Here's an interesting follow-up to the original Gervais Principle article:
http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/201 ... -startups/
He brings up a new term, "technocrat", which I think people here will identify with. I'm not quite as cynical as the author, but I think it's good to understand the game and not fall into the trap of being one of the "clueless". It's best to be a self-aware loser or a sociopath.
A follow-up to the Gervais Principle
Yes, that is interesting, although I think the whole theory suffers from not understanding psychopathy and its cousin, narcissim, leading to this artificial construct of "technocrat". His description of technocrat sounds similar to narcissist, but is a little off.
For reference, a common statement of the Gervais principle is:
"Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves."
The problem with this statement is the unstated assumption that psychopaths are creations of their working environment, which most researchers would disagree with. While there is endless debate over whether psychopaths are born that way or created through abuse or other trauma or drugs as children (chances are both theories are likely to be correct -- the latter are sometimes distinguished as "characteropaths"), by the time they become adults, they are essentially hard-wired an unlikely to change.
In fact, psychopaths would generally promote nobody or would promote someone whom they could control and manipulate. (Think cult leader or ideology-based dictator.) Or perhaps another sociopath, because they need othe people who lack conscience to do the dirty work.
Best discussion about psychopathy for the lay-person is probably Robert Hare's "Without Conscience". Hare posits that 1-4% of the population are psychopathic. The most common place to find them is prisons, but the second most common is stock/financial exchanges.
A more practical approach to identifying and dealing with psychopathic personalities in your everyday life would be Martha Stout's "The Sociopath Next Door". Very useful book.
An interesting, but mistitled (and a bit overly sensational) book entitled "The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success" posits that psychopathic traits, if controlled, can yield positive outcomes in certain circumstances. Short summary here: http://books.scientificamerican.com/fsg ... ychopaths/
In my view, a whole theory of the way the world works could be derived from the existence of psychopaths and their disproportional effects on organizations and the way they use power. I am very confident that there is a power law distribution involved.
For reference, a common statement of the Gervais principle is:
"Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves."
The problem with this statement is the unstated assumption that psychopaths are creations of their working environment, which most researchers would disagree with. While there is endless debate over whether psychopaths are born that way or created through abuse or other trauma or drugs as children (chances are both theories are likely to be correct -- the latter are sometimes distinguished as "characteropaths"), by the time they become adults, they are essentially hard-wired an unlikely to change.
In fact, psychopaths would generally promote nobody or would promote someone whom they could control and manipulate. (Think cult leader or ideology-based dictator.) Or perhaps another sociopath, because they need othe people who lack conscience to do the dirty work.
Best discussion about psychopathy for the lay-person is probably Robert Hare's "Without Conscience". Hare posits that 1-4% of the population are psychopathic. The most common place to find them is prisons, but the second most common is stock/financial exchanges.
A more practical approach to identifying and dealing with psychopathic personalities in your everyday life would be Martha Stout's "The Sociopath Next Door". Very useful book.
An interesting, but mistitled (and a bit overly sensational) book entitled "The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success" posits that psychopathic traits, if controlled, can yield positive outcomes in certain circumstances. Short summary here: http://books.scientificamerican.com/fsg ... ychopaths/
In my view, a whole theory of the way the world works could be derived from the existence of psychopaths and their disproportional effects on organizations and the way they use power. I am very confident that there is a power law distribution involved.
There's just no way you can call everyone that is not a sociopath a loser or clueless.
Damn, that guy's head must be a terrible place to spend a day.
I do agree with and maybe even personify this however:
"Technocrats, on the other hand, love New Places, because New Places are positive-sum– you can build cool things on inexpensive, unused territory and improve it. The Technocrats poured into California when it was a geographic New Place and land was cheap. Now the New Places are elsewhere. It’s not clear what the next Technocratic New Place is, or even if “Place” still needs to be a geographic location, but it’s no longer Northern California...What I hope to see during 2013, and the coming years, is a Flight to Substance. I want the best people– investors, entrepreneurs, engineers– to realize that they’ve been hoodwinked by VC-istan’s shallow reinvention of the corporate system as something different and “cooler”, and to demand a return to Real Technology. I want to see better ideas, better companies, and better cultures. I want to see funding for research and development, so that people can do intellectually interesting work without being thrown into the secondary labor market that academia has become. I want to see a world in which people actually care about solving hard problems and delivering real value. When this happens, the Technocrats can win again."
Note to Technocrats...it's up to you not the others. Pack your shit up and move.
Damn, that guy's head must be a terrible place to spend a day.
I do agree with and maybe even personify this however:
"Technocrats, on the other hand, love New Places, because New Places are positive-sum– you can build cool things on inexpensive, unused territory and improve it. The Technocrats poured into California when it was a geographic New Place and land was cheap. Now the New Places are elsewhere. It’s not clear what the next Technocratic New Place is, or even if “Place” still needs to be a geographic location, but it’s no longer Northern California...What I hope to see during 2013, and the coming years, is a Flight to Substance. I want the best people– investors, entrepreneurs, engineers– to realize that they’ve been hoodwinked by VC-istan’s shallow reinvention of the corporate system as something different and “cooler”, and to demand a return to Real Technology. I want to see better ideas, better companies, and better cultures. I want to see funding for research and development, so that people can do intellectually interesting work without being thrown into the secondary labor market that academia has become. I want to see a world in which people actually care about solving hard problems and delivering real value. When this happens, the Technocrats can win again."
Note to Technocrats...it's up to you not the others. Pack your shit up and move.
