WEBVTT - Hamlet Was Wrong 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:22.276 Pushkin. Here's what we're doing today, Ready, but do we 0:00:22.316 --> 0:00:24.676 do it? I'm going to do an episode of revisionist 0:00:24.716 --> 0:00:29.476 History in which I you know, I'm obsessed with hiring. 0:00:29.516 --> 0:00:32.436 I've always been obsessed with that. So what I'm doing 0:00:32.516 --> 0:00:34.876 is I'm interviewing all the people I ever hired, and 0:00:35.036 --> 0:00:37.676 you you're the first person I hired. 0:00:38.996 --> 0:00:41.596 And wear that badge pretty proudly. I'll tell you what. 0:00:43.916 --> 0:00:48.596 Stacy Kailish my first assistant. I'd never had an assistant before, 0:00:48.996 --> 0:00:52.796 but maybe fifteen years ago, right after publishing my second book, Blink, 0:00:53.036 --> 0:00:55.996 I realized I was spending all my time answering emails 0:00:56.316 --> 0:01:00.076 and booking travel instead of writing, so I decided I 0:01:00.116 --> 0:01:05.956 needed some help. I didn't remember the circumstances under which 0:01:06.676 --> 0:01:08.356 you came to work for me, so I thought I 0:01:08.716 --> 0:01:12.436 would just ask you remind me again how I found you. 0:01:14.076 --> 0:01:16.356 A big theme of what follows is that I have 0:01:16.436 --> 0:01:20.836 no memory, names, faces, dates. I basically forget everything. A 0:01:20.956 --> 0:01:23.676 normal person doesn't have to do research on their own life, 0:01:24.036 --> 0:01:25.556 but I'm afraid I do. 0:01:26.916 --> 0:01:32.796 Okay, so I have some funny, funny memories around the 0:01:32.836 --> 0:01:38.396 whole hiring situation. So you've found me? How it happened 0:01:38.596 --> 0:01:43.116 was I had just finished grad school and was looking 0:01:43.116 --> 0:01:43.756 for a job. 0:01:44.476 --> 0:01:48.276 Stacy knew someone who knew someone who had an assistant 0:01:48.396 --> 0:01:51.636 who knew me, or something like that. Very complicated. Anyway, 0:01:51.756 --> 0:01:54.636 I got Stacy's name and just emailed her out of 0:01:54.676 --> 0:01:56.116 the blue. 0:01:56.636 --> 0:01:58.356 You're like, you don't know me, but I'm looking for 0:01:58.396 --> 0:02:00.796 an assistant, you know, would you be interested? 0:02:01.476 --> 0:02:03.036 We met the next day for coffee. 0:02:03.556 --> 0:02:07.236 We chatted for literally, I'm gonna say, all of thirty minutes. 0:02:07.916 --> 0:02:10.076 Yeah, and so, yeah, we were you. 0:02:09.996 --> 0:02:13.956 Were going to you were traveling to South Africa. All 0:02:13.996 --> 0:02:17.676 we spoke about of what I can remember is you 0:02:17.756 --> 0:02:20.036 had said, oh, you have an accent. You have an accent. 0:02:20.076 --> 0:02:21.996 I'm like, yeah, I was born in South Africa and then, 0:02:22.316 --> 0:02:24.156 you know, moved to Australia. They're like, oh, I'm going 0:02:24.196 --> 0:02:27.596 to South Africa for business or you know, for Europe 0:02:27.636 --> 0:02:30.116 speaking engagements. The next day and so I think for 0:02:30.156 --> 0:02:33.876 about twenty minutes, all we talked about was like recommendations 0:02:33.876 --> 0:02:35.116 of what you should do in South Africa. 0:02:35.556 --> 0:02:39.076 That pretty much I think was it's a rigorous job. 0:02:39.636 --> 0:02:42.596 Rigorous, like, yes, you really vetted me through and through 0:02:43.316 --> 0:02:46.396 my knowledge, where best to eat in South Africa. So 0:02:46.436 --> 0:02:51.236 we talked about that, and I remember hilariously being very 0:02:51.316 --> 0:02:54.596 concerned because I just got in a nose ring, and 0:02:54.636 --> 0:02:57.116 I remember thinking, oh, I don't know, you know, is 0:02:57.156 --> 0:02:59.556 he going to like should I take the nose ring 0:02:59.596 --> 0:03:01.596 out for the interview? Will he notice? 