When you’re “up,” your current strategy is often weirdly entangled with your overall sense of resolve and commitment—we sometimes have a hard time critically and objectively evaluating parts C, D, and J because flaws in C, D, and J would threaten the whole edifice.
Aside 1: I run into many developers who aren’t able to separate their idea from their identity. It tends to make them worse at customer and product oriented thinking. In a high bandwidth collaborative environment, it leads to an assortment of problems. They might not suggest an idea, because they think the group will shoot it down and they will be perceived as a generator of poor ideas. Or they might not relinquish an idea that the group wants to modify, or work on an alternative to, because they feel that, too, is failure. Or they might not critically evaluate their own idea to the standard they would evaluate any other idea that didn’t come from their mind. Over time it can lead to selective sidelining of that person in a way that needs a deliberate effort to undo.
The most effective collaborators are able to generate many ideas with varying degrees of initial quality and then work with the group to refine those ideas or reject the ones that are problematic. They are able to do this without taking collateral damage to their egos. These collaborators see the ideas they generate as products separate from themselves, products meant to be improved by iteration by the group.
I’ve seen many cases where this entanglement of ego with idea generation gets fixed (through involvement of someone who identifies the problem and works with that person) and some cases where it doesn’t get fixed (after several attempts, with bad outcomes).
I know this isn’t directly related to the post, but it occurred to me when I read the quoted part above.
Aside 2: I have similar mood swings when I think about the rationalist community. “Less Wrong seems dead, there is no one to talk to.” then “Oh look, Anna has a new post, the world is great for rationalists.” I think it’s different from the work related swings, but also brought to mind by the post.
Aside 1: I run into many developers who aren’t able to separate their idea from their identity. It tends to make them worse at customer and product oriented thinking. In a high bandwidth collaborative environment, it leads to an assortment of problems. They might not suggest an idea, because they think the group will shoot it down and they will be perceived as a generator of poor ideas. Or they might not relinquish an idea that the group wants to modify, or work on an alternative to, because they feel that, too, is failure. Or they might not critically evaluate their own idea to the standard they would evaluate any other idea that didn’t come from their mind. Over time it can lead to selective sidelining of that person in a way that needs a deliberate effort to undo.
The most effective collaborators are able to generate many ideas with varying degrees of initial quality and then work with the group to refine those ideas or reject the ones that are problematic. They are able to do this without taking collateral damage to their egos. These collaborators see the ideas they generate as products separate from themselves, products meant to be improved by iteration by the group.
I’ve seen many cases where this entanglement of ego with idea generation gets fixed (through involvement of someone who identifies the problem and works with that person) and some cases where it doesn’t get fixed (after several attempts, with bad outcomes).
I know this isn’t directly related to the post, but it occurred to me when I read the quoted part above.
Aside 2: I have similar mood swings when I think about the rationalist community. “Less Wrong seems dead, there is no one to talk to.” then “Oh look, Anna has a new post, the world is great for rationalists.” I think it’s different from the work related swings, but also brought to mind by the post.