{"id":2803,"date":"2011-01-27T15:09:55","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T15:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=2803"},"modified":"2025-03-10T14:14:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T14:14:17","slug":"on-getting-things-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/on-getting-things-done\/","title":{"rendered":"On Getting Things Done"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New York Times Op-Ed writer, David Brooks, has two superb articles about the skills needed to be a success in contemporary technological society, the skills I refer to as Getting-Things-Done Intelligence<\/a>.\u00a0 One<\/a> is a short article in The New York Times<\/em> (2011-01-17), reacting to the common, but wrong-headed, view that technical skill is all you need for success, and the other<\/a> a long, fictional disquisition in The New Yorker<\/em> (2011-01-17) on the social skills of successful people.\u00a0 From the NYT article:<\/p>\n

Practicing a piece of music for four hours requires focused attention, but it is nowhere near as cognitively demanding as a sleepover with 14-year-old girls. Managing status rivalries, negotiating group dynamics, understanding social norms, navigating the distinction between self and group \u2014 these and other social tests impose cognitive demands that blow away any intense tutoring session or a class at Yale.<\/p>\n

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Yet mastering these arduous skills is at the very essence of achievement. Most people work in groups. We do this because groups are much more efficient at solving problems than individuals (swimmers are often motivated to have their best times as part of relay teams, not in individual events). Moreover, the performance of a group does not correlate well with the average I.Q. of the group or even with the I.Q.\u2019s of the smartest members.
\nResearchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon have found that groups have a high collective intelligence when members of a group are good at reading each others\u2019 emotions \u2014 when they take turns speaking, when the inputs from each member are managed fluidly, when they detect each others\u2019 inclinations and strengths.<\/p>\n

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Participating in a well-functioning group is really hard. It requires the ability to trust people outside your kinship circle, read intonations and moods, understand how the psychological pieces each person brings to the room can and cannot fit together.<\/p>\n

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This skill set is not taught formally, but it is imparted through arduous experiences. These are exactly the kinds of difficult experiences Chua shelters her children from by making them rush home to hit the homework table.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These articles led me to ask exactly what is involved in reading a social situation?\u00a0 Brooks mentions some of the relevant aspects, but not all. \u00a0 To be effective, a manager needs to parse the social situation of the groups he or she must work with – those under, those over and peer groups to the side – to answer questions such as the following:<\/p>\n