Book Report Segment 3: The Trouble with Geniuses

Many of us probably wish that we were natural born geniuses at one point in time or another. We wish that we could quickly and easily master whatever we try. In the next segment of the Outliers (http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017922) Malcolm Gladwell explains why being qualified as a genius does not necessarily make someone more successful in life. We are introduced to Christopher Langan, a man with an IQ of 195 who happens to be working on his own theory of the universe. Later we learn that Langan’s IQ can only get him so far in life, the same fate suffered by other geniuses as well.

 Lewis Terman, psychology professor at Stanford University conducted a research project on hidden child geniuses, dubbed his “termites”. The termites were selected from California schools based on their tested IQ levels. Terman spent an extensive amount of time watching over the kids and eventually wrote a series of books on the Genetic Study of Genius (http://www.birkittsbooks.com/si/110205014.html). For a while he truly believed the “termites” he had discovered were destined to be the future elites of the United States. However Terman was very wrong on his prognosis, as he did not understand what a real outlier was.

The relationship between success and IQ only works up to a certain point. Once a person reaches an IQ of 120, adding more knowledge does not translate to any real world advantage. An example was provided of the last twenty five Americans to win the Nobel Prize, along with their accompanying graduate schools. The list includes many good school (Holy Cross and Gettysburg), not just Ivy Leagues as expected. Past the point of a graduate school level, 120 IQ, other factors start to matter more in predicting an individual’s success. Factors such as creativity and drive were lacking in many of the “termites” described earlier, as Terman would eventually discover. In fact, very few of them actually became nationally know figures. Meanwhile, two students rejected as “termites” because of lower IQ scores went on to become Nobel laureates. Terman concluded his results with a statement that, “intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated.”

One factor that can provide success in the real world is “practical intelligence”.  Psychologist Robert Sternberg describes this as knowing what to say to whom, when to say it, and how to say it for maximum effect. It is the knowledge that helps you read situations correctly and get what you want. And this kind of intelligence happens to be separate from analytical ability that is measured in IQ tests. This idea of being social savvy is knowledge, the set of skills that have to be learned. And whether or not one attains these social skills is due to their family culture. In a study of third graders conducted by sociologist Annette Lareau, it was discovered that two distinct parenting philosophies existed among the different social classes.

Wealthy parents were found to be heavily involved in their children’s free time. Intensive scheduling and daily questioning were a part of these kids’s everyday life. Meanwhile middle class parents talked and reasoned constantly with their kids, not just issuing commands. These kids were expected to negotiate and question the authority of adult figures. “Concerted cultivation” is the term given to this type of parenting. It is found to have enormous advantages in teaching kid’s entitlement and how to act on their own behalf in order to gain advantages. And finally, the poor parents left it up to the teachers to educate their children. These types of parents simply let their children grow up on their own.  It is the wealthy and poor children who grew up with a sense of distance, distrust, and constraint towards authority figures. And this is the type of family situation that Christopher Langan grew up in. With a poor home life and an angry drunken stepfather it was no wonder that Langan developed distrust in authority and an urge to be independent.

Upon reading this much of the Outliers, I have realized how hard it is to be an outlier. Christopher Langdan was quoted saying, "I don't think there is anyone smarter than me out there, nobody with better powers of comprehension." Just moments later he admits his own defeat in saying, "I have not persuaded mainstream publishers as I should have (referring to his theories)." At the same time other people out there have been able to accomplish this with help along the way. It is this assistance or "push" that Chris never had. And as Gladwell explains quite well, it is not an excuse, but a fact of life. Chris Langan had to make his way alone. And nobody ever makes it alone.

Top 10 Tech Company Office Spaces

One thing that I was personally really interested in learning more about from our discussion on corporate culture was office spaces and how their designs effect a companies culture. I think we can all agree that technology is probably one of the biggest job markets in today's economy. The following articles provides a look in to the office spaces of the top 10 tech companies today.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adel-zakout/new-wave-corporate-cultur_b_991216.html

It is very interesting to know that these companies have designed new work spaces to help shape their own corporate cultures. For example, as a part of Microsoft's new strategy to open doors of office spaces, new areas such as a "collaborative space" are being introduced in a number of Microsoft locations. The aim is to get workers who need to work together out of their offices and talking. I feel like office spaces like this will attract a lot of younger and new employees into a job setting where their ideas will be heard. I know that I would rather be working in this kind of an environment, as opposed to the dreaded office cubicles.

