they know what to look for at an unconscious level, and thus can react immediately.
The key to this level of mastery is the iterations. It’s doing it over and over again until the reactions become automatic. It’s being in the situation enough times that you’ve seen everything that can happen and know how to react. When you’ve played a game enough times, whether it be hearts or World of Warcraft, you won’t be surprised by most situations that occur - you’ve confronted the situation before, tried a few different responses, found one that worked, and now use it without thinking in that situation, leaving your brain to concentrate on other goals.
Doing something enough times to lock it in at an unconscious level is tedious. It’s not fun, whether it’s practicing that scale on the violin or doing volleyball drills or writing code. And that’s where the discipline comes in. It’s being able to push through the iterations, to deliberately practice, to get to that next level. And the iterations can’t be done mindlessly - you have to know what results you are planning to achieve. To push through those iterations requires a level of passion, a desire to be the best. Passion enables discipline which enables mastery.
Now I just need to figure out what I feel passionate enough about to push through to the next level. Or learn some discipline.
P.S. Along those lines, Scott Berkun posted an essay yesterday on How to stay motivated. I really like Berkun’s writing, like his previous book on The Art of Project Management, so I wanted to give a shout-out about his new book on The Myths of Innovation, which is winging its way to me from Amazon right now.
I was talking to a friend over the weekend, and somehow we got onto the topic of discipline. I think we had been talking about PhD programs. We’re both generalists and tend to have interests that are broad rather than deep, so there’s no intrinsic appeal to the idea of getting up each day and drilling deeper into the same topic. If something’s not interesting, move on. So the question arose: “What is the value of discipline?” We started bouncing ideas around, and it’s an interesting topic so I’m blogging it.
One thought was that the idea of discipline was like that of the “Protestant work ethic”, a relic of the industrial age. We are taught that discipline is important in school, because public education was originally designed to teach children the skills they would need in the factory: show up on time, do what you’re told, stay in your seat. Going to work involved doing unpleasant things, so having the discipline to go to work was a valuable skill. But in a world of the Creative Class where authors talk about the value of happiness at work, is the concept of discipline outdated?
It’s tempting to think so, but I think discipline still has value in the modern age. The concept of discipline has to evolve, though. No longer is it sufficient to be disciplined the way the Organization Man was: having a set routine each day, getting up at the same time, kissing the wife and kids goodbye, catching the same train to arrive at the same office at the same time, every family living their identical lives as part of the quotidian herd. This is what comes to mind when we think of discipline and that isn’t where the value lies.
I’ve seen hints of that value in several different works recently. One is The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp, who says “being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns. [Writers have their own patterns] but the real secret is that they do this every day. In other words, they are disciplined. Over time, as the daily routines become second nature, discipline morphs into habit.” She describes the importance of “rituals of preparation”, which are “as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.” Maybe if I got past the first chapter of that book I’d blog more 
Another book where discipline plays a role is Seth Godin’s The Dip. The premise is that you have to go through a period of hardship before breaking through to the next level of achievement. Many people stagnate in their previous level of achievement rather than risk going through “The Dip”. Getting through “The Dip” requires a level of discipline and belief.
In both of these cases, the idea of discipline is important, but the specifics of how it applies to the individual situation differs. Your ritual of preparation will be different than mine. The Dip one business faces is completely different than another. So one of the key points of adapting discipline to this freewheeling world is understanding that there aren’t any universal answers any more. Discipline is going to manifest itself differently in different people, as people have their own lives to lead.
The core of discipline is the ability to set goals and then to meet them. The specific goals will vary from person to person, but developing the character trait of meeting one’s internal goals is valuable no matter where life leads. Even if you start with little goals, those little goals start to accumulate, and you develop the confidence to handle bigger goals, and are achieving more than you ever thought possible.
Gerald Weinberg, in his book Becoming a Technical Leader, states that the best tool to determine whether you are ready to become a problem-solving leader is to spend five minutes each day writing in a personal journal, as a test of your discipline and self-reflection. Five minutes a day is a very little goal, but it’s amazing how hard it is to stick to it (I’ve done 54 out of the past 82 days). The act of trying has improved my discipline in other ways, though, as keeping the journal provides a place to keep track of little goals and my (in)ability to achieve them. I’m setting other little goals for myself, from developing exercise habits to eating healthier. None of them individually are large, but I think the effects will accumulate over time.
Discipline matters, possibly more than ever. There’s been plenty of research to show that effort matters more than talent. Having the wherewithal to continue trying even when facing failure is a valuable skill. We can’t stay in our comfort zones even if we want to - the world changes too fast, eroding the comfort zone even if we don’t move. So the ability to change ourselves, even in small steps, is necessary to continue functioning.
Two different commenters have now said that my conception of “The Guy” was what Malcolm Gladwell dubbed a Maven in The Tipping Point. That didn’t feel right to me, so I went back and re-read the “Law of the Few” chapter where Gladwell describes Mavens to see if I could figure out why I thought “The Guy” and the Maven weren’t the same thing.
I feel like the Maven is more of a personality type. Mavens are the kind of people who read Consumer Reports, who compulsively figure out schemes to save money.
Alpert launched into a complicated story of how to make the best use of coupons in renting videos at Blockbuster. Then he stopped himself, as if he realized what he was saying, and burst out laughing. “Look, you can save a whole dollar! In a year’s time I could probably save enough for a whole bottle of wine!”
