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Personal anecdote, but I wonder if my experience as a junior officer in the Navy helped with this. The last comments in the piece are that intelligent leaders s
by killjoywashere 9y ago
Personal anecdote, but I wonder if my experience as a junior officer in the Navy helped with this. The last comments in the piece are that intelligent leaders should 1) seek creative metaphors and 2) speak charismatically. Coming to the fleet from a bachelor's in physics, I knew I was reasonably intelligent, but also that there were some people much smarter than me (at least my battered ego assured me of that).
So, walking aboard a frigate with sort of an academic's self-awareness and certainty that the world is an uncertain place, I had to lead a division of sailors who would do things that just left me dumbfounded. "Why would you attempt to drive through the closed base gate?" "Why would you test the 440V circuit with your fingers?" "Why would you go in the engine room without hearing protection?" "Do you realize you installed all the valves backward?" "Where did you meet this woman? No, she can't come on the ship!"
Then you have to get these folks to do work. They're not lazy, but trying motivate them with the bigger picture could be challenging. Metaphor came to hand more and more. And you sort of settle in. You're not intellectually challenged, and repetition and comfort bring confidence, which makes charismatic patterns of speech easier.
When I went to grad school, I found myself using these same patterns of speech to get things done. And I still do. It's always poor form to toot your own horn, but the last few years, I have to say, I've realized more and more, having a hard science degree and early leadership experience are an extremely valuable combination. I have no idea how I'd be doing what I do now without that.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Zak 9y agoI have to ask... Why did sailors try to drive through the closed base gate and test 440V circuits with their fingers?
- ozim 9y agoSome people do stuff just because they can. Some because of bad day and some because of thinking those doors are always open so just drive without paying attention.
- Raphmedia 9y agoI don't know. Why do we push files to production on a Friday evening? Why do we snipe hot-fixes into production via FTP? Because we are all crazy & lazy bums, I would guess.
- wolfgke 9y ago> I don't know. Why do we push files to production on a Friday evening? Because we worked for the whole week on it and now want that other people can see it on their weekend. Since we are so proud of our work and trust in its quality, we are willing to do an extra shift on the weekend, should problems occur.
- emacsgifs 9y agoAre you missing a /s?
- felipemnoa 9y agoSince this sounds very familiar I would venture that he's being serious.
- s73ver_ 9y agoI feel this is an extremely selfish attitude, as generally it's not just the one who pushed into production who has to do extra work on the weekend, and usually they are not willing to do extra work because someone's ego couldn't wait 2 more days.
- Agentlien 9y agoWhile I understand and have also myself been guilty of this, I have come to believe that this attitude is selfish and irresponsible. The experience which gave me perspective was on a project at my previous job. I worked together with another highly passionate engineer and we made amazing progress over the course of a very short time. The day before the demonstration of our results to our bosses, meant to serve as evaluation and retrospective for this project, we had reached all goals and the simulation was really robust and stable. However, when I came to work on the day itself, I found my colleague sitting at his desk, looking very tired. He'd been working through the night to get all the extra bells and whistles implemented. The demonstration was a disaster. Nothing worked, everything crashed. A lot of people were upset.
- davidmr 9y agoI’m glad someone else felt the need to ask. I did work on a computer with 480V into the rack and the electrical training they made us sit through scared the bejesus out of all of us. It was basically 4 hours of watching people get electrocuted with 480v+. A 480V arc flash is no joke[0]. The training had the desired effect: we played it absolutely by the book, the CPR-trained buddy system, the PPE, everything. [0] https://youtu.be/-iClXrd50Z8 https://youtu.be/-iClXrd50Z8 the helpful “ding” is the best part. At any rate, imagine take that on your arms or face.
- trevyn 9y agoDo you have examples or references for the types of charismatic speech and creative metaphors you used?
- killjoywashere 9y agoCharisma: if you like it, it's charisma, if you don't it's a sense of entitlement. Metaphors: they're cooked up in the moment.
- Balgair 9y agoBTW love the username : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here
- kilroy123 9y agoMe too. :)
- mulmen 9y agoI don't have military experience and I will stop short of saying I wish I did because I think that does a disservice to both of us. What I will say is that the vets I have worked with have been excellent contributors and leaders. I work in a place that values strong leadership and makes a point of hiring veterans. It would be easy to dismiss that as public relations fluff but I truly believe vets make an invaluable contribution to a company.
- Fricken 9y agoThe theory is that Israel punches above it's weight class in the tech/startup sector at least in part because most everybody there has at least some military training.
- mrslave 9y agoInteresting. I would speculate the high average IQ is a more significant factor.
- danmaz74 9y agoAny source for "high average IQ"?
- rwnspace 9y agoIt's a reference to the notion that Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ of something like 105, so have more 140+ IQs, and as such they are disproportionately represented in Nobel Prize winnings in the 20thC. Etc etc. I won't source for them (theres a Wiki article) since I think most of the variance can be accounted for by culture.
- danmaz74 9y agoThx
- HappyCynic 9y ago