0:03:01.676 --> 0:03:01.956 Is this? 0:03:02.476 --> 0:03:02.636 You know? 0:03:03.796 --> 0:03:06.996 Is it proper or professional of me? And I literally 0:03:07.036 --> 0:03:10.236 remember like maybe six months to a year later, when 0:03:10.276 --> 0:03:12.356 I was obviously had been working for you all that time, 0:03:12.636 --> 0:03:14.876 and I said to you something about like did you 0:03:14.876 --> 0:03:17.196 ever notice that or something about my nose ring came out? 0:03:17.196 --> 0:03:19.916 You're like, Oh, I didn't even know you had one. 0:03:20.516 --> 0:03:23.156 But I agonized, I'm aware that to keep this nose 0:03:23.276 --> 0:03:26.556 ring in or not for fear that it would you know, 0:03:26.676 --> 0:03:28.476 I don't know if it would be a bad look. 0:03:28.636 --> 0:03:31.756 And you did not for like the entire year, the 0:03:31.796 --> 0:03:33.596 first year that I worked for you, did not even 0:03:33.716 --> 0:03:35.116 notice that I had a nose ring. 0:03:37.076 --> 0:03:40.196 I didn't notice then, I don't remember. Now this is 0:03:40.196 --> 0:03:46.076 getting off to a bad start. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. 0:03:46.556 --> 0:03:50.196 You're listening to my podcast about Things Overlooked and Misunderstood. 0:03:52.556 --> 0:03:56.596 In this episode, I turned the unflinching analytic gaze that 0:03:56.676 --> 0:04:07.236 is revisionist history upon myself. Let us use as our 0:04:07.276 --> 0:04:11.436 text via mortal lines for the New Testament Matthew seven, 0:04:11.756 --> 0:04:19.476 verse five, Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out 0:04:19.516 --> 0:04:25.036 of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly 0:04:25.076 --> 0:04:36.916 to cast out the moat out of thy brother's eye. 0:04:37.596 --> 0:04:40.156 You had emailed me and we'd met the next morning 0:04:40.156 --> 0:04:43.076 because you were leaving, I think shortly after that for 0:04:43.156 --> 0:04:47.436 South Africa. We spoke for about thirty minutes, twenty twenty 0:04:47.476 --> 0:04:50.516 five of which was about South Africa, and then you 0:04:50.676 --> 0:04:52.876 left and you said to me, he said, okay, great. 0:04:53.756 --> 0:04:55.676 You know, I got a couple more people to interview, 0:04:56.356 --> 0:04:58.076 and so I guess I'll be in touch when I'm 0:04:58.116 --> 0:04:59.796 back for my travel in like two weeks or so. 0:04:59.876 --> 0:05:02.716 I'm like, okay, you know, good to meet you, And 0:05:03.036 --> 0:05:04.916 being kind of nervous you left, I thought, oh god, 0:05:04.916 --> 0:05:06.476 I'm gonna have to wait now for two weeks to 0:05:06.516 --> 0:05:10.196 find out and about I'm gonna say. Ten to fifteen 0:05:10.236 --> 0:05:15.716 minutes later, my phone rang and I answered it and 0:05:15.756 --> 0:05:18.516 you're like, hey, it's Malcolm again. 0:05:18.996 --> 0:05:19.556 So listen. 0:05:20.076 --> 0:05:22.396 You seem nice enough. Why don't you just come by 0:05:22.476 --> 0:05:23.476 and start tomorrow. 0:05:26.716 --> 0:05:29.956 It's just like. It was like the least professional hiring 0:05:29.996 --> 0:05:32.516 story I ever heard in my life. 0:05:33.276 --> 0:05:35.476 And the funniest thing as well, is I was like, 0:05:36.036 --> 0:05:39.756 this must have been like a blink moment for him. 0:05:39.836 --> 0:05:42.516 I mean, you had just finished writing Blink. That's when 0:05:42.516 --> 0:05:44.796 I'd started with you, like two thousand and five, right 0:05:44.836 --> 0:05:47.996 after that book. And I remember laughing with you again 0:05:48.076 --> 0:05:51.556 a few months later, well into you know, the job, 0:05:51.676 --> 0:05:54.916 and saying to you, you know when you hired me, Yo, 0:05:55.436 --> 0:05:58.676 you didn't really met me much. Was it like a 0:05:58.716 --> 0:05:59.436 blink moment? 