Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis...

As promised, here I am blogging once again. I'll take this as an opportunity to share some of the strange things floating around in my head, as well as some rare nuggets of information or knowledge that might be useful to you some day (then again, no, not really). Once in a while I will write about NUS, USP, and university stuff again because that's what most of my readers like, since I started this blog when I was at university. That seems like a really long time ago!

Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis

is in the next post, not this one! :)

Anything that interests me! The Dilbert and Peter Principles

Anything that interests me! The Dilbert and Peter Principles

I have been looking through my old blog posts and have discovered that I have written on quite a variety of subjects, far beyond my perimeters of "psychology, economics, history, mentalism, and yada yada". (I've also noted all sorts of tones and different nuances ranging from elation to anger, academic to non-academic, conversational tones, even.)

Well, in keeping with that I am going to mention two principles in management, which are NOT official or academic principles. They are just satirical observations and aren't based on any OLS estimation results or underlying deductive economic theories or any such stuff. They are, in other words, just for fun - although they appear very true!

The Dilbert Principle is basically Scott Adams' observation that organisations tend to promote incompetent people to higher management. (Anyone working under a bad boss or a "pointy headed boss" should know this one.)

The Peter Principle - formulated by Peter and Hull (1969) - is the observation that people who are very good at their jobs tend to be promoted to their level of incompetence because they are promoted to do things that they aren't very good at. The Generalised Peter Principle is that anything that works will be used in higher and more complicated applications until it just can't work any more.

Well, first of all, let's have a good laugh - YES, this is so true! (And you know it.)

I first came across these when I was working in the military (which all boys have to do in my country). My friend who happened to be a sergeant passed me a comic book by Adams and I was instantly hooked.

In any organisation - and the military is one example among many - there are several bosses who seem to know very little about what the organisation is about, and seem to be bumbling, fumbling, stumbling, mumbling morons. The question is - how did they get to be there?

I mean, the wonderful boss, the brave and strategic military commander, the elite manager, and the very smooth talking marketing genius can all get to be at the top because, wow, look at their talents - they are really capable. But there are some bosses who seem to come right from the depths of hell, and have fluff in place of brains. Explain that!

Mind you, to stress the point, we are not explaining those people who are at the top and are great leaders (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, my old colonel and many others come to mind). They either were incredibly talented and hardworking and smart from the very beginning and realised their talents, or they improved gradually, worked hard and improved along the way by learning rapidly or learning by doing, from rung to rung. No surprises there. We are instead trying to explain some inexplicable "anomaly".

Now, the Dilbert idea is that people are promoted because they are incompetent, so that they can move out of the way of the people doing the real work. That is one approach.

The Peter Principle is less cynical. It's that those guys weren't so bad at their jobs in the beginning! It's that as they went higher and higher in the job, their real skills and talents were left in the previous ladder.

As a German comedy (written about on Wikipedia, I kid you not!) said: one might make a very good sergeant, but not a good captain, and certainly a worse general.

Well, possibly.

But this is where I bring in my own views on this incredibly interesting and very odd subject. Perhaps it's got nothing to do with either the Dilbert or Peter Principle. Maybe it's got to do with schadenfreude or tall poppy syndrome? Maybe it's got to do with improper selection methods for management? But maybe... it's got to do with the so called Dunning Kruger Effect.

The thing why I guess DF and I are cleverer than average is partly due to this Dunning Kruger Effect. We know where we are deficient. Whenever I hear someone being described as a real polymath, I shudder, shake and quake, because of my economics training shouting out (loudly) "Opportunity Cost! Opportunity Cost!" I mean, I know we can all learn diverse subjects - I have wide interests too. But I acknowledge that for some of them I can never scale the full heights, especially since, even within fields I am proficient in, I can see that the mountains are nearly insurmountable.

What's this lack of cognitive dissonance got to do with incompetent people getting promoted?

Maybe the simple reason is that the people who are incompetent get promoted by people who simply are BAD at picking talent. Because they can't tell who is good, and who is bad, these gatekeepers or the next higher rank personnel pick those who appear confident, clever, smart, outspoken, and so on. No surprises there, I'd say - fairly uncontroversial. However, because these "gatekeepers" suffer from the Dunning Krueger Effect, they pick those people who suffer from the same overconfidence too!

