7 ms·

A video game and public speaking seem like really weird/unusual examples. A ton of people play video games, very few people do it professionally. A ton of peop

by elil17 5y ago

A video game and public speaking seem like really weird/unusual examples. A ton of people play video games, very few people do it professionally. A ton of people give talks, but it’s usually a small part of their jobs. Being even 50%-ile among professionals for either would certainly be extremely impressive. When I think about normal jobs, which are less competitive fields than professional gaming or speaking, being 95%-ile is very good (although 50%-ile is not great). Certainly, the top 5% of people at my company (200 people in my office, so 10 people I work with) are on the “top of their game”, so to speak - they always drive towards the most important objectives, rarely make errors, come up with incredible ideas, etc.

indymike 5y ago
> A video game and public speaking seem like really weird/unusual examples. I thought they were great examples because most people are familiar with both. Dan's not wrong: most people don't improve because they don't invest in getting better, and often getting better is easy to do. Incidentally, I watched one of my kids do this with Overwatch. She started watching the replays and seeing what she did wrong, and then that turned into what is that player doing right. Two weeks later top 50%.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I agree. That probably do require spending a fair bit of time to build confidence and skills. But they also benefit from some deliberate practice/skills building as opposed to just repeating some of the same mistakes over and over again.
e4e78a06 5y ago
> Being even 50%-ile among professionals for either would certainly be extremely impressive. I think you'd be surprised at how low the bar is. And how people either 1) don't care about actively improving or 2) don't effectively learn from their mistakes. For a lot of people their career is just a way to get paid. As long as they don't get fired that's enough for them. And for other people they never developed a growth mindset and a habit of introspection, or they treat mistakes/failure as a painful memory to be avoided rather than something to be learned from.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > For a lot of people their career is just a way to get paid. As long as they don't get fired that's enough for them. This was one of my hardest earned lessons when I became a manager. Previously I had worked my way into high-performing teams where everybody really cared about doing a good job. I was so surrounded by people with that mindset that I assumed that’s just how everybody in tech operated. Only later did I realize that I was surrounded by those people because my managers actively selected for those hires and carefully weeded out the people who weren’t interested in anything other than doing the bare minimum to collect a paycheck. As a hiring manager, the opposite selection bias occurs: The candidate pool is heavily biased toward people who have lost their jobs or are being pushed out as part of a PiP. You end up interviewing a lot of people who really just want to collect a paycheck and be bothered as little as possible with actual work. Poke around Reddit or even HN and this work minimization mindset is even celebrated by a lot of people. If you’ve been surrounded by high achievers and motivated people who would have chosen programming jobs because that’s what they like to do every day, it can be a shock to work with people who really just hate doing anything that resembles work. Yet they’re out there, in surprisingly large numbers.
  - organicpotato 5y ago
    Curious what steps you took to get the most out of your team when some teammates aren't intrinsically motivated? Did you build a sort of incentive structure?
    - eru 5y ago
      Reading the comment carefully, they seem to suggest a heavy use of culling. But I'd also be interested in what other steps work and don't work.
      - lostcolony 5y ago
        Hate to sound trite, but it often is the culture. If people feel siloed it's really easy to fall into not caring very much if you're not intrinsically motivated to succeed. However, on a closely knit team, where you put in the effort to get them included and owning things and be supported by the rest of the team in it, many start performing better (even if that starts by just asking for help earlier) simply because they don't want to let the team down. Not always, perhaps, but I'm not convinced that "poor employees" are innately reflective of the individual, so much as the individual + environment. Certainly, I personally have been in environments where I was a rockstar...and environments where I mentally checked very quickly (and sought to leave as such). And the former were the higher output environments, I might add; it wasn't just me being "out of my depth" in terms of skills or similar, but rather me not doing well when I was set up without any real empowerment or support structure and still expected to at least put on a show of trying.
ajkjk 5y ago
95% percentile is _way_ below professional-level. That's kinda the point: it's super attainable for anybody who works at it.
- argc 5y ago
  I'm not convinced anyone can just work at it and get to top 95%, or even top 75%, or even top 50% at any activity. There is a ton of selecting going on that keeps people who do not have some amount of talent from even attempting to get close. I've played a decent amount of first person shooters and RTS games and I am decent but I have friends who play less and are more talented than me. Given similar practice regimens and training/feedback, I'm pretty sure they would always get higher than me in the rankings. All that to say, I don't think that simply anyone who works at it can get to the top 95% in any random activity.
  - raydev 5y ago
    > Given similar practice regimens and training/feedback, But that's the point, I think. Sure, "natural talent" might lead to a reduction in necessary practice time, but what if you spent 1.5x or 2x or 3x the time, or used a different practice method that was more suited to your needs? I believe I am one of those people who just needed more time, and I've seen success. It was definitely demotivating watching others improve faster or seemingly not need improvement at all, it just came to them naturally. But I have an obsession, which led to me being very methodical about practice, time, etc. And it worked out.
- astura 5y ago
  Not just anyone, only those with already existing natural talent. If something comes very easy to you then you may believe that it's that easy for everyone. It's not. This is the fallacy of the author - he should try to get to 95th percentile doing something brand new that they don't have a natural talent for to understand how very wrong they are. I found learning to programming extremely easy but my best friend just couldn't grasp it even though she tried much harder than I did and we were in exactly the same class. OTOH she bought a guitar and taught herself to play it without even trying whereas I couldn't play more than a couple notes even with years of music lessons.
temp8964 5y ago
Top 5% of your company is not top 5% of participants, unless your company recruits based on randomness.

