7 ms·

Scott Adams: Future Jobs (and Irreplaceable Skill Sets)

106 points by cwan 16y ago

dpritchett 16y ago
I'm finding that these awkward "manipulation" skills that Adams describes are simply leverage to multiply the impact of one's technical skills within a company. I work in the IT organization of a Fortune 100. Due to our size and modularization the skills of persuasion and influence (and consensus building, presentation skills, social skills, name recognition) are very important if I hope to have an impact here beyond that of my own code quality. Being "right" on a technical matter is worthless if no one takes you or your ideas seriously.
- oiuygtfrtghyju 16y ago
  <waves hand> These are not the TPS reports you are looking for .....
- tonystubblebine 16y ago
  Excellent summary of how to be an effective programmer. In any group situation, it's not good enough to merely be right.
  - logicalmind 16y ago
    It's even worse than that. If you work in a large hierarchical company you can be right and be able to present your correctness in a very clear and useful way. But it is unlikely that your superior is going to allow you speak directly to his superior. That is how politics work. Which brings us back to the original article.
    - dpritchett 16y ago
      This is why you build a consensus. Selling your idea directly to the person in charge of making the decision is less convincing than disseminating the idea across the organization. Arrange for the superior's superior to hear it from his/her trusted associates and then hand it back down to you as a managerial directive. As always, the only way to make someone do what you want them to do is to convince them that they want to do it because it's in their interest. Simply presenting a good idea directly to the person in charge won't be enough if the idea represents a change to entrenched organizational policies.
- etal 16y ago
  Right. I was once surprised to see how many high-ranking salespeople had technical degrees like engineering or a hard science. But it makes sense -- they just struck the right balance, with enough technical knowledge to be able to talk to anyone, and then persuasion/influence skills to amplify that influence.
- gaius 16y ago
  OK, but that's not value adding to the organization; it's friction that you have to overcome in order to do your main job. Your company, when it needs to do this, employs full-time specialists to do it, they're called salesmen. Not to knock your skills, but technical and presentational skills are often uncorrelated. There simply isn't time to master both. Where do you think PHBs actually come from? It's also why huge organizations are often running obsolete technology, no-one can generate enough "activation energy" to overcome the molasses.
rywang 16y ago
I've always wondered about the effectiveness of courses that claim to teach "Management" or "Negotiation" or "Networking." There's certainly theory to these subjects and practicing in a contrived setting may help, but I suspect there are fairly narrow limits on what can be learned about these subjects in the classroom. Likewise, I'd be suspicious of a program that claims to "create people who can enter any room and make it their bitch."
- aik 16y ago
  Ideas taught in these subjects would have to be nearly purely conceptual. You get the idea, you make sense of it, and it's in you for life. Because of this I think it only makes sense that a majority of such classes should be spent outside the classroom, experimenting and discovering for yourself what works for you. I somehow doubt they are though.
- il 16y ago
  If you've ever studied persuasion, for example Cialdini, you'll find that there are very specific, concrete concepts and techniques presented. The type of theories Cialdini presents can very easily be taken into practice.
aik 16y ago
I think he has a great point here. I think the most important part of that kind of education would be to awaken the masses to the fact that they're being manipulated every single day by everything around them, whether someone has constructed the manipulation on purpose or not. Clearly the ideas in most people's heads aren't their own and judging by how canned they sound, I can't imagine they have put much thought themselves into the idea. This would be immensely useful in creating people who were perhaps more resistant to persuasion strategies of our education system, government, product marketing, and humans in general; and instead create people who are themselves more freely thinking - producers and thinkers instead of pure consumers. In addition, it's unbelievable that people (including me) are overcome by the simplest of persuasive strategies. If we weren't so poorly (on purpose) educated on rhetoric and debate, and if we had some understanding and dependence on our inner selves and strength, I believe things would be very different. I'm behind this idea!
- jseliger 16y ago