0:05:59.516 --> 0:06:01.196 You just knew and you said to me. 0:06:02.116 --> 0:06:06.036 Nah, I just couldn't be bothered going through any more interviews, 0:06:06.436 --> 0:06:09.796 and you seem nice enough. That was seem nice. I 0:06:09.836 --> 0:06:11.476 just didn't feel like interviewing anyone else. 0:06:13.916 --> 0:06:17.116 As I've stated, I remember none of this, but it 0:06:17.156 --> 0:06:20.196 all seems a little strange, doesn't it. I was about 0:06:20.236 --> 0:06:25.396 to hand Stacy access to all of my business, credit cards, mail, 0:06:25.636 --> 0:06:29.396 media requests. I would soon make her my main intermediary 0:06:29.716 --> 0:06:33.156 with the entire outside world. Did I appear to have 0:06:33.196 --> 0:06:34.036 read your resume? 0:06:35.876 --> 0:06:38.036 Um skimmed? 0:06:38.436 --> 0:06:38.956 Maybe? 0:06:39.396 --> 0:06:40.956 Did I ask you? Do you rememory if I asked 0:06:40.956 --> 0:06:44.636 you any questions about your schooling? No, did you have 0:06:44.676 --> 0:06:47.276 any previous work experience that was relevant? 0:06:49.076 --> 0:06:53.156 I had interned and worked at Frontline, but I mean 0:06:53.196 --> 0:06:55.276 that's more documentary. 0:06:54.236 --> 0:06:55.716 It is not really. 0:06:55.796 --> 0:06:56.756 Yeah, it was on my resume. 0:06:57.276 --> 0:06:58.436 You obviously didn't. 0:06:59.956 --> 0:07:03.316 Who knew Frontline? Well that's impressive. If I'd done that, 0:07:03.356 --> 0:07:05.436 I might might have hired you in ten minutes. And 0:07:05.476 --> 0:07:09.916 it's posted twenty five Now. My first defense reaction to 0:07:09.956 --> 0:07:12.996 what Stacy was telling me was this was my first hire. 0:07:13.236 --> 0:07:17.636 What did I know? Then she reminded me of someone else. 0:07:18.236 --> 0:07:20.196 Do you still work with the Buttnick? 0:07:22.636 --> 0:07:27.036 Oh my god, I'd forgotten that story, the Buttnick Don Budnick. 0:07:28.476 --> 0:07:32.076 Even though I've barely gotten started here. This requires a digression. 0:07:33.116 --> 0:07:34.876 Well that's a fun story from my end. 0:07:36.036 --> 0:07:38.836 Well, I'd just like you to I'd like to tell it. 0:07:39.076 --> 0:07:40.636 What year was this? 0:07:41.996 --> 0:07:42.276 Five? 0:07:43.036 --> 0:07:44.076 How can you remember that? 0:07:45.116 --> 0:07:50.396 Because I'm a savant, the blink had just hit the shelves. 0:07:50.996 --> 0:07:53.556 Blink in case you hadn't picked up on it is 0:07:53.596 --> 0:07:57.476 about the power of first impressions. Don had just read 0:07:57.516 --> 0:07:58.556 it and liked it. 0:07:59.156 --> 0:08:03.356 So anyway, one day I was I was out for lunch, 0:08:03.436 --> 0:08:04.756 or I went to the bank or something, and I'm 0:08:04.756 --> 0:08:08.436 walking back to my office and there and there you are. 0:08:08.916 --> 0:08:11.916 I see me walking down the street in the opposite 0:08:11.996 --> 0:08:15.436 direction of me, and I knew immediately who you were. 0:08:15.436 --> 0:08:17.356 But I couldn't think of your name. Couldn't think of 0:08:17.396 --> 0:08:20.196 your name, couldn't think of your name. You passed me by. 0:08:20.676 --> 0:08:23.676 I turn, I opened my mouth, I yelled out, hey, Malcolm, 0:08:24.876 --> 0:08:28.836 but I didn't know your name. I just yelled out, hey, Malcolm, Yeah, 0:08:28.996 --> 0:08:31.956 just like in the book blink. And you stopped and 0:08:31.996 --> 0:08:34.916 you turned around. And I seemed like a nice enough guy, 0:08:35.236 --> 0:08:38.276 and you picked up on my energy of being excited 0:08:38.276 --> 0:08:39.996 by the book. So we were standing on the street 0:08:40.076 --> 0:08:42.756 talking for a while and I said, gee, I would 0:08:42.796 --> 0:08:45.116 love it if you would autograph my book for me. 0:08:45.756 --> 0:08:47.956 And then it dawned on me. We were around the 0:08:47.996 --> 0:08:51.436 corner from my office, so I said, you know what, 0:08:51.476 --> 0:08:54.156 We're around the corner from my office. And you came 0:08:54.236 --> 0:08:57.316 up to my office. You still didn't know my name, 0:08:57.396 --> 0:08:59.236 you didn't know who I was. I was just a 0:08:59.316 --> 0:09:01.356 nice guy in the street. And you come up to 0:09:01.396 --> 0:09:04.676 my office and were sitting there talking, and that's when 0:09:04.676 --> 0:09:07.436 you notice things on my desk and you see the 0:09:07.436 --> 0:09:12.156 initial CPA, and you say to me, oh, you're an accountant. 