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This is interesting because it counters the idea that someone has to be a jerk to get ahead. However I'm also not sure the study really examined the idea too we

This is interesting because it counters the idea that someone has to be a jerk to get ahead. However I'm also not sure the study really examined the idea too well, and ended up feeling like it's the sort of thing that could be misinterpreted and overleveraged. In my personal experience (which is limited) there's a certain constellation of organizational characteristics that leads to disagreeable individuals attaining power, and organizational "combativeness" isn't really it. I think "corruption" is closer, and good luck measuring that with a self report survey. Then again, maybe the relevant issue isn't whether or not people who are jerks are more likely to attain power, it's than once they're there they're more likely to cause problems, and they're not less likely to attain power. So then them being in power is salient. But then I think you have to ask, why aren't they less likely to attain power? Is this a case where a zero correlation is actually masking some mixture of processes, one positive in direction and the other negative? If so you'd think that certain settings would inhibit one or the other of those processes. I guess I feel like this is a case where studying normative organizational dynamics in a cursory way could end up being really misleading.

throwaway81523 4y ago
> This is interesting because it counters the idea that someone has to be a jerk to get ahead. One can be a jerk without being disagreeable. Think of the classic smooth talking con artist.
_8j50 4y ago
I really would like to know what is "disagreeable" does it mean being mean to people in obvious ways a lot? In that case of course. But in my experience most people in corporate settings will stab you in the back when it suits them, blame things on you, take credit falsley,etc... all while smiling and being sociable. So you can have an agreeable personality and still be a shitty person based on how you actually behave.
jackmott42 4y ago
The most powerful people seem to do shady and aggressive things but always keep a professional and calm composure on the outside, no matter what. (Think of politicians who have remained in power for a long time) As maybe an interesting business example, Elon has begun to shed the calm outward composure more and more over the last 5 years and has lost more wealth than anyone in history at the same time. Maybe that is coincidental but one wonders.
- serverholic 4y ago
  Yes. People at the top have a natural affinity for power. They intuitively understand power, they feel it, and they don’t feel any shame about seeking and wielding power. These are the type of people we’ve chosen to reward in society and unfortunately most people have drunk the kool-aid and have been convinced that these people deserve to be rewarded. And even further, they think society can’t function unless we reward these people!
  - kleer001 4y ago
    > we’ve chosen to reward in society It's not a conscious choice. And it's not a choice with even odds against the alternative. It's choice with more benefits than deficits. Historically (back to the very beginning of us as social animals) these are the type of people that quickly and surely make high risk and high reward decisions. And those are the types of decisions that determine life or death, feast or famine, in the wild.
    - kelseyfrog 4y ago
      This sounds like the evolutionary psychology equivalent of a backronym. Is there any evidence for this other than, "It makes sense if you think about it," or is it speculation?
      - svnt 4y ago
        All ev psych, even the most accurate stuff, runs the risk of being a backronym sooner or later because it attempts to canalize future possibility based on biological history. It tends to contain some teleology in the implicit assumption that humans today are peak human and that all evolution is biological. However, that said, it is very difficult in my experience to make correct decisions for a large organization if you prioritize personal relationships. Often, we define that behavior as corruption.
        kleer001 4y ago
the_gipsy 4y ago
Sociopathy is the way to attaining power in organizations. "Disagreeable personality" doesn't allow for much manipulation.
shapefrog 4y ago
Reverting to the school playgorund, everyone in the dominant group are nice to each other, they are horrible to those outside the powerful dominant group. Which circle you exist in, determines if that person is 'agreeable' or 'disagreeable'. The workplace is no different.
rib3ye 4y ago
Steve Jobs was agreeable, as long as you agreed with him. /s Seriously tho, there seems to be a difference between people who are trying to sell you/force their POV and straight up contrarians who will always take an adversarial position for kicks. The former _can_, at least be productive, the latter is just a roadblock.
bena 4y ago
I think people have gotten things conflated. You don't have to be a jerk to get ahead. And being a jerk won't get you ahead. What you need is to not care if you look like a jerk. Sometimes you'll feel you're right so strongly that you'll just not care if people disagree with you. And when you will not budge on an item at all, people are going to think of you as a bit of a jerk.
- shanebellone 4y ago
  I believe some with power are jerks. I do not believe being a jerk increases efficacy. If anything, they share qualities. For example, if someone prioritizes their interests before another's, are they a jerk? The distinction depends on whichever construct you've subscribed to.
- kyleyeats 4y ago
  The conflation was mostly my fault. I read "disagreeable personalities" and my head went to the Big Five. IMO a better way to think of it is that someone needs to be a jerk to get ahead. The three things we're accusing people of in this topic (being selfish, combative, and manipulative) are the three things that all companies do all the time. We want to launder that, I think.
pfisherman 4y ago
I kind of disagree with this. Biased sample, but ime the type of powerful / influential people who run large prestigious organizations are almost all extremely charismatic and diplomatic. Very agreeable - without necessarily agreeing to anything :) Note that I did not say morally / ethically prudent, self actualized, or not prone to being a shithead at times. Just that they tend not to be disagreeable.
kyleyeats 4y ago
We're not jerks. We're people who notice problems. You're shooting the messenger. Every problem that tech has comes from treating disagreeable people as pariahs. Organizational bloat and tech debt are still issues even when we're not there. Avoid hiring disagreeable people and you'll arrive at the stereotypical tech org that can't get anything done. If you don't have disagreeable people to solve your issues, you have to use the other tool: Layoffs. Discriminating against people because they're disagreeable is insane. It's a Big Five personality trait. You hate half of humanity. Evolution produced the best problem-solving thing ever, humanity, and you decided a lot of the work done there was just pointless. The real reason disagreeable people are valuable and can attain power in the workplace is because you've made it so with this completely unreasonable bias you have. They're not supposed to be extremely rare! That only happens in the tech workplace. Would you similarly discriminate against anxious people? What about people who aren't open to new experiences? Do you shut them out too? How does your ideology square with black people being way more disagreeable on average? Let me guess: You don't hire any and then mumble something about culture fit. Working with disagreeable people doesn't suck. Working sucks. The disagreeable people just point it out. How do you ever improve without that? Working at an all-agreeable-people tech firm is a Kafkaesque nightmare of everything being perfect and nothing getting done. And you all deserve it because you decided that when people tend to be one way or the other, the ones who are like you are just better.
- crtified 4y ago
  Tech workplaces hold no special claim to conformity. It's not uncommon for big old professions and specialities to have institutes and charters which include compulsory precepts along the lines of "thou shalt not publicly disagree with or badmouth thy fellow". There, agreeing-to-agree is foundationally baked in; the very professions are sustained around the continual churning out of cookie-cutter journeymen, with intergenerational progress carefully, hierarchically regulated such that the profession all steps forward together.
- talentedcoin 4y ago
  Strong disagree. It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable, and I personally find it frustrating when people excuse their behaviour in the manner you are doing. Yes work sucks, but being unpleasant, cynical and snarky just makes it even worse. Roll up your sleeves and help or please get out of the way.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
Different workplaces will punish or reward these personalities in very different ways. In my experience, if a company rewards disagreeable people who use shady tactics, politics, and power plays by giving them more power, it's not going to be a good place to work. On the other hand, a culture that legitimately rewards people who play well together and reduces the influence of people who use politics and other games, there's a good chance it's going to be a good place to stay for many years. I suspect a lot of people start their careers in the first type of company (rewards bad behavior) and assume it's totally normally. It's the only environment they know, so they assume all workplaces operate by the same rules. When you think all workplaces are equally bad, you start losing motivation to find a better culture at a different company. You might also start imitating some of the bad behavior that seems to be working out for other people. In a way, disagreeableness and office politics are contagious. My advice to anyone who thinks that it's normal for companies to reward the "bad" employees at the expense of the "good" employees is that you might be at a company with backwards priorities. Consider prioritizing good peer references in your next job search to find a company that is better at these things. No workplace is perfect, but you don't want to work at a company that is consistently bad at reward alignment.