  I think the most important part of that kind of education would be to awaken the masses to the fact that they're being manipulated every single day by everything around them, whether someone has constructed the manipulation on purpose or not. I'm a grad student in English lit at the University of Arizona, and based on my experience teaching freshmen comp and listening to various other teachers and so on, I'd guess that the world is not particularly interested in being awoken, never has been, and probably will never will be. A small segment, yes, but definitely not "the masses." * If we weren't so poorly (on purpose) educated on rhetoric and debate,* I think this is highly improbable: don't attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance, incompetence, and randomness.
  - aik 16y ago
    "I think this is highly improbable" I apologize - I should have either not included the parenthesis comment or explained it further. So to explain it a little further, I don't think we give our forefathers enough credit when they devised the school system that they did post-civil war. I agree this thought is a bit conspiratorial at nature, however it does say something when our system is obviously missing certain basic subjects to assist in critical thought, especially with the knowledge that the most intelligent and successful minds created it. I'm still forming an opinion here, but I do find it suspicious. "the world is not particularly interested in being awoken, never has been, and probably will never will be." This may be true, however it is in everyone's best interest that they are 'awoken' to the best of their abilities. Also, with the semi-recent discovery/invention of frighteningly-effective persuasion techniques, I believe this is more important than ever.
pigbucket 16y ago
This is a great idea. It's also a two-thousand year-old idea, updated to include golf and "art (specifically design)." Missing from the list of possible courses is a study of elevated language as a tool of persuasion (as in Longinus' On the Sublime), but aside from that it looks like the study of Rhetoric in the most generalized sense. I went to pull the url for Wiki's page on Rhetoric and noticed this gem half way down: "The Greeks liked to use rhetoric especially if there was a fire."--something Scott Adams might have said. I'm sure it'll be gone tomorrow. Anyway, the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- gjm11 16y ago
  > The Greeks liked to use rhetoric especially if there was a fire. Ye gods. Fixed it. (The edit that introduced that text did nothing else. The user who made that edit has made no other edits to Wikipedia. [EDITED to add: and the account was created 2 minutes before that edit.] Looks like vandalism, though a rather odd sort of vandalism.)
feverishaaron 16y ago
I thought this is why people get juris doctorates.
- itg 16y ago
  A JD won't teach you anything about persuasion. That only comes after years of experience.
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
Even this may become obsolete. Even management may become automated. Ever try to argue with an automated phone support system? Eventually our boss may be one of those.
Mongoose 16y ago
What are some outlets that technically-skilled people can partake in to get experience in the "persuasion coursework" he describes? I'm a CS undergrad and dabble in probably half of his list in my downtime, but would like to get more experience with sales, economics, and general persuasiveness. Dabbling in groups like Toastmasters comes to mind, but what are some others?
- allwein 16y ago
  I highly recommend Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People". This book goes a long way towards explaining a bunch of these skills and shows you both how to do them and why they work. It was probably the non-technical book that advanced my programming career the most.
- ramit 16y ago
  2 suggestions: 1. Here are some good books on psychology (specifically behavioral change): http://astore.amazon.com/iwillteachyou-20?_encoding=UTF8&node=4 http://astore.amazon.com/iwillteachyou-20?_encoding=UTF8&#38... 2. Hang out with persuasive friends. Try to understand the meta-lessons of what they do. You can ask them, but often people don't have cognitive access to explain what they do, so sometimes you'll just have to observe. When you combine theory with practice, you can get powerful results.
percept 16y ago
I read that list and see "MBA," especially considering activities both inside and outside the classroom, and the sort of profile top programs want to see from applicants.
- Lukeas14 16y ago
  I read it and saw "PUA." Its as if they took all the underlying skills of manipulation and gaming psychology and applied it to business/networking.
Volscio 16y ago
Also see Snarkmarket's New Liberal Arts curriculum: http://snarkmarket.com/nla/ http://snarkmarket.com/nla/ Attention Economics, Brevity, Coding and Decoding, Creativity, Finding, Food, Genderfuck, Home Economics, Inaccuracy, Iteration, Journalism, Mapping, Marketing, Micropolitics, Myth and Magic, Negotiation, Photography, Play, Reality Engineering, Translation, Video Literacy
