Google Maps

READING TIME: 1 MINUTE

Google Maps will save you five seconds – it can crunch complex numbers with powerful algorithms in real-time to optimize for the quickest arrival – but it won't tell you how to have the nicest drive. 

If you want to know how to add beauty – to pass the park with flowers, the tree-lined road, or go over the creek on the wooden bridge – you have to already know how to reach your destination. Then, you can venture, take your own path, and the additional five seconds won't matter. 

The Truth

READING TIME: 1 MINUTE

The truth doesn't matter. What matters is what everyone thinks is true.

Others may be dumb or immoral, read the wrong news and books, or have the wrong ideologies. "They" may have it all wrong and be completely blind to the truth.

But it doesn't matter. 

We're blind to what others think – people not like "us". We don't see their view, can't accept it.

It didn't matter that Galileo was right when he wrote, in 1632, that Earth orbits the Sun. Earth does orbit the Sun, the Sun doesn't go around-and-around Earth. He was still tried as a heretic, and spent the final ten years of his life under house arrest – the truth didn't matter. What mattered was what the ones in power thought was true, or at least what they wanted to be true. Galileo was looking through a telescope that he had just built. The telescope had just been invented, and he was one of the first to use it. It took time. Eventually, it was agreed he was right, but he was long dead. Was it worth it? We'll never know.

When it comes to questions like ...

- "What do we know?"
- "How do we know that we know?"
- "What does it mean to know something?"

... you have to fight the good fight, seek truth. But just remember, if someone disagrees with you, he will prefer his opinion to yours. No matter how dumb or immoral it might seem.

Some People Are Just Not Good At Their Job

READING TIME: 6 MINUTES

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. ¹

- Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), Roman emperor, Stoic philosopher

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Sometimes we get frustrated with people we work with, whether it's someone on our team who we see everyday, or someone out there who we encounter once, or only ever so often.

Remember:

#1. Some people are just not good at their job, it's true, simple as that. 

#2. There are things you don't see, forces at work. Those forces might be pressing on that person, and then on you. Don't make the person the singular focus. The world is more complex than that. 

#3. The goal, long-term, is to work with the best, not to get upset at those who aren't.

Some thoughts on these points ...

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Turn the situation around in your head, think of it as job security.

Some people are bad at their jobs. But that doesn't mean you should get upset with them. You should thank them and be grateful. Especially if they are doing some work similar to yours. Because if it were easy then everyone would do it well. You can look at it as job security – to have other people do poor work similar to yours.

You can get angry until you're blue in the face, but they'll still go on doing it. It doesn't give you the right to look down on them. Even if you are correct it doesn't give you the right to be an asshole. If you get emotional who then is "right" – the person doing the job poorly, or the person with a loss of emotion? Neither. You should halt when you feel the need to react with anger. 

If the person is on your team, try to fix the problem. If the person is someone you encounter once, or only ever so often, move on. It's not worth it. Some people are just not good at their job, and yelling at them isn’t going to make them better.

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People should have roles based on their "baseball card stats". Maybe the person is in the wrong role.

Imagine that you could take each person's "stats" and create baseball cards for everyone on your team. ² A great team is not made up of a group of people exactly like you. A great team is made up of different people with different strengths that compliment each other. People have certain attributes, they have strengths and weaknesses. 

For instance, some people are detail-oriented. They love digging into the fine details and thoroughly thinking through and organizing part of a project like pieces of a puzzle. They may be intensely perfectionist. 

Others think big-picture. They can see potential for big opportunities that others may not see, or that others may not have the courage to pursue. This person may also have interpersonal skills that make them fun to be around, like a good salesmen. 

And there are many other attributes that make certain people perfect for certain roles. The same way an outfielder and a pitcher have different attributes.

And there is usually a flip-side to a person's strengths. For example, the detail-oriented person may also have a bad attitude at times and take things out on others. While the big-picture person may miss details or may not realize their actions affect others.

The point is that certain roles require certain attributes. And a well-rounded team has people in roles that match their attributes. People need to be in roles that fit their strengths, and everyone needs everyone else. 

And further, everyone on the team needs to realize this. You need to realize that others have strengths you may not see. You may see a weakness in someone, but fail to see his strength because by design his weakness is your strength.

In summary, some people are stuck in positions where their baseball card stats don't match the position. It will cause problems. If the team fixes the situation and fills the role with someone suited for the job, it will improve. If not, it will continue to cause problems. You have to decide what you want to do about it.

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You are there in the first place because the problem exists.

You are not there to have everything go exactly as you planned. You are there to help facilitate the overall picture. The overall goal is to create an excellent product. There has to be a balance.

So you may perceive someone as being bad at her job, and creating a problem you have to fix. But you are there precisely to fix the problem. If the problem didn't exist there would be no reason to have you on the job.

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Everyone has too much to do.

Maybe not all the time, but at certain times, everyone has more things on their "ASAP" list than there are hours in the day.

The earth orbits the sun at a certain speed, therefore time is finite. People are highly-optimized in their daily lives, and businesses are highly-optimized in their operations.

The same way that highways back up twice daily during rush hour, sometimes people get jammed up with too much traffic coming their way. It doesn't make sense to build a highway fifty lanes wide so that there is no rush-hour traffic. Rush-hour traffic is a necessary byproduct of a productive society.

Sometimes people are overwhelmed and have too much to do.

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There is always something you don't see.

You may think that you are 100% correct, or that you see the world in full light. But there is always some side that you don't see, and you are never 100% correct.

Just because you may think someone is bad at his job, he may have some virtue that you don't, and that you may not even see in this moment.

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At the end of the day, tell yourself:

"This situation is bad for me but worst-case I can switch companies, or only see them once or twice.

The situation is worse for the company because it employs this person, and has to deal with him long-term.

The situation is worst of all for the other person because he has to live with himself, and may never recognize or change his short-comings.

Therefore, my problems are temporary."

NOTES:

1. Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations. Translated by Gregory Hays. Modern Library, 2002. The quote comes from Book 2, #1.
2. Ray Dalio discusses this in Chapter 4 of his 2017 book, Principles. At his company, Bridgewater, they use a mix of four personality tests (Myers-Briggs, the Workplace Personality Inventory, the Team Dimension Profile, and Stratified System Theory) to identify five personality archetypes for all new hires. Those archetypes are: Creators, Advancers, Refiners, Executors, and Flexors, and everyone fits in somewhere.