throwaway81523 4y ago

> This is interesting because it counters the idea that someone has to be a jerk to get ahead. One can be a jerk without being disagreeable. Think of the classic smooth talking con artist.

_8j50 4y ago

I really would like to know what is "disagreeable" does it mean being mean to people in obvious ways a lot? In that case of course. But in my experience most people in corporate settings will stab you in the back when it suits them, blame things on you, take credit falsley,etc... all while smiling and being sociable. So you can have an agreeable personality and still be a shitty person based on how you actually behave.

jackmott42 4y ago

The most powerful people seem to do shady and aggressive things but always keep a professional and calm composure on the outside, no matter what. (Think of politicians who have remained in power for a long time) As maybe an interesting business example, Elon has begun to shed the calm outward composure more and more over the last 5 years and has lost more wealth than anyone in history at the same time. Maybe that is coincidental but one wonders.

serverholic 4y ago
Yes. People at the top have a natural affinity for power. They intuitively understand power, they feel it, and they don’t feel any shame about seeking and wielding power. These are the type of people we’ve chosen to reward in society and unfortunately most people have drunk the kool-aid and have been convinced that these people deserve to be rewarded. And even further, they think society can’t function unless we reward these people!
- kleer001 4y ago
  > we’ve chosen to reward in society It's not a conscious choice. And it's not a choice with even odds against the alternative. It's choice with more benefits than deficits. Historically (back to the very beginning of us as social animals) these are the type of people that quickly and surely make high risk and high reward decisions. And those are the types of decisions that determine life or death, feast or famine, in the wild.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    This sounds like the evolutionary psychology equivalent of a backronym. Is there any evidence for this other than, "It makes sense if you think about it," or is it speculation?
    - svnt 4y ago
      All ev psych, even the most accurate stuff, runs the risk of being a backronym sooner or later because it attempts to canalize future possibility based on biological history. It tends to contain some teleology in the implicit assumption that humans today are peak human and that all evolution is biological. However, that said, it is very difficult in my experience to make correct decisions for a large organization if you prioritize personal relationships. Often, we define that behavior as corruption.
      - kleer001 4y ago

the_gipsy 4y ago

Sociopathy is the way to attaining power in organizations. "Disagreeable personality" doesn't allow for much manipulation.