aspir 16y ago
I had a concentration in Human Geography in college. Essentially it was the analysis of populations as effected by economics, politics, the enviroment, space and place, and how they are all connected in explicit and implicit ways. With the exception of the public speaking aspect, I feel that course of study slightly encompasses the topic in the referred post.
ramit 16y ago
Very interesting. This describes my coursework at Stanford almost exactly. My major was STS (Science, Technology, and Society) with a minor in psychology. Then I studied sociology in grad school. What I focused on was social influence, persuasion, and behavioral change. I took courses on negotiation, deception, cults, magic, minority influence, organizational development, group dynamics, arbitration, personality/social psychology, persuasive technology, and a ton more. I was a researcher in the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab for years. And I mixed it with practical applications of negotiations in the field. The coursework has helped me dramatically in understanding the motivations, attitudes, and behaviors of others. I still remember one of my Comm professors talking about how other technical disciplines tend to look down on areas like psych/comm. She said something I'll never forget: "The value isn't in the difficulty of the material, but the usefulness." I use my social psychology background in my work with people on iwillteachyoutoberich every day.
- jackowayed 16y ago
  It seems like a double-major in STS and CS would pretty much make for the ultimate entrepreneur. Need to raise money, get customers, convince great people to work for you, or sell the company? Draw on your STS skills. Need to write amazing software? Draw on your CS skills. I'll have to look into STS and consider that, but unfortunately, I don't really want to double major because I want time to do other stuff (like hack and maybe have a social life).
  - ramit 16y ago
    There is actually a specific STS specialization in CS if you're more technically inclined.
- k00kykelly 16y ago
  The difference between the hard sciences and soft sciences is where the difficulty comes in. Grasping the concepts of say, quantum physics, is ridiculously difficult. Once you fully understand it, it is relatively easy to apply. The principles of negotiation are easy to understand, but very difficult to apply. People in hard sciences are typically elitist because they've had to prove themselves right up front. Making it through school is a more concrete accomplishment. Who knows if that psyc major will ever amount to anything.
jacquesm 16y ago
It looks like plenty of that could easily apply to any marketing education.
greenlblue 16y ago
Why don't you call the courses what they really should be called: Conning 101, 203, 301, etc.
- zupatol 16y ago
  I'm surprised he writes selling yourself sounds almost noble. To me it sounds literally like prostitution.
porter 16y ago
Somebody needs to put together a personalmba like list and crash course for these topics. I would gladly pay for this.
- petercooper 16y ago
  I've been working on a book called Self Promotion for Geeks for a while now, based upon some support I got through HN comments a year or so ago. It covers several of these topics in the context of image and promoting startups, software, and ideas in respect of technically minded people. I wasn't planning on revealing anything for a few more weeks, but if anyone's interested, feel free to contact me or comment here and I'll contact you later. (One remaining sticking points is whether I rename and retarget it as "for Software Developers," but my research shows so far that people are generally OK with the term "geek" covering the areas I mentioned. Welcoming opinions here still, though.)
brc 16y ago
Regardless of coursework, a lot of this stuff should be on the to-do list for even experienced people. The further you move through your career, the more second-nature your technical skills, and the more need there is for communication and persuasion. Personally I spend more time reading up on these things than I do reading up on the latest technical developments.
doki_pen 16y ago
Good article, but this stuck out "Selling yourself, which sounds almost noble, is little more than manipulating other people to do what is good for you but might not be so good for others." That's bullshit. There are plenty of opportunities to make money in a mutually beneficial relationship. This is the difference between ethical business and unethical business. If your focus is getting over on other people, then you can rationalize all you want, but you are an unethical person. You can influence people to do thing that are in their own best interest. Use the force for good, not evil.
- noverloop 16y ago
  any decision that isn't based on hard facts has an element of persuasion in it.