One additional thought that I had when looking through the different office spaces was that our college campus (probably most college campuses) could really learn from these examples. I feel that offering students a more innovative and collaborative workspace would encourage them to seek out additional educational opportunities. I know that I would personally spend a lot more time on campus if the college of business looked more like a Google or Facebook work space.

How May I Help You?

As it pertains to Walmart and the article that we discussed in class today, I feel whether the workers are wearing the "smock" or blue polo's or even a neon blue Walmart unitard one factor will always be present - team unity. Yes, some employees may feel degraded being forced to wear one uniform over another. The big picture that I think Walmart is enforcing is the culture of customer service. If Walmart employees were allowed to wear whatever they wanted to work there would be no way for customers to seek out help. I agree that the type of dress code that Walmart enforces leads people to think a certain way about the company or being a part of the organization. I think that the key to the Walmart dress code and their culture is that whatever uniform their general employees are wearing, they are all going to be dressed identical as a way of expressing team unity. Also, with their smocks Walmart also influences employees to care about customer service, since that is clearly what they will (and should) be representing. After all, when you apply for a job as a general Walmart team associate you should be expecting to provide customer service as part of a team.

As for dress codes being an enforcer of corporate culture, I feel that the uniform helps employees feel unified for a common purpose (with any service that is being provided). I have personally experienced this in many of the past retail jobs that I have had. The summer before my freshman year of college, for example, I worked for Home Depot and wore and orange apron as a part of the companies dress policy. Whenever I got to work and dawned the orange apron I felt like quite the handy women, even though I was only a cashier and had little experience in the home improvement department. The point was that I felt like I belonged with the culture of the Home Depot organization, and was able to learn a lot in order to provide the best customer service.

Machines 'make better decisions than humans do'

While trying to do some research on what leads to bad decision making, I came across this interesting and distracting article about how machines 'make better decisions than humans do'.

http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/news/index.cfm?newsid=3311863&pagtype=allchandate

The article basically starts with the thought that there may be a day when automation takes over human decision making in business. As we recently discussed decision making in class, I thought it would be neat to blog about the idea that machines may one day be used to make the decisions that business leaders make today.

Well the article starts off with what I think is a good point about how managers often rely on gut instincts, experience, relationships, and even financial incentives when it comes to decision making. They include a U.K study where of the 350 largest firms, pay for executives rose 700% since 2002. Of course the firms values only rose 21% and workers pay increased by only 27% in this time period. I feel that this same result would be true for the U.S as well. Ethical or not, it is part of our instincts to make decisions that will benefit ourselves. And I think that the prisoners dilemma theory has taught us all that some people are more willing to compete than others are.

The article continues with some discussion on how humans have a cognitive basis for decision making rather than using a more rational view. Even in hiring, machines have an edge. Talent management software is capable of using statistical assessments, developed by psychologists, to determine which hires would stay with a company longer and be more productive. I feel like this relates to an availability heuristic of decision making as we discussed in class, where frequency and probability are used to make decisions. This would be better as it reduces the chances for biases within the decision making process.

I am not saying that we will have to worry about any I-Robot situations anytime soon, but I do think that it could be possible that some of the new technologies of the future could be tailored toward replacing human decision making in the business field. And while the article focuses on positive benefits of these 'machines', it does state the negatives of more job destruction and increased social divisions.

Representative Heuristic of Decision Making

After discussing decision making in class I found that the representative heuristic was one that could be the most deceiving. Basing ones decision off of the stereotypes of similar occurrences I feel is a more naive instinct. Even in class we were able to consider many biases involving the representative heuristic. There are so many ways that an occurrence or decision outcome could change, that I feel the representative heuristic falls short of the other two. Misconception of chance and the independence of multiple random events I feel is the most common bias within this heuristic. You always hear of people being addicted to gambling, for example and how many of these individuals become deep in debt. I think this is also where the saying "quit while you are still ahead" comes in to play. Just because you made out good under one circumstance, does not mean that the next time you can expect the exact same result.

I feel that in making a decision, the representative heuristic should be looked at as a last resort to the availability and anchoring/adjustment heuristics. Have an actual probability for basing your decision off is in my opinion the better more frequent way for making decisions. The anchoring and adjustment heuristic was probably one that I was least familiar with but this also seems like a good way to make a decision. The example with guessing the lollipops in a jar, and how all the guesses average out to about the right answer was sort of hard to wrap your head around. But if this is almost always true, I think it would be neat to experiment with this.