0:09:12.156 --> 0:09:14.996 I said, yeah, I'm an accountant. And you said, gee, 0:09:15.436 --> 0:09:18.196 I'm really not that happy with the accountants I'm using 0:09:18.276 --> 0:09:24.996 right now? Can I hire you? And I was a 0:09:24.996 --> 0:09:29.076 little excited and dumbfounded at the same time, and I said, 0:09:29.276 --> 0:09:34.996 slow down, I said, I said, we'll make an appointment. Well, 0:09:35.036 --> 0:09:38.636 sit and we'll talk about what your situation is and 0:09:38.676 --> 0:09:41.156 what kind of advice I could possibly give you, and 0:09:41.836 --> 0:09:44.076 then you'll figure out if you want to hire me 0:09:44.196 --> 0:09:46.116 or not. And you said no, no, I want to 0:09:46.156 --> 0:09:49.036 hire and I said, no, we're going to We're do 0:09:49.196 --> 0:09:51.556 this right. We're not going to do this impulsively. And 0:09:51.556 --> 0:09:53.636 eventually you came to my office and I gave you 0:09:53.676 --> 0:09:55.636 a consultation and you hired me. 0:09:56.316 --> 0:10:00.476 So a perfect stranger, short guy, red hair, runs up 0:10:00.516 --> 0:10:04.556 to me on Madison Avenue, Malcolm Malcolm, and five minutes later, 0:10:04.756 --> 0:10:07.196 I'm trying to hire him to handle all of my 0:10:07.356 --> 0:10:10.396 most sensitive affairs. Who am I? 0:10:13.836 --> 0:10:15.836 So you wouldn't let me. I was like, I want 0:10:15.876 --> 0:10:17.276 to hire you, but you wouldn't let me. 0:10:17.356 --> 0:10:22.476 I wouldn't let you yet because I wanted to have 0:10:22.636 --> 0:10:26.556 a serious conversation where where I gave you a consultation 0:10:26.836 --> 0:10:30.596 and I discussed what planning ideas I had for you. 0:10:31.316 --> 0:10:35.156 I wanted to make sure that you made your decision 0:10:35.276 --> 0:10:40.036 not based on impulse, but based on some knowledge and 0:10:42.116 --> 0:10:45.876 trust and confidence that I knew what I was talking about. 0:10:46.276 --> 0:10:48.996 But I had just told you that the reason I 0:10:48.996 --> 0:10:51.036 didn't like my old account was they never had any 0:10:51.076 --> 0:10:53.876 conversation with me other I didn't know any about accounting. 0:10:54.356 --> 0:10:56.396 So how can I How can I have an intelligent 0:10:56.436 --> 0:10:59.516 conversation with you about whether you should be my account 0:10:59.556 --> 0:11:01.796 if I have never had any intelligent conversation with an 0:11:01.836 --> 0:11:03.156 account but thou whether it should. 0:11:02.916 --> 0:11:06.156 Be my accountant precisely, And it goes around and around 0:11:06.156 --> 0:11:07.556 and around whatever. 0:11:07.956 --> 0:11:12.956 This is getting embarrassed, all right? Now comes the part 0:11:13.036 --> 0:11:16.636 where I try and defend myself. In every season of 0:11:16.676 --> 0:11:19.796 Revisionist History, I fall in love with someone I interview. 0:11:20.396 --> 0:11:24.076 Last season it was Tony Gebli, the T connoisseur, who 0:11:24.156 --> 0:11:27.796 accused me of being a T bro meaning Tony for 0:11:27.876 --> 0:11:31.636 reasons I don't entirely understand, made me very happy. The 0:11:31.716 --> 0:11:35.356 season before that, it was Casey Bowles, the musician from Nashville, 0:11:35.556 --> 0:11:37.956 who sang a song that brings me to tears every 0:11:37.956 --> 0:11:38.676 time I hear it. 0:11:39.196 --> 0:11:42.036 She grew up playing cowgirl. 