Why don't they pick winners, in that case? Because the Dunning Krueger Effects predicts that people who are really competent tend to underestimate their true abilities whilst incompetent people tend to overlook genuine true ability. Thus, incompetent manager might pass over truly competent but humble worker in favour of falsely overconfident incompetent worker!

That's my tentative take on it. Plausible?

Nah, I give up. I've absolutely no idea why there are "pointy haired bosses".

Shouldn't evolutionary fitness or evolution or profit maximisation weed these guys out?

Your guess in this case is really as good as mine.

Anything that interests me!

A Quick Note on How To Read Anything that Interests Me!

A Quick Note on How To Read Anything that Interests Me!

I have had some comments sent to me via facebook, some via email, and some have tagged on my board, and for the next few months I encourage people to send me materials or stuff that I should read, and certainly people should feel free to tell me comments or their analyses, and so on.

However, I realise that there are a few problems that I have to highlight. This doesn't apply to all the emails I get; only some. (However, it's good general advice.)

Let's take an example. Recently, I wrote a normative analysis of certain government policies. Now, I got two main comments for that - the first comment was a rather simple comment that I should read more political economy but seemed to mistake my simple analysis for quantitative economics, which it certainly wasn't; the second comment was an economics reply, which dealt with intertemporal allocative problems and commitment issues and evolutionary theories and a general analysis of Singapore's current issues ranging from - I kid you not - low birth rates to evolutionary fitness of Singaporeans.

Now, the thing is that I've read my J S Mill, and yes, people have freedom of speech and thought. However, having said that, here are some rules that should guide you in reading all articles, but including this one as well:

1. What is the context?

The two replies to my analysis have ignored the context - it's a Singaporean context; it's written in response to the fact that there are mostly one sided comments on many yahoo FTP articles; it's written in response to certain events, etc. Context is important.

2. What is written? What does the author say?

Now, the thing is that this is amazing. Despite my repeated exhortations, people can still read wrongly! E.g. "UBS' retirement age is 62!" I never said it wasn't. "We can still be reemployed after retirement, OK!" I never said you can't. "Why should economists decide our future?" I never said they did or should. And so on, and so forth. Please, please, read what is written, not what you think is written.

I shall say this again as it's so important: Read what is written, not what you think is written.

3. Try to think about the new information or ideas, rather than rejecting them out of hand.

This site is meant to increase your views, not to narrow them. This site is meant to share my ideas on what interests me, not what necessarily interests you. So if you can't take new ideas, you shouldn't be here. If you don't like reading, go somewhere else.

On the other hand, if you're here - then think about what I've written and see if it applies to you; if it's logical; if it makes sense; if it doesn't, then does the issue lie with you or with me? [And bear in mind I don't usually write on issues I don't know.]

If I am wrong on the other hand, then make a mental note, or better yet, send me a correction! If it's an opinion you don't agree with, rather than something "positive" (factual), then think about what you don't like, why, and why your underlying assumptions are better than my underlying assumptions. Don't bother sending me an unsubstantiated opinion; opinions should have some basis.

4. Question, challenge and think through what you read.

I have said that before, so I shan't bother explaining. Question! Question! Question! I would like to thank my old teacher Ms M who taught me that when I was a young H S way back in '02/'03.

In any case, for some - odd - people who don't seem to like my writing, they shall be pleased to know that I will be stopping further posts on this blog in July 2011, in a few months' time. I shall be concentrating on other sites, and also spending more time on my postgraduate diploma. There are many things for me to do, rather than just contributing ideas to help university juniors or people asking for advice. Tschuess!

I've had a great run and made a lot of online friends (online enemies tend to make nasty comments then disappear permanently; online friends (who sometimes also happen to be my friends in real life) occasionally send me more tags or emails or write nice things about me, such as Accelerator and Defensedefumer).

As for those who like my writing, well, you've had my company on many occasions and some of you - well, a whole bunch of you - have been receiving nice emails and comments from me. It was a pleasure knowing you. Thank you very much to all my friends, nice readers and good passersby who gave me nice comments and some really funny, in terms of happy, comments too. So don't be surprised when in a few months' time, I send a goodbye notice! :) Thank you to all my loyal readers!

To end on a sad note: It has been great blogging; but as we say, all good things come to an end.

Anything that Interests Me!