106 points by cwan 16y ago

I'm finding that these awkward "manipulation" skills that Adams describes are simply leverage to multiply the impact of one's technical skills within a company. I work in the IT organization of a Fortune 100. Due to our size and modularization the skills of persuasion and influence (and consensus building, presentation skills, social skills, name recognition) are very important if I hope to have an impact here beyond that of my own code quality. Being "right" on a technical matter is worthless if no one takes you or your ideas seriously.

oiuygtfrtghyju 16y ago
<waves hand> These are not the TPS reports you are looking for .....
tonystubblebine 16y ago
Excellent summary of how to be an effective programmer. In any group situation, it's not good enough to merely be right.
- logicalmind 16y ago
  It's even worse than that. If you work in a large hierarchical company you can be right and be able to present your correctness in a very clear and useful way. But it is unlikely that your superior is going to allow you speak directly to his superior. That is how politics work. Which brings us back to the original article.
  - dpritchett 16y ago
    This is why you build a consensus. Selling your idea directly to the person in charge of making the decision is less convincing than disseminating the idea across the organization. Arrange for the superior's superior to hear it from his/her trusted associates and then hand it back down to you as a managerial directive. As always, the only way to make someone do what you want them to do is to convince them that they want to do it because it's in their interest. Simply presenting a good idea directly to the person in charge won't be enough if the idea represents a change to entrenched organizational policies.
etal 16y ago
Right. I was once surprised to see how many high-ranking salespeople had technical degrees like engineering or a hard science. But it makes sense -- they just struck the right balance, with enough technical knowledge to be able to talk to anyone, and then persuasion/influence skills to amplify that influence.
gaius 16y ago
OK, but that's not value adding to the organization; it's friction that you have to overcome in order to do your main job. Your company, when it needs to do this, employs full-time specialists to do it, they're called salesmen. Not to knock your skills, but technical and presentational skills are often uncorrelated. There simply isn't time to master both. Where do you think PHBs actually come from? It's also why huge organizations are often running obsolete technology, no-one can generate enough "activation energy" to overcome the molasses.

rywang 16y ago

I've always wondered about the effectiveness of courses that claim to teach "Management" or "Negotiation" or "Networking." There's certainly theory to these subjects and practicing in a contrived setting may help, but I suspect there are fairly narrow limits on what can be learned about these subjects in the classroom. Likewise, I'd be suspicious of a program that claims to "create people who can enter any room and make it their bitch."

aik 16y ago
Ideas taught in these subjects would have to be nearly purely conceptual. You get the idea, you make sense of it, and it's in you for life. Because of this I think it only makes sense that a majority of such classes should be spent outside the classroom, experimenting and discovering for yourself what works for you. I somehow doubt they are though.
il 16y ago
If you've ever studied persuasion, for example Cialdini, you'll find that there are very specific, concrete concepts and techniques presented. The type of theories Cialdini presents can very easily be taken into practice.

aik 16y ago

I think he has a great point here. I think the most important part of that kind of education would be to awaken the masses to the fact that they're being manipulated every single day by everything around them, whether someone has constructed the manipulation on purpose or not. Clearly the ideas in most people's heads aren't their own and judging by how canned they sound, I can't imagine they have put much thought themselves into the idea. This would be immensely useful in creating people who were perhaps more resistant to persuasion strategies of our education system, government, product marketing, and humans in general; and instead create people who are themselves more freely thinking - producers and thinkers instead of pure consumers. In addition, it's unbelievable that people (including me) are overcome by the simplest of persuasive strategies. If we weren't so poorly (on purpose) educated on rhetoric and debate, and if we had some understanding and dependence on our inner selves and strength, I believe things would be very different. I'm behind this idea!

