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I agree with your assessment, (most of) the most successful people that come from Ivy League schools are successful not because of their talents int their respe

by yapyap 2y ago

I agree with your assessment, (most of) the most successful people that come from Ivy League schools are successful not because of their talents int their respective fortes (though that doesn’t hurt either) but mostly because of the huge amount of connections they made with others who ended up in powerful positions after attending the school. It’s the one thing that many, including me despise. The human factor of it all, people getting raises / better chances because they are smoother socially instead of their skill for their job. Now lately I feel like there’s been kind of a change in collective worldview, at least on the internet, where social aspects of jobs that deal with facts (math, programming, etc) are also starting to be considered important because of said human aspects of jobs. Of course this change in online worldview is heavily skewed because influencers are the ones with a big enough audience to broadcast their opinions and influencers are often very social people.

glimshe 2y ago
Being smooth socially IS a skill. We should stop dismissing the talent/ability to interact with other humans. People have to make trust decisions with limited and imperfect information. The world is full of danger and risk. Being able to develop trust through relationships skills enable others to make choices regarding who they should associate and spend time with. Then you say: a lot of these people just pretend to be something they are not for personal gain. Well, sure, ANY skill can be used for personal gain at the expense of others. I've worked with amazingly competent, but unpleasant (not an asshole) people. And with mediocre, pleasant people. While I recognize that the amazingly competent, unpleasant people are also deserving of a portion of our riches, I would rather spend my day with pleasant people. And, more often than not, so do customers. If I'm dealing with another company, I'd rather work with people with good communication skills and let them sort things out with the unpleasant ones. No wonder the people with good communication end up becoming the bosses. My own career really took off when I stopped focusing solely on technical minutia (I had always been a "hardcore" engineer) and spend time, instead, learning about behaviors for developing trust and smoothing personal interactions. That when I became the boss.

by yapyap 2y ago

glimshe 2y ago

Being smooth socially IS a skill. We should stop dismissing the talent/ability to interact with other humans. People have to make trust decisions with limited and imperfect information. The world is full of danger and risk. Being able to develop trust through relationships skills enable others to make choices regarding who they should associate and spend time with. Then you say: a lot of these people just pretend to be something they are not for personal gain. Well, sure, ANY skill can be used for personal gain at the expense of others. I've worked with amazingly competent, but unpleasant (not an asshole) people. And with mediocre, pleasant people. While I recognize that the amazingly competent, unpleasant people are also deserving of a portion of our riches, I would rather spend my day with pleasant people. And, more often than not, so do customers. If I'm dealing with another company, I'd rather work with people with good communication skills and let them sort things out with the unpleasant ones. No wonder the people with good communication end up becoming the bosses. My own career really took off when I stopped focusing solely on technical minutia (I had always been a "hardcore" engineer) and spend time, instead, learning about behaviors for developing trust and smoothing personal interactions. That when I became the boss.