Book Report Segment #2

We have all heard the saying “practice makes perfect,” in the next segment of the Outliers (http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017922) Malcolm Gladwell demonstrates how important practice is to achieving success. The 10,000 hour rule, as he discusses, is the expert’s number to achieve true expertise within a field. If like myself, you find It hard to fathom practicing something for this amount of time, it would ultimately amount to around 10 years for someone to achieve this level. If any of you have reached this level of practicing a certain subject, then well congratulations to you, because you are no doubt an expert in that topic. Anyways, Malcolm’s prime example for this rule is Bill Joy, Java creator.

As a young boy, Bill was always seeking knowledge and answers to his many questions. He was very bright, no doubt (he received a perfect score on the math section of the SAT). It was the opportunities he was presented with, however that made all of the difference in his success. The key to Bill’s development was his attendance at the University of Michigan. At the time of his arrival, the institution was one of the first in the world to switch to a time-sharing computer system. This new system allowed him to spend many hours working at the computer (more than on his classes), instead of waiting for a turn with the operator and computer cards. It was because of this opportunity that he was able to practice more code than anyone else at this time, and was therefore proficient (with 10,00 hours or practice) by his second year.

When I think about anything I have ever tried to achieve, I know that I have never come close to reaching the 10,000 hour mark. I haven’t even stuck with the same hobby for 10 years. As a kid I was always trying new things, not sticking with the same sports and clubs. It is even discussed in the Outliers how it is almost impossible to reach this level on your own by the time you are a young adult. You need parents to encourage you to keep practicing and support you. Being a part of a mid-sized family, I know my parents did not have the time to make sure I was practicing every day, let alone helping me achieve the 10,000 hours. They were busy enough trying to get us kids to eat, clean, and do school work. Also, you cannot be poor or from a poor family. Even as a middle class family I had to get a job in high school to pay for things myself. Between a job and school work there was no time for me to practice something every day with a high concentration. Finally, most of us need to be presented with a special program or opportunity to achieve our 10,000 hours. Well if I was ever presented with something like this, than it was certainly a missed opportunity.

I think that the moral to this segment is that even though you may be smart, it is your practice and dedication to something that really makes you great. And it is hard to achieve this level of greatness on your own. You can’t just look at a person and tell whether they will go far in life. You need to know their situation to judge their chances for being and outlier. And what sets them apart from the rest of us “is not their extraordinary talent, but extraordinary opportunities.”

Make Your Pie and Eat It Too

I don't know about you but if I spent time baking a delicious, lets go with pumpkin (tis the season), I would not want to eat it all by myself. That would be very sad indeed. Id much rather share my pie with others so they can taste how well I did! Okay, so maybe pies were not the best example, I am sure that some things most of us would rather not sure.. money, personal possessions.

When it comes to distributive and integrative negotiations, I believe that the later is clearly the better option. Throughout our readings the point was made that negotiations are about more than just a gain. A lot of times a bond is formed in negotiating, one that can hold more value than a single distributive negotiation that goes in ones favor. With integrative negotiation, there is more value exchanged between the two parties, including kind of partnership. Once again, I personally would rather do my negotiating with someone whom I know well. I would continue negotiating with this person as long as I knew that we were both benefiting from a mutual and respectable relationship. Back to my delicious pumpkin pie again, I would rather split it up between myself and someone for whom I have a mutual bond with. And in doing so, I would expect that when they bake their own pies in the future, I would receive the same considerations.

Negative Negotiating

When my partner and I received the negotiating activity we did not do a lot of counter offering and quickly settled on an okay price per unit for my company - GTechnica (which turned out to be a more significant price per unit for him - AccelMedia). I feel that if either of us were more driven or had an incentive, we may have accomplished our negotiating easier and more effectively. Or maybe we would have been so involved that we would not have been able to reach and agreement for the sale. Either way I know that I would have had a better outcome in my negotiating for GTechnica had I read the article Secrets of Power Negotiating (http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Power-Negotiating-Roger-Dawson/dp/1564144984) beforehand.

The first mistake that I made with my negotiation was starting with a low demand. Now, thanks to the reading, I know that asking for more than you expect heightens the value of your offer. Also, this gives a higher, more broad ZOPA for the negotiation. Another bad idea on my part of the negotiating was sharing my break even price with my partner. Additionally, I did not even ask him what his maximum sales price per unit would be. I hindsight, simply put, I wish I would have done less talking about my side of the "one shot deal" and more questioning him on his side. Finally, I have already decided that the next time I am in a negotiating situation I will be employing the various tips from Dawson's Secrets of Power Negotiating article to see just how good of a deal I can achieve.