jseliger 16y ago
I think the most important part of that kind of education would be to awaken the masses to the fact that they're being manipulated every single day by everything around them, whether someone has constructed the manipulation on purpose or not. I'm a grad student in English lit at the University of Arizona, and based on my experience teaching freshmen comp and listening to various other teachers and so on, I'd guess that the world is not particularly interested in being awoken, never has been, and probably will never will be. A small segment, yes, but definitely not "the masses." * If we weren't so poorly (on purpose) educated on rhetoric and debate,* I think this is highly improbable: don't attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance, incompetence, and randomness.
- aik 16y ago
  "I think this is highly improbable" I apologize - I should have either not included the parenthesis comment or explained it further. So to explain it a little further, I don't think we give our forefathers enough credit when they devised the school system that they did post-civil war. I agree this thought is a bit conspiratorial at nature, however it does say something when our system is obviously missing certain basic subjects to assist in critical thought, especially with the knowledge that the most intelligent and successful minds created it. I'm still forming an opinion here, but I do find it suspicious. "the world is not particularly interested in being awoken, never has been, and probably will never will be." This may be true, however it is in everyone's best interest that they are 'awoken' to the best of their abilities. Also, with the semi-recent discovery/invention of frighteningly-effective persuasion techniques, I believe this is more important than ever.

pigbucket 16y ago

This is a great idea. It's also a two-thousand year-old idea, updated to include golf and "art (specifically design)." Missing from the list of possible courses is a study of elevated language as a tool of persuasion (as in Longinus' On the Sublime), but aside from that it looks like the study of Rhetoric in the most generalized sense. I went to pull the url for Wiki's page on Rhetoric and noticed this gem half way down: "The Greeks liked to use rhetoric especially if there was a fire."--something Scott Adams might have said. I'm sure it'll be gone tomorrow. Anyway, the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
gjm11 16y ago
> The Greeks liked to use rhetoric especially if there was a fire. Ye gods. Fixed it. (The edit that introduced that text did nothing else. The user who made that edit has made no other edits to Wikipedia. [EDITED to add: and the account was created 2 minutes before that edit.] Looks like vandalism, though a rather odd sort of vandalism.)

feverishaaron 16y ago

I thought this is why people get juris doctorates.

itg 16y ago
A JD won't teach you anything about persuasion. That only comes after years of experience.

JoeAltmaier 16y ago

Even this may become obsolete. Even management may become automated. Ever try to argue with an automated phone support system? Eventually our boss may be one of those.

Mongoose 16y ago

What are some outlets that technically-skilled people can partake in to get experience in the "persuasion coursework" he describes? I'm a CS undergrad and dabble in probably half of his list in my downtime, but would like to get more experience with sales, economics, and general persuasiveness. Dabbling in groups like Toastmasters comes to mind, but what are some others?

allwein 16y ago
I highly recommend Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People". This book goes a long way towards explaining a bunch of these skills and shows you both how to do them and why they work. It was probably the non-technical book that advanced my programming career the most.
ramit 16y ago
2 suggestions: 1. Here are some good books on psychology (specifically behavioral change): http://astore.amazon.com/iwillteachyou-20?_encoding=UTF8&node=4 http://astore.amazon.com/iwillteachyou-20?_encoding=UTF8&#38... 2. Hang out with persuasive friends. Try to understand the meta-lessons of what they do. You can ask them, but often people don't have cognitive access to explain what they do, so sometimes you'll just have to observe. When you combine theory with practice, you can get powerful results.

percept 16y ago

I read that list and see "MBA," especially considering activities both inside and outside the classroom, and the sort of profile top programs want to see from applicants.

Lukeas14 16y ago
I read it and saw "PUA." Its as if they took all the underlying skills of manipulation and gaming psychology and applied it to business/networking.