0:11:43.396 --> 0:11:51.436 In a ROTWN dreams GC holl kac I b O 0:11:51.876 --> 0:11:56.156 l l s when this is over look her up. 0:11:58.596 --> 0:12:01.636 This season, the interview that surprised me the most was 0:12:01.676 --> 0:12:05.036 with someone named Adam Kronkrite. I talked about him in 0:12:05.076 --> 0:12:08.596 the episode on democratic Lotteries. Adam has made it his 0:12:08.636 --> 0:12:11.636 life's work to convince grade school kids to choose their 0:12:11.636 --> 0:12:15.876 student council governments by picking names out of a hat. Actually, 0:12:16.196 --> 0:12:19.556 since Adam works in Bolivia by picking father beans out 0:12:19.556 --> 0:12:23.076 of a clay pot, can I ask you for your question? Yeah, 0:12:23.116 --> 0:12:27.316 that's Adam. After we talked, he seemed slightly mystified about 0:12:27.316 --> 0:12:30.236 why I had emailed him one day out of the blue. 0:12:30.916 --> 0:12:33.516 So how do you find out about lottery selection like 0:12:33.596 --> 0:12:36.236 democratic lottery concerts? I was just interested. I've always been 0:12:36.276 --> 0:12:43.036 interested in lotteries, and I just was rooting around online 0:12:43.036 --> 0:12:45.796 and I ran across the work you were doing. I mean, 0:12:45.836 --> 0:12:47.956 it's as simple as I was sitting in my coffee 0:12:47.956 --> 0:12:50.716 shop over there. That was the day I contacted you. 0:12:50.836 --> 0:12:55.276 I was like, this is really interesting and it's totally random. 0:12:56.316 --> 0:13:00.036 Now there's a very important distinction with this whole lottery thing. 0:13:00.676 --> 0:13:09.636 It's between agnosticism and nihilism. Agnosticism is about indifference. It's 0:13:09.716 --> 0:13:15.996 an elaborate gallic shrug. The agnostic would say, the reason 0:13:16.076 --> 0:13:19.356 to choose people randomly for positions of leadership is that 0:13:19.436 --> 0:13:23.236 basically anyone can do the job. The army in wartime 0:13:23.516 --> 0:13:26.716 has an agnostic position. Their belief is they can take 0:13:26.756 --> 0:13:29.916 almost any able bodied person and turn them into a 0:13:29.956 --> 0:13:34.156 reasonably effective soldier. But that's not Adam kronk Wright's position. 0:13:35.156 --> 0:13:38.316 He absolutely thinks that there are good leaders and bad leaders, 0:13:38.556 --> 0:13:41.076 and not everyone is cut out to be student council president. 0:13:41.676 --> 0:13:44.116 He just doesn't believe that the systems we currently use 0:13:44.476 --> 0:13:48.236 are any good, so he says, why bother just pull 0:13:48.236 --> 0:13:51.556 a name out of a hat. Now Adam would argue 0:13:51.676 --> 0:13:55.556 that's in the interests of a fair system, but let's 0:13:55.596 --> 0:13:59.036 be clear, he's a nihilist. He does not look at 0:13:59.036 --> 0:14:02.716 the vast apparatus of democratic selection, honed and perfected over 0:14:02.756 --> 0:14:07.156 many centuries and shrug. That's what the agnostic would do. No, 0:14:07.716 --> 0:14:11.076 he looks at those elaborates rtuals and he rolls his eyes. 0:14:11.516 --> 0:14:15.956 He says, give me a break. That's my position too. 0:14:16.076 --> 0:14:18.356 When it comes to Hiring. I look at all the 0:14:18.396 --> 0:14:22.116 folklore and ritual around predicting how well people will perform, 0:14:22.356 --> 0:14:25.556 and I say, give me a break. I am an 0:14:25.596 --> 0:14:29.196 eye roller, not a shrugger. I am a nihilist, and 0:14:29.276 --> 0:14:32.276 my task in this episode of revisionist history is to 0:14:32.316 --> 0:14:44.396 convince you to be a nihilist too. The patron saint 0:14:44.516 --> 0:14:48.996 of Hiring Nihilism, without question, was the author and educator 0:14:49.196 --> 0:14:53.316 Lawrence Peter. All of us in the Hiring nihilist community 0:14:53.636 --> 0:14:54.836 worship at his feed. 0:14:59.836 --> 0:15:02.636 When I was a boy, I used to believe my 0:15:02.756 --> 0:15:05.756 parents and believe my teachers, and that you should have 0:15:05.836 --> 0:15:08.156 respect for your elders and betters, and that the men 0:15:08.276 --> 0:15:09.876 upstairs what they were doing. 0:15:10.356 --> 0:15:13.756 That's Peter. He was a Canadian, as am I, of course, 0:15:14.116 --> 0:15:16.916 And I don't know if you remember from the Lottery episode, 0:15:16.996 --> 0:15:21.276 but Adam Kronkwright went to university in Canada. The nihilist 0:15:21.356 --> 0:15:25.836 strain runs deep in the land of the Frozen Prairie anyway. 