by elil17 5y ago

indymike 5y ago

> A video game and public speaking seem like really weird/unusual examples. I thought they were great examples because most people are familiar with both. Dan's not wrong: most people don't improve because they don't invest in getting better, and often getting better is easy to do. Incidentally, I watched one of my kids do this with Overwatch. She started watching the replays and seeing what she did wrong, and then that turned into what is that player doing right. Two weeks later top 50%.

ghaff 5y ago
I agree. That probably do require spending a fair bit of time to build confidence and skills. But they also benefit from some deliberate practice/skills building as opposed to just repeating some of the same mistakes over and over again.

e4e78a06 5y ago

> Being even 50%-ile among professionals for either would certainly be extremely impressive. I think you'd be surprised at how low the bar is. And how people either 1) don't care about actively improving or 2) don't effectively learn from their mistakes. For a lot of people their career is just a way to get paid. As long as they don't get fired that's enough for them. And for other people they never developed a growth mindset and a habit of introspection, or they treat mistakes/failure as a painful memory to be avoided rather than something to be learned from.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> For a lot of people their career is just a way to get paid. As long as they don't get fired that's enough for them. This was one of my hardest earned lessons when I became a manager. Previously I had worked my way into high-performing teams where everybody really cared about doing a good job. I was so surrounded by people with that mindset that I assumed that’s just how everybody in tech operated. Only later did I realize that I was surrounded by those people because my managers actively selected for those hires and carefully weeded out the people who weren’t interested in anything other than doing the bare minimum to collect a paycheck. As a hiring manager, the opposite selection bias occurs: The candidate pool is heavily biased toward people who have lost their jobs or are being pushed out as part of a PiP. You end up interviewing a lot of people who really just want to collect a paycheck and be bothered as little as possible with actual work. Poke around Reddit or even HN and this work minimization mindset is even celebrated by a lot of people. If you’ve been surrounded by high achievers and motivated people who would have chosen programming jobs because that’s what they like to do every day, it can be a shock to work with people who really just hate doing anything that resembles work. Yet they’re out there, in surprisingly large numbers.
- organicpotato 5y ago
  Curious what steps you took to get the most out of your team when some teammates aren't intrinsically motivated? Did you build a sort of incentive structure?
  - eru 5y ago
    Reading the comment carefully, they seem to suggest a heavy use of culling. But I'd also be interested in what other steps work and don't work.
    - lostcolony 5y ago
      Hate to sound trite, but it often is the culture. If people feel siloed it's really easy to fall into not caring very much if you're not intrinsically motivated to succeed. However, on a closely knit team, where you put in the effort to get them included and owning things and be supported by the rest of the team in it, many start performing better (even if that starts by just asking for help earlier) simply because they don't want to let the team down. Not always, perhaps, but I'm not convinced that "poor employees" are innately reflective of the individual, so much as the individual + environment. Certainly, I personally have been in environments where I was a rockstar...and environments where I mentally checked very quickly (and sought to leave as such). And the former were the higher output environments, I might add; it wasn't just me being "out of my depth" in terms of skills or similar, but rather me not doing well when I was set up without any real empowerment or support structure and still expected to at least put on a show of trying.

ajkjk 5y ago

95% percentile is _way_ below professional-level. That's kinda the point: it's super attainable for anybody who works at it.

argc 5y ago
I'm not convinced anyone can just work at it and get to top 95%, or even top 75%, or even top 50% at any activity. There is a ton of selecting going on that keeps people who do not have some amount of talent from even attempting to get close. I've played a decent amount of first person shooters and RTS games and I am decent but I have friends who play less and are more talented than me. Given similar practice regimens and training/feedback, I'm pretty sure they would always get higher than me in the rankings. All that to say, I don't think that simply anyone who works at it can get to the top 95% in any random activity.
- raydev 5y ago
  > Given similar practice regimens and training/feedback, But that's the point, I think. Sure, "natural talent" might lead to a reduction in necessary practice time, but what if you spent 1.5x or 2x or 3x the time, or used a different practice method that was more suited to your needs? I believe I am one of those people who just needed more time, and I've seen success. It was definitely demotivating watching others improve faster or seemingly not need improvement at all, it just came to them naturally. But I have an obsession, which led to me being very methodical about practice, time, etc. And it worked out.
astura 5y ago
Not just anyone, only those with already existing natural talent. If something comes very easy to you then you may believe that it's that easy for everyone. It's not. This is the fallacy of the author - he should try to get to 95th percentile doing something brand new that they don't have a natural talent for to understand how very wrong they are. I found learning to programming extremely easy but my best friend just couldn't grasp it even though she tried much harder than I did and we were in exactly the same class. OTOH she bought a guitar and taught herself to play it without even trying whereas I couldn't play more than a couple notes even with years of music lessons.

temp8964 5y ago

Top 5% of your company is not top 5% of participants, unless your company recruits based on randomness.