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jacob
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Three words: Fuck you money.
Leave the organizations.
I like any theory that can explain a lot of data with few variables.
The Gervais principle works well within larger organizations which has at least 3 levels of management (I used to work in a place with 7 levels!). It's hard to imagine the theory being very useful to describe the workplace dynamics of a corner bakery.
Or in this case startups. The "Technocrat" seems a bit like a patch that doesn't fit it with the rest. While letting people have different "preferences" or degrees of ability in all dimensions (clueless, loser, sociopath), it increases the descriptive power but also reduces the explanatory power.
This might not be too bad. One could say that organizations simply attract the certain kinds of people who fit into the corporate structure.
What I think is lagging is the non-people dimension. Notice how the Gervais types are described in terms of the relations to other people in the organization. Now, how many "techies" (technocrats) do you know who actually care more about their relation to other people or their place in the organization than whatever gadget/system they're working on?
The "techie"-problem is a real problem because organizatorial politics is often imposed on techies, eventually. If they're good, management has to find a way to reward them. This has typically meant promoting them to management (what a reward!) but techies don't like to manage. Some organizations has a second promotion track: "Support->Admin->Guru->Grand wizard" or something to do that. Bad techies eventually have to become losers (not interested in the management tasks that being clueless requires). See Dilbert. Also they're continuously in danger of being replaced with fresh blood.
Leave the organizations.
I like any theory that can explain a lot of data with few variables.
The Gervais principle works well within larger organizations which has at least 3 levels of management (I used to work in a place with 7 levels!). It's hard to imagine the theory being very useful to describe the workplace dynamics of a corner bakery.
Or in this case startups. The "Technocrat" seems a bit like a patch that doesn't fit it with the rest. While letting people have different "preferences" or degrees of ability in all dimensions (clueless, loser, sociopath), it increases the descriptive power but also reduces the explanatory power.
This might not be too bad. One could say that organizations simply attract the certain kinds of people who fit into the corporate structure.
What I think is lagging is the non-people dimension. Notice how the Gervais types are described in terms of the relations to other people in the organization. Now, how many "techies" (technocrats) do you know who actually care more about their relation to other people or their place in the organization than whatever gadget/system they're working on?
The "techie"-problem is a real problem because organizatorial politics is often imposed on techies, eventually. If they're good, management has to find a way to reward them. This has typically meant promoting them to management (what a reward!) but techies don't like to manage. Some organizations has a second promotion track: "Support->Admin->Guru->Grand wizard" or something to do that. Bad techies eventually have to become losers (not interested in the management tasks that being clueless requires). See Dilbert. Also they're continuously in danger of being replaced with fresh blood.
Techies worry greatly about position in my experience, but just in a different way. They seem to be much more interested in proving their ideas right at all costs, and I find the more formal training a techie has, the stronger this compulsion.
As a techie who moved to sales in a tech co, this is always one of my biggest problems when bringing a true techie in to the customer- it's a disaster when the techie starts pounding on an idea to prove they are right (or mentioning their book/pubs at every opportunity if they're originally out of academia) rather than try to solve whatever technical problem we're working on together to take to market and all make money.
As a techie who moved to sales in a tech co, this is always one of my biggest problems when bringing a true techie in to the customer- it's a disaster when the techie starts pounding on an idea to prove they are right (or mentioning their book/pubs at every opportunity if they're originally out of academia) rather than try to solve whatever technical problem we're working on together to take to market and all make money.
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jacob
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Not sure whether it was Scott Adams or someone else who said this, and I paraphrase, "never let engineers talk to romantic interests, customers, and other persons who can't handle the truth."
That's kinda what I meant when I said that techies are more "loyal" to the(ir) system than people. The(ir) system is a techie's equivalent of a moral cause.
That's kinda what I meant when I said that techies are more "loyal" to the(ir) system than people. The(ir) system is a techie's equivalent of a moral cause.
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jacob
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Not sure whether this was Scott Adams or someone else who said this, and I paraphrase, "never let engineers talk to romantic interests, customers, and other persons who can't handle the truth."
That's kinda what I meant when I said that techies are more "loyal" to the(ir) system than people. The(ir) system is a techie's equivalent of a moral cause.
That's kinda what I meant when I said that techies are more "loyal" to the(ir) system than people. The(ir) system is a techie's equivalent of a moral cause.
The problem, for me at least, is the period before you have the Fuck You Money. Most engineers have Fuck You Skills since there seems to be an oversupply of jobs. However, interviewing and changing jobs is a huge pain, so you have to factor that in. Because of this I realize that I'm at least partially dependent on The Organization, so I have to play its game until I have FYM. Early in my career I was definitely part of the Clueless, believing that there was a 1:1 relationship between effort and reward. Now I think I'm oscillating between Loser (after all I'm on ERE writing a post at 2 PM on a Thursday) and Sociopath.
I also love the Steve Jobs quote because it reminds us, like the Gervais Principle, that a little bit of sociopathy is necessary to get things done.
Now that I'm managing a few people, I literally have a tinge of guilt every time I delegate a task. This is something that would be easy for a sociopath, so I'm actually trying to become more sociopathic (sounds weird right?)
I also love the Steve Jobs quote because it reminds us, like the Gervais Principle, that a little bit of sociopathy is necessary to get things done.
Now that I'm managing a few people, I literally have a tinge of guilt every time I delegate a task. This is something that would be easy for a sociopath, so I'm actually trying to become more sociopathic (sounds weird right?)