0:15:26.236 --> 0:15:30.196 Lawrence Peter was a great afhorist, famous for saying things 0:15:30.276 --> 0:15:33.156 like the noblest of all dogs is the hot dog. 0:15:33.516 --> 0:15:36.476 It feeds the hand that bites it. He was also 0:15:36.556 --> 0:15:40.036 deeply involved in something called the Kinetic Sculpture Race in 0:15:40.156 --> 0:15:44.436 Humboldt County, California, which is really hard to explain, except 0:15:44.476 --> 0:15:46.716 to say that it's kind of like the Triathlon of 0:15:46.756 --> 0:15:50.676 the art world, involving sculptures on wheels that are required 0:15:50.676 --> 0:15:55.676 to perform certain feats. Peter famously proposed a special prize 0:15:56.076 --> 0:15:59.356 called the Golden Dinosaur Award, to be given to the 0:15:59.356 --> 0:16:03.316 first machine to break down immediately after the start, which 0:16:03.756 --> 0:16:06.556 if you knew Lawrence Peter, you would recognize as being 0:16:07.036 --> 0:16:12.196 very Lawrence Peter. Because his professional obsession was with incompetence. 0:16:12.796 --> 0:16:15.116 He had a connoisseur's eye for it. 0:16:16.156 --> 0:16:19.916 And as I looked around me, I saw a sign 0:16:19.956 --> 0:16:24.716 on the door that said emergency exit authorized personnel only. 0:16:25.156 --> 0:16:29.156 I wondered who'd written that, But then later I saw 0:16:29.196 --> 0:16:33.636 another scien It said emergency exit not to be used 0:16:33.756 --> 0:16:35.556 under any circumstances. 0:16:36.116 --> 0:16:39.196 Lawrence Peter formulated one of the most famous laws in 0:16:39.276 --> 0:16:42.756 social science. He called it the Peter principle. 0:16:45.836 --> 0:16:48.956 The Peter principal states very simply that in any hierarchy, 0:16:49.356 --> 0:16:53.476 an employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. 0:16:53.876 --> 0:16:55.356 That's where he stays. 0:16:58.716 --> 0:17:02.796 People get promoted based on a prediction about their ability 0:17:02.796 --> 0:17:05.396 to handle the next job on the hierarchy, and they 0:17:05.476 --> 0:17:08.356 keep rising until the prediction is wrong. 0:17:09.276 --> 0:17:16.036 You see, in any organization where competence is essentially eligibility 0:17:16.076 --> 0:17:20.796 for promotion and incompetence is a bar to promotion. Wherever 0:17:20.836 --> 0:17:23.876 those rules apply, people who rise to the level of 0:17:23.876 --> 0:17:26.076 incompetence and tend to stay there. 0:17:27.316 --> 0:17:30.476 Lawrence Peter wrote a book called Peter Principle in nineteen 0:17:30.516 --> 0:17:34.196 sixty nine, and it is delightful, exactly in a Lawrence 0:17:34.236 --> 0:17:36.916 Peter sort of way, like he has a whole riff 0:17:36.996 --> 0:17:39.956 on the special case of someone who is incompetent or 0:17:40.036 --> 0:17:47.036 promoted anyway kicked upstairs a movie calls percussive sublimation, or 0:17:47.076 --> 0:17:50.236 the case when an incompetent person is moved out of 0:17:50.316 --> 0:17:53.556 the way but given a long job title as compensation. 0:17:54.476 --> 0:18:00.756 Peter called that a lateral arabesque. Now chances are you've 0:18:00.836 --> 0:18:02.996 heard of the Peter principle. I'm guessing as a kind 0:18:03.036 --> 0:18:05.956 of joke. Haha, that's why my boss is so bad. 0:18:06.596 --> 0:18:15.636 But it's not a joke. Allow me to direct you 0:18:15.676 --> 0:18:18.036 to the work of a fellow member of the Hiring 0:18:18.116 --> 0:18:22.996 Nihilist Club, Alan Benson economist at the University of Minnesota. 0:18:23.676 --> 0:18:26.636 While he was doing his doctorate at MIT, he got 0:18:26.676 --> 0:18:28.276 bitten by the Peter principal. 