Don’t get good at the standard

To optimize, there must be a standard in place. To have a standard, you must have a proven/reliable method. Which means you must measure something. Which also means someone along the way picked what that measurement was. Doesn’t mean it was a good way to measure something. It just means someone along the line decided it.

SAT scores that eventually became IQ. But does this score actually measure intelligence? What about emotional IQ, resiliency, or problem-solving?

Time on the assembly line became “production.” But is it valuable?

Are profits a signal that a company is growing? Or…does anyone like working there? Is it destroying the planet?

We have let signals become the hallmark of passing judgment. I can talk about systems thinking and the way ideas spread all day across our culture, but I am awful at fixing my car and would be the last choice to perform brain surgery. I need to outsource these things. We often do.

You might be excellent at a couple of things, but we can’t be good at everything. I suggest getting good at decision-making, changing your mind, seeing the world as it really is, looking someone in the eye and telling a story, changing the emotion in the room, and making a sale…things that won’t go away in the age of automation and AI.

Don’t get good at the standard. Instead, become great at the things that can’t be easily measured.