The Prisoners Dilemna and Personality

As we were discussing the prisoners dilemma in class this past Monday, I was considering how much the theory to this game deals with the individuals personalities. For example, the point was brought up that some people would not want to rat out a friend in this kind of situation, and that they would not talk for a lesser sentence. I think that this not only shows the individuals loyalty but also a more generous side to their personality. After all, they know the consequence should their partner turn them in. Now that I think of it, I believe that for a prisoner not to compete they must be very daring. If they cooperate and their friend decides not to they are really getting the bad end of the deal.

Well as you all know we soon discussed how competing with the other prisoner would be the rational thing to do. I don't know whether or not it was specifically stated in class, but it seems to me that competing would lead many to believe these people have a more greedy personality. Maybe the prisoner just wants to give it all or nothing in an already bad situation. On the other hand, maybe he figures that if worse comes to worse and he doesn't "win" he is at least screwing over his partner who also tried competing.

One last point to note when considering personality and the prisoners dilemma is how the game itself could influence anybodies personality to change. After all, this is a tough situation to completely wrap your head around. With all of the possibilities and considerations about your partner, thoughts can easily get mingled. Even the two nicest of people could change in to being very greedy if they feel their chances are good and if the stakes are high enough.

Book Report Segment #1

When we hear the word outlier I am sure that many of us can think of somebody that we know, from high school, sports, etc. Usually when I think of an outlier my mind jumps to a person who is different from most people that I know. In his book, Outliers: The Story of Success (http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017922), Malcolm Gladwell defines an outlier two ways:

1.) Something that is situated away from or classified differently from a main or related body.

2.) A statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample.

However you look at it, Malcolm Gladwell holds that successful people exemplify the idea of what it means to be an outlier. The basis for his research and novel is that we must examine the world that surrounds the successful when trying to understand their triumphs. Gladwell argues that we must look beyond the individual, to their culture, family, friends, and towns, in order to understand their true story of success. Usually when I think of a successful person I think of how outgoing they are or how talented they are. I rarely consider how their upbringings led them to their talents and fame. And this is what Gladwell will try to explain in the Outliers.

In the first section of the Outliers, Gladwell goes on to explain how “outliers are beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies, allowing them to learn and work hard and make sense of the real world.” The first example that is brought to the reader’s attention is called the phenomenon of relative age. This particular phenomenon was first discovered by a man name Roger Barnsley, after his wife brought it to his attention.

While viewing an Ontario junior hockey game the couple realized how strange it was that the vast majorities of the boys on the team were born in the months of January, February, or March. After doing some research, the pair soon discovered that the explanation was that the Canada eligibility cutoff for age class hockey was January 1^st. This means that a boy born on January 2^nd could be competing with a boy born December 31^st (almost a full year younger) for a spot on all star teams. At this age the older, more mature and stronger boy would be picked for a better squad with more practices and better coaching, thus setting him up for success while the younger boy is lost.

According to Barnsley, skewed age distributions exist when three things happen: selection, streaming, and differentiated experience. In fact this same phenomenon happens with US baseball and European soccer leagues. After reading this section of the book I was definitely shocked at how unfair these cutoffs could be when it comes to sports, but then Gladwell decided to raise the stakes. The same phenomenon of relative age that exists in sports also exists today in areas of consequence- like education.

I had never put much thought in to how age would make a difference in education. One second grade student should be at around the same education level as another, we are all in the same grade after all. But the Gladwell quickly proves me wrong as it describes how teachers confuse maturity with ability to succeed. Even a small initial advantage of a child born in the beginning of the grade level cutoffs over the child born at the end of the year persists. The phenomenon has become bad enough for some kinder garden parents to consider holding back children born at the end of the year.

One thing that interested me about this phenomenon and how it effects education is how the disadvantages continue on through the collegiate educational levels. In 4-year colleges in the US students belonging to the youngest group in their class are under-represented by 11.6%. And as for the rest of these younger and disadvantaged students, they must work twice as hard to compete with the GPAs of classmates with a big head start (the early cutoff). This also relates to the article we read about employers only looking at GPAs when bringing in graduates for interviews. It should not be fair to compare a student who had a head start from the begging of their education, to one who is trying to catch up while being held back by their continued disadvantage. What happens when there is a false head start in racing sports? Everyone gets a fair restart, and I say that the latecomers deserve a chance to catch up when it comes to education also.