0:18:28.316 --> 0:18:32.836 Bug I started to go to sales management conferences, and 0:18:32.916 --> 0:18:35.156 I found that there was this adage that the best 0:18:35.196 --> 0:18:39.076 sales person doesn't necessarily make the best manager. But then 0:18:39.076 --> 0:18:41.756 people would laugh and say, but we do it anyway, 0:18:41.916 --> 0:18:43.396 and I wanted to find out why. 0:18:44.036 --> 0:18:47.476 The great advantage of using salespeople to validate the Peter principle, 0:18:47.796 --> 0:18:51.516 Benson realizes is that you can measure performance really easily. 0:18:51.996 --> 0:18:56.076 It's not like assessing the performance of engineers or politicians. No, 0:18:56.356 --> 0:18:59.196 it's super straightforward. You just look at how many sales 0:18:59.196 --> 0:19:02.196 the salesperson has made. And it's also easy to measure 0:19:02.196 --> 0:19:05.076 how good a sales manager is. You just add up 0:19:05.076 --> 0:19:08.516 the sales of the salespeople the manager's managing. So Alan 0:19:08.556 --> 0:19:11.956 Benson's a tech company that sells one of those software 0:19:11.996 --> 0:19:16.596 platforms for sales organizations, kind of like salesforce dot com, 0:19:16.796 --> 0:19:19.916 and he gets access to all of their customer's data. 0:19:20.476 --> 0:19:25.196 Four hundred firms, one hundred thousand salespeople. The first thing 0:19:25.236 --> 0:19:28.356 he finds is a confirmation of the famous eighty twenty 0:19:28.436 --> 0:19:32.356 rule that twenty percent of the salespeople are responsible for 0:19:32.516 --> 0:19:36.236 eighty percent of the sales across the board. It's not 0:19:36.396 --> 0:19:39.196 that we don't know who is a good salesperson. We 0:19:39.396 --> 0:19:44.556 definitely know some people are really good. Second thing, he 0:19:44.636 --> 0:19:47.636 finds that those superstars get rewarded. 0:19:48.236 --> 0:19:51.676 What we found in the data is that top salespeople 0:19:51.756 --> 0:19:54.716 are far far more likely to be promoted into sales 0:19:54.756 --> 0:19:58.356 management than people who are outside of that top twenty 0:19:58.356 --> 0:20:01.076 percent or who aren't the best person on the team. 0:20:01.556 --> 0:20:04.956 Of course, that makes sense. You give the stars a promotion. 0:20:05.356 --> 0:20:09.796 That's what everyone does. Okay, Now it gets interesting. What 0:20:09.996 --> 0:20:13.356 happens when those stars take over as manager. 0:20:13.716 --> 0:20:17.356 Their salespeople than salespeople who they manage. Their performances becomes 0:20:17.396 --> 0:20:20.596 worse under them than it was under their prior managers. 0:20:21.476 --> 0:20:24.996 The stars get promoted, and they're terrible managers. How terrible, 0:20:25.396 --> 0:20:29.876 really terrible. Benson looked at an alternate promotion scenario where 0:20:29.916 --> 0:20:33.636 companies decide to promote not the stars but the salespeople 0:20:33.636 --> 0:20:36.956 who are good at collaborating, nice, friendly people who work 0:20:36.996 --> 0:20:40.356 well with others, and teams managed by the friendly people 0:20:40.716 --> 0:20:43.516 do thirty percent better than the teams managed by the 0:20:43.556 --> 0:20:48.676 superstars thirty percent. That's huge. Now, you might say, what 0:20:48.756 --> 0:20:51.236 does this have to do with nihilism? This is just 0:20:51.276 --> 0:20:55.316 an argument for promoting friendly people over superstars. That's not 0:20:55.396 --> 0:20:58.956 eye rolling or even shrugging. Well, I haven't told you 0:20:58.956 --> 0:21:03.956 about Benson's last finding, because Benson found a fatal flaw 0:21:04.156 --> 0:21:07.316 in the alternate promoting scenario, the one that seems to 0:21:07.316 --> 0:21:12.196 work thirty percent better, which is this, if you promote 0:21:12.276 --> 0:21:16.276 the friendly salespeople over the top salespeople, then the top 0:21:16.276 --> 0:21:20.916 salespeople get upset, so upset that their performance suffers and 0:21:20.956 --> 0:21:24.756 they aren't so top anymore. The whole thing is so 0:21:24.996 --> 0:21:29.436 magnificently perverse, isn't it. All Your sales come from the 0:21:29.476 --> 0:21:32.716 same