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In the realm of "productivity", there are many different personality types: - People with vision, who can recognize potential in a concept or idea - People wh
by eykanal 14y ago
In the realm of "productivity", there are many different personality types:
- People with vision, who can recognize potential in a concept or idea
- People who, given an idea, can conceptualize all the use cases and rare exceptions
- People who can initiate projects and provide good momentum for all those involved
- People who take a task, buckle, down and get their part done
- People who carefully examine other folks' work to check for mistakes
- People who can take a languishing project and bring it through to completion
- People who play constructive devil's advocate, helping you consider all the possible risks
- People with all sorts of other skills that I didn't think of right now
- People who slack
When building a team, you'll need almost all of these personality types (you could probably leave out the slacker, though). Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater by only looking for the "manager" types or the "coder" types.
- pault 14y agoEven the slackers?
- eykanal 14y agoDang, I deleted a sentence. Thanks for point that out. Edited to amend. Slackers are fun to hang out with, though...
- fferen 14y ago"Morale-boosters".
- run4yourlives 14y agoIt's been my experience that slackers are often demoralized visionaries. When you tell someone that they have nothing to add for long enough, eventually they start believing it.
- wtracy 14y agoSometimes. Then there's the guy I knew in college who spent hours of every day playing Runescape and who once told me that his math teacher had said to him: "You are the smartest student I have ever had fail this class."
- seanp2k2 14y agoSadly though, all the potential in the world doesn't matter if you don't apply yourself. I'm currently on a team of slackers and stuck projects, and moving to silicon valley in the next 30 days (already have a job there.) I fully expect the next few years to be my most productive ever, because I'm coming into a team that makes me feel like a total novice in the best way possible. They're very nice and willing to share their knowledge while we hone our craft together. I can't wait. Anyone in mountain view up for some road biking and learning how to kiteboard in the next few months? I also climb, but I'm a bit rusty/heavy.
- bostonpete 14y agoDo you really mean personality types? These seem like traits that aren't mutually exclusive...
- eykanal 14y agoSome people will embody a few of these, but the more you combine the more rare the person is.
- bostonpete 14y agoI suppose so -- but I guess that's probably true of any set of exceptional traits/skills.
- fragsworth 14y agoMight just be me, but I feel like you're really over-analyzing things here.
- wtvanhest 14y agoAh, the constructive devil's advocate.
- joe_the_user 14y agoOnly because the article under-analyzes things...
- keithpeter 14y agoMeredith Belbin?