Mavens love telling you about the deals they have found, and the great products they have discovered. But I don’t think it’s something they limit to one area - they treat everything in their life like this. They’ll tell you about the great deal they got at a hotel or at the grocery store - they are overflowing with information. But it’s a resource to be tapped in a transactional exchange, when I need to know something. When I’m buying a stereo or a car, I might consult a Maven for their input, but then I don’t continue to compulsively check back on the latest prices or the newest releases.
So how does “The Guy” differ? I think anybody can become “The Guy” - it’s not a personality trait. It’s a choice to become the nexus of knowledge on a particular subject.
In one sense, “The Guy” is like the Maven, in that he is the person to whom others go to get a question answered. But I think it’s different in that “The Guy” engenders the formation of a community. It’s not a one-time transaction, but a continuing interaction.
Another difference is that I view “The Guy” as being a leader for their issue and for the associated community. Mavens aren’t really leaders - as Gladwell says, “Mavens are really information brokers, sharing and trading what they know.” They will help you out, but it’s not really about you - it’s about their joy in mastering their domain. Consulting them is like consulting any specialist, whether a database expert or a physicist - they are happy to talk at length about their domain but have no real interests outside of it. Great people to have on your team, but not the people you want in charge.
What’s odd is that being “The Guy” requires an amalgam of all three of Gladwell’s personality types. It takes the domain expertise of the Maven to earn respect, the social wherewithal of the Connector to generate a community in that domain, and the Salesman to convince people of the importance of that domain and community. So there are definite overlaps between what Gladwell is saying and what I’m trying to say. He’s describing the skills which are necessary for something to “tip”, and I’m describing the person who aspires to make that happen. Something like that, at least.
I’ve mentioned the Paradox of Choice before, both the New Yorker article and the book I haven’t read. The basic idea is that although it seems like more options would be better, too many options actually creates a situation where we are overwhelmed by choice and can’t make a decision at all. The canonical study by Barry Schwartz showed that “shoppers who were offered free samples of six different jams were more likely to buy one than shoppers who were offered free samples of twenty-four”. Shoppers with more choices became so obsessed with picking the right one that they picked none at all.
I was talking to Wes last week and realized that my generation is facing this problem with our careers. Thanks to the efforts of our parents, we have more options available to us than ever before. For centuries, children worked in the same profession as their parents, in the same town, because they had no other options. It was too expensive to travel, and it was impossible to develop the skills you needed for a different trade.
In today’s world of knowledge workers, if you have a college education (and admittedly the access to such an education is still restricted), you have a plethora of options available to you. You’re not restricted culturally - there’s no expectation that you will do what your parents did. You’re not restricted economically - research has shown that $40,000 a year is the point past which salary becomes a way of keeping score rather than satisfying basic needs, and most college-educated workers will be making at least that. You’re not restricted geographically any more - it’s absurdly easy to pick up and move across the country for a new experience. Most of us are members of the Creative Class now.
So we can do anything. Now what? How do we choose?
Careers defined people for so long that it is considered to be an essential part of one’s identity. The first question we ask of somebody we don’t know is “What do you do?” Our profession defines us to others and to ourselves. And once we start getting into questions of identity, things become much more sticky. Identity is not something that we mess around with lightly - it’s _who_we_are_ (as an aside, I mentioned that yesterday as a possible reason why people don’t like discussing religion and politics) (as another aside, I always hate this question and avoid answering it, because my job doesn’t do a good job of defining me - when I say I work at a software startup, I get placed in an identity bin where I don’t feel I fit. This is part of the rebranding of myself as an unrepentant generalist so that I have an answer that fits me better).
Another constraint is the very idea of a career. We’ve been brought up in a society of norms that one has to choose a career - you only get to do one thing, and that defines you. This comes from the days of the company man, where you got hired out of college into an entry-level position, and then worked your way up through the company before eventually retiring 35 years later. That was the norm in our parents’ generation. But it creates the expectation that the job you take is leading someplace, that even if it’s not the job, it’s giving you what you need to get the next one.
Because of these expectations and these ties to identity, choosing a job feels overwhelming. So the plethora of options becomes a true Paradox of Choice, where it feels like the opportunity cost of choosing anything is too high. My friend Emil made the comparison to a restaurant: if you don’t like what you chose this time, you order something different next time - there’s no history that constrains your future choices. Choosing a job isn’t like that - it defines our identity, it makes it harder to get other jobs in the future because employers want to see a career path.
I think that as cultural norms shift, we’re going to see a lot more openness to treating jobs more like ordering from a menu - “I tried this, but it didn’t really work for me - I’ll try that next time.” More people are trying alternative career paths, either doing their own startup or job-hopping through several jobs to figure out what they want. That is making it more acceptable to realize that a job is just a job, not an identity, so there won’t be anything wrong with quitting a job after six months because it’s not working for you. We’ll be able to retcon our lives to frame our job history in a way that helps us get the next job.
When confronted with a Paradox of Choice, the worst response is to dither and not make a choice at all. So we need to just pick something and try it. And if the cultural norms shift as I expect, then it will make that choice easier, because the perceived downsides of making the wrong choice will be reduced because it won’t be choosing an identity any more - just a job.
P.S. Classes were finished a week ago. It took me basically that whole week for me to make up the exhaustion debt from the end of term to the point where my brain was functioning enough for me to start thinking and wanting to blog. I think I’m back now, at least when I’m not running around playing ultimate or joining groups like the Bad Egg Collective.