small group of people who expect to be promoted 0:21:32.916 --> 0:21:36.116 as a reward for their excellence. But if you promote 0:21:36.116 --> 0:21:38.916 them out of sales, what you get in return is 0:21:38.956 --> 0:21:42.036 a lousy manager. And if you don't promote them and 0:21:42.116 --> 0:21:44.836 you pass them over in favor of some warm and 0:21:44.956 --> 0:21:49.996 fuzzy into personal woos, the top performers will pout and 0:21:50.076 --> 0:21:53.916 stop trying. So what are you supposed to do? You 0:21:53.916 --> 0:21:56.516 could pay the superstars more and more and give them 0:21:56.516 --> 0:22:00.916 fancier titles in the maneuver Lawrence Peter called the lateral Arabesque. 0:22:01.516 --> 0:22:04.516 But you've still insulted them by passing them over for 0:22:04.596 --> 0:22:09.716 the friendly wooss. Another idea that some Peter Princes theorists 0:22:09.716 --> 0:22:13.476 have floated is lotteries they end up where Adam Kronkwright 0:22:13.636 --> 0:22:16.356 ended up, put everyone's name in a hat and promote 0:22:16.356 --> 0:22:19.876 the winner. I mean, why not, But then why have 0:22:19.916 --> 0:22:23.036 a boss at all? The concept of a boss is 0:22:23.036 --> 0:22:24.996 that a boss knows more than the people they're bossing. 0:22:26.276 --> 0:22:29.316 There's even a school of thought in the upper reaches 0:22:29.356 --> 0:22:32.996 of Peter principal world that the best solution is just 0:22:33.076 --> 0:22:38.276 to man up, forget everything else, and deliberately promote the incompetent, 0:22:38.836 --> 0:22:41.556 because this way you won't lose one of your superstars 0:22:41.556 --> 0:22:44.636 by turning them into a lowsy manager. You'll just transfer 0:22:44.836 --> 0:22:49.516 an incompetent person from their present position of incompetence to 0:22:49.636 --> 0:22:54.516 another position of incompetence upstairs somewhere, where they will occupy 0:22:54.556 --> 0:22:58.316 a position which, according to the Peter principle, was bound 0:22:58.396 --> 0:23:01.996 to be occupied by an incompetent person sooner or later. Anyway, 0:23:02.796 --> 0:23:09.756 did you follow that Peter principle, theorizing gets very meta, 0:23:10.556 --> 0:23:14.636 very quickly, which is why most people would rather console 0:23:14.676 --> 0:23:19.436 themselves with the soothing banalities of merit and prediction and hierarchy. 0:23:20.996 --> 0:23:24.596 Only a select few are willing to face the truth. 0:23:25.476 --> 0:23:30.276 And who are those brave and lonely heretics, the nihilists, 0:23:31.036 --> 0:23:33.716 people like me who look at the world with a 0:23:33.796 --> 0:23:38.916 cold and unflinching eye and say, under the circumstances, why 0:23:38.996 --> 0:23:42.796 bother to learn the first thing about any new perspective? 0:23:43.116 --> 0:23:53.836 Job candidate, Things went well with my first hire, Stacy, 0:23:54.476 --> 0:23:57.836 but eventually Stacy needed to move on, and so I 0:23:57.876 --> 0:24:00.556 had to go through the whole process all over again 0:24:01.276 --> 0:24:02.036 with Sarah. 0:24:02.676 --> 0:24:08.316 Basically, we didn't talk about anything professional at all. As 0:24:08.356 --> 0:24:11.396 I recall it, it was a little bit about family 0:24:11.716 --> 0:24:15.036 and that I was half American, and that I could 0:24:15.196 --> 0:24:17.116 you know that I knew the fifty states of America 0:24:17.156 --> 0:24:18.236 in alphabetical order. 0:24:18.836 --> 0:24:22.676 That's Sarah remembering my second ever job in review. 0:24:23.276 --> 0:24:25.956 And you taught me a Yiddish word. 0:24:26.356 --> 0:24:27.916 I taught you a Yiddish word. 0:24:28.156 --> 0:24:31.836 Well, you wanted to know if I knew about the 0:24:32.756 --> 0:24:34.836 A word. Maybe you had just had just learned it. 0:24:34.876 --> 0:24:37.156 I don't know, but it's the word that is the 0:24:37.236 --> 0:24:41.436 kind of the opposite directional flow of nahus. So nahas 0:24:41.476 --> 0:24:43.916