= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Lumifer comments on Open thread, Jan. 26 - Feb. 1, 2015 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (431)
I think in many professions you can categorize people as professionals or auteurs (insofar as anyone can ever be classified, binaries are false, yada yada).
Professionals as people ready to fit into the necessary role and execute the required duties. Professionals are happy with "good enough", are timely, work well with others, step back or bow out when necessary, don't defend their visions or ideas when the defense is unlikely to be listened to. Professionals compromise on ideas, conform in their behavior, and to some degree expect others to do the same. Professionals are reliable, level-headed, and can handle crises or unexpected events. They may have a strong and distinct vision of their goals or their craft, but will subsume it to another's without much fuss if they don't think they have the stance or leverage to promote it. Professionals accurately assess their social status in different situations, and are reluctant to defy it.
On the worse end of this spectrum is the yes-man, the bureaucrat, and the aggressive conformer. On the better end are the metaphorical Eagle Scouts, the executive, the "fixers" who can come in and clean up any mess.
Auteurs are guided first by their own vision, maybe to the point of obsession. Auteurs optimize aggressively and wildly, but only for their own vision. Auteurs will interrupt you to tell you why their idea is better, or why yours is wrong. Auteurs have a hard time working together if they disagree, but can work well together if they agree, or with professionals who can align with their thinking. Auteurs don't care that their ideas are non-standard, or don't follow best practices, or have substantial material difficulties. Auteurs will let a deadline fly past if their work is not ready. Auteurs might look past facts that contradict thems. Auteurs don't feel that sorry if they make themselves a pain in the ass for others to move toward their goals. Auteurs will disregard status, norms, and feelings to evangelize.
On the worse end they are kooks, irrationally obstinate and arrogant, or quixotic ineffectuals. On the best they are visionaries, evangelists for great ideas, obsessive perfectionists who elevate their craft whether the material rewards are proportional to their pains or not.
I think LW might have more sympathy for the Auteurs, but I hope people recognize the virtues of the professional and the shortcomings of the auteur, and that there is a time and place to channel the spirit of each side.
Do you think it's a circle?
I can see the " irrationally obstinate and arrogant" bureaucrats and "aggressive conformers" at one junction, and I can see evangelist Eagle Scouts and perfectionist fixers at the other junction.
Steve Jobs seems to be a classic second-junction type.
It does seem like these are two mostly unrelated skills - leadership, teamwork, and time management on one hand, and vision, creativity, and drive on the other. They don't really oppose each other except in the general sense that both sets take a long time to learn to do well. There are enough examples of people that are both, or neither, that these don't seem to be a very useful way of carving up reality.
I think they do. Not in the "never shall they mix" kind of sense, but I would argue that these types form discernible separate clusters in the psychological space.
Anyone got any actual evidence one way or the other?
(My own prejudices are in the direction of the two things genuinely being opposed, on handwavy grounds to do with creativity being partly a matter of having relatively inactive internal censors, which might be bad for efficiency on routine tasks. But I don't have much faith in those prejudices.)
I was thinking 4 quadrant. Horizontal axis is competence, vertical axis is professional vs. auteur.
Steve Jobs was something of an auteur who eventually began to really piss off the people he had once successfully led and inspired. After his return to Apple, he had clearly gained some more permanent teamwork and leadership skills, which is good, but was still pretty dogmatic about his vision and hard to argue with.
The most competent end of the professional quadrant probably includes people more like Jamie Dimon, Jack Welch, or Mitt Romney. Professional CEOs who you could trust to administrate anything, who topped their classes (at least in Romney's case), but who don't necessarily stand for any big idea.
This classification also corresponds to Foxes and Hedgehogs - Many Small Ideas vs. One Big Idea / Holistic vs. Grand Framework thinking.
But it is not a true binary; people who have an obsessing vision can learn to play nice with others. People who naturally like to conform and administrate can learn to assert a bold vision. If Stanley Kubrick is the film example of an Auteur - an aggravating genius - and J.J. Abrams is the professional - reliable and talented but mercenary and flexible, there are still people like Martin Scorsese who people love to work with and who define new trends in their art.
So maybe junction is a good way to think of it, but there are extraordinarily talented and important people who seem to have avoided learning from the other side too.