Volscio 16y ago

Also see Snarkmarket's New Liberal Arts curriculum: http://snarkmarket.com/nla/ http://snarkmarket.com/nla/ Attention Economics, Brevity, Coding and Decoding, Creativity, Finding, Food, Genderfuck, Home Economics, Inaccuracy, Iteration, Journalism, Mapping, Marketing, Micropolitics, Myth and Magic, Negotiation, Photography, Play, Reality Engineering, Translation, Video Literacy

aspir 16y ago

I had a concentration in Human Geography in college. Essentially it was the analysis of populations as effected by economics, politics, the enviroment, space and place, and how they are all connected in explicit and implicit ways. With the exception of the public speaking aspect, I feel that course of study slightly encompasses the topic in the referred post.

ramit 16y ago

Very interesting. This describes my coursework at Stanford almost exactly. My major was STS (Science, Technology, and Society) with a minor in psychology. Then I studied sociology in grad school. What I focused on was social influence, persuasion, and behavioral change. I took courses on negotiation, deception, cults, magic, minority influence, organizational development, group dynamics, arbitration, personality/social psychology, persuasive technology, and a ton more. I was a researcher in the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab for years. And I mixed it with practical applications of negotiations in the field. The coursework has helped me dramatically in understanding the motivations, attitudes, and behaviors of others. I still remember one of my Comm professors talking about how other technical disciplines tend to look down on areas like psych/comm. She said something I'll never forget: "The value isn't in the difficulty of the material, but the usefulness." I use my social psychology background in my work with people on iwillteachyoutoberich every day.

jackowayed 16y ago
It seems like a double-major in STS and CS would pretty much make for the ultimate entrepreneur. Need to raise money, get customers, convince great people to work for you, or sell the company? Draw on your STS skills. Need to write amazing software? Draw on your CS skills. I'll have to look into STS and consider that, but unfortunately, I don't really want to double major because I want time to do other stuff (like hack and maybe have a social life).
- ramit 16y ago
  There is actually a specific STS specialization in CS if you're more technically inclined.
k00kykelly 16y ago
The difference between the hard sciences and soft sciences is where the difficulty comes in. Grasping the concepts of say, quantum physics, is ridiculously difficult. Once you fully understand it, it is relatively easy to apply. The principles of negotiation are easy to understand, but very difficult to apply. People in hard sciences are typically elitist because they've had to prove themselves right up front. Making it through school is a more concrete accomplishment. Who knows if that psyc major will ever amount to anything.

jacquesm 16y ago

It looks like plenty of that could easily apply to any marketing education.

greenlblue 16y ago

Why don't you call the courses what they really should be called: Conning 101, 203, 301, etc.

zupatol 16y ago
I'm surprised he writes selling yourself sounds almost noble. To me it sounds literally like prostitution.

porter 16y ago

Somebody needs to put together a personalmba like list and crash course for these topics. I would gladly pay for this.

petercooper 16y ago
I've been working on a book called Self Promotion for Geeks for a while now, based upon some support I got through HN comments a year or so ago. It covers several of these topics in the context of image and promoting startups, software, and ideas in respect of technically minded people. I wasn't planning on revealing anything for a few more weeks, but if anyone's interested, feel free to contact me or comment here and I'll contact you later. (One remaining sticking points is whether I rename and retarget it as "for Software Developers," but my research shows so far that people are generally OK with the term "geek" covering the areas I mentioned. Welcoming opinions here still, though.)

brc 16y ago

Regardless of coursework, a lot of this stuff should be on the to-do list for even experienced people. The further you move through your career, the more second-nature your technical skills, and the more need there is for communication and persuasion. Personally I spend more time reading up on these things than I do reading up on the latest technical developments.

doki_pen 16y ago

Good article, but this stuck out "Selling yourself, which sounds almost noble, is little more than manipulating other people to do what is good for you but might not be so good for others." That's bullshit. There are plenty of opportunities to make money in a mutually beneficial relationship. This is the difference between ethical business and unethical business. If your focus is getting over on other people, then you can rationalize all you want, but you are an unethical person. You can influence people to do thing that are in their own best interest. Use the force for good, not evil.

noverloop 16y ago
any decision that isn't based on hard facts has an element of persuasion in it.