shapefrog 4y ago

Reverting to the school playgorund, everyone in the dominant group are nice to each other, they are horrible to those outside the powerful dominant group. Which circle you exist in, determines if that person is 'agreeable' or 'disagreeable'. The workplace is no different.

rib3ye 4y ago

Steve Jobs was agreeable, as long as you agreed with him. /s Seriously tho, there seems to be a difference between people who are trying to sell you/force their POV and straight up contrarians who will always take an adversarial position for kicks. The former _can_, at least be productive, the latter is just a roadblock.

bena 4y ago

I think people have gotten things conflated. You don't have to be a jerk to get ahead. And being a jerk won't get you ahead. What you need is to not care if you look like a jerk. Sometimes you'll feel you're right so strongly that you'll just not care if people disagree with you. And when you will not budge on an item at all, people are going to think of you as a bit of a jerk.

shanebellone 4y ago
I believe some with power are jerks. I do not believe being a jerk increases efficacy. If anything, they share qualities. For example, if someone prioritizes their interests before another's, are they a jerk? The distinction depends on whichever construct you've subscribed to.
kyleyeats 4y ago
The conflation was mostly my fault. I read "disagreeable personalities" and my head went to the Big Five. IMO a better way to think of it is that someone needs to be a jerk to get ahead. The three things we're accusing people of in this topic (being selfish, combative, and manipulative) are the three things that all companies do all the time. We want to launder that, I think.

pfisherman 4y ago

I kind of disagree with this. Biased sample, but ime the type of powerful / influential people who run large prestigious organizations are almost all extremely charismatic and diplomatic. Very agreeable - without necessarily agreeing to anything :) Note that I did not say morally / ethically prudent, self actualized, or not prone to being a shithead at times. Just that they tend not to be disagreeable.

kyleyeats 4y ago

We're not jerks. We're people who notice problems. You're shooting the messenger. Every problem that tech has comes from treating disagreeable people as pariahs. Organizational bloat and tech debt are still issues even when we're not there. Avoid hiring disagreeable people and you'll arrive at the stereotypical tech org that can't get anything done. If you don't have disagreeable people to solve your issues, you have to use the other tool: Layoffs. Discriminating against people because they're disagreeable is insane. It's a Big Five personality trait. You hate half of humanity. Evolution produced the best problem-solving thing ever, humanity, and you decided a lot of the work done there was just pointless. The real reason disagreeable people are valuable and can attain power in the workplace is because you've made it so with this completely unreasonable bias you have. They're not supposed to be extremely rare! That only happens in the tech workplace. Would you similarly discriminate against anxious people? What about people who aren't open to new experiences? Do you shut them out too? How does your ideology square with black people being way more disagreeable on average? Let me guess: You don't hire any and then mumble something about culture fit. Working with disagreeable people doesn't suck. Working sucks. The disagreeable people just point it out. How do you ever improve without that? Working at an all-agreeable-people tech firm is a Kafkaesque nightmare of everything being perfect and nothing getting done. And you all deserve it because you decided that when people tend to be one way or the other, the ones who are like you are just better.

crtified 4y ago
Tech workplaces hold no special claim to conformity. It's not uncommon for big old professions and specialities to have institutes and charters which include compulsory precepts along the lines of "thou shalt not publicly disagree with or badmouth thy fellow". There, agreeing-to-agree is foundationally baked in; the very professions are sustained around the continual churning out of cookie-cutter journeymen, with intergenerational progress carefully, hierarchically regulated such that the profession all steps forward together.
talentedcoin 4y ago
Strong disagree. It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable, and I personally find it frustrating when people excuse their behaviour in the manner you are doing. Yes work sucks, but being unpleasant, cynical and snarky just makes it even worse. Roll up your sleeves and help or please get out of the way.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

Different workplaces will punish or reward these personalities in very different ways. In my experience, if a company rewards disagreeable people who use shady tactics, politics, and power plays by giving them more power, it's not going to be a good place to work. On the other hand, a culture that legitimately rewards people who play well together and reduces the influence of people who use politics and other games, there's a good chance it's going to be a good place to stay for many years. I suspect a lot of people start their careers in the first type of company (rewards bad behavior) and assume it's totally normally. It's the only environment they know, so they assume all workplaces operate by the same rules. When you think all workplaces are equally bad, you start losing motivation to find a better culture at a different company. You might also start imitating some of the bad behavior that seems to be working out for other people. In a way, disagreeableness and office politics are contagious. My advice to anyone who thinks that it's normal for companies to reward the "bad" employees at the expense of the "good" employees is that you might be at a company with backwards priorities. Consider prioritizing good peer references in your next job search to find a company that is better at these things. No workplace is perfect, but you don't want to work at a company that is consistently bad at reward alignment.