Competence Archives - Page 5 of 9

Legacy

At Harvard, “over 33 percent” of legacy applicants, the children of alumni, were admitted to the classes of 2014 through 2019. The figure comes from filings by the plaintiffs in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. They said legacies were admitted at roughly five times the rate of other applicants. Harvard called their methods “deeply flawed.”

In July 2023 the Education Department opened an investigation of Harvard’s donor and legacy preferences. Amherst, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon and Wesleyan had ended legacy admissions.

The Vocabulary of Fit

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Connections count as much as knowledge.

People person. Someone who is good with others and enjoys working with them.

Culture fit. A match between a candidate and the values and style of a team. It is a common reason to hire or reject.

Plays well with others. Once said of small children, now said of colleagues.

Well connected. Knows the right people.

Ninety Days

Under federal aviation rules, no pilot may act as pilot in command of an aircraft carrying other people “unless that person has made at least three takeoffs and three landings within the preceding 90 days.” Pilots in command also need a flight review, completed since “the beginning of the 24th calendar month” before the month of the flight.

A license alone is not enough.

The Vocabulary of Standing

What have you done for me lately? A demand to see recent results, not old ones.

You’re only as good as your last game. Also said of a film, a deal or a quarter.

Has-been. Someone whose success lies in the past.

One-hit wonder. A performer remembered for a single success.

Flash in the pan. A success that does not last.

Comeback kid. Someone who returns after a defeat.

Construct Viable Arguments

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics list practices that students should learn. The third reads: “Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.”

The standard explains: “Mathematically proficient students understand and use stated assumptions, definitions, and previously established results in constructing arguments.”

Extreme Ownership

Jocko Willink and Leif Babin served in Navy SEAL Task Unit Bruiser in Ramadi, Iraq. In their book Extreme Ownership (2015), Willink describes a friendly-fire incident during an operation there. He concluded: “there was only one person to blame for everything that had gone wrong on the operation: me.”

The book’s rule is: “The leader must own everything in his or her world.” Another of its principles is “No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders.”

A Message to Garcia

In 1899 Elbert Hubbard published a short essay about a U.S. Army officer, Andrew Rowan, sent during the war with Spain to carry a message to García, a leader of the Cuban rebels. Its key line: “Rowan took the letter and did not ask, ‘Where is he at?'”

Hubbard set Rowan against an office clerk who answers a simple task with questions: “Who was he?” “Which encyclopedia?” “Was I hired for that?” The New York Central Railroad reprinted the essay in huge numbers, and it was used as promotional literature by Wanamaker’s, the Boy Scouts of America and the U.S. Navy. Hubbard claimed “Over forty million copies.” A 1977 estimate put the figure at about 4 million.

The story itself is largely false. Rowan’s real orders were to gather intelligence, and there is no evidence that he delivered a letter to García.

Science the S— Out of This

In Andy Weir’s novel The Martian, first self-published as a serial on his blog and released as a book in 2011, astronaut Mark Watney is left behind on Mars. He grows potatoes in the habitat, makes water from rocket fuel, revives the old Pathfinder lander to contact NASA and modifies a rover for a 3,235-kilometer drive.

In Ridley Scott’s 2015 film, Matt Damon’s Watney sums up his position: “In the face of overwhelming odds, I’m left with only one option: I’m gonna have to science the s— out of this.”

In the closing scene he says: “You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem… and you solve the next one… and then the next. And if you solve enough problems, you get to come home.”

Sit at the Table

In her 2010 TED talk, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook described a meeting with a senior government official. Two senior women from his staff sat at the side of the room. “I kind of said to them, ‘Sit at the table. Come on, sit at the table,’ and they sat on the side of the room.”

She also told of a young woman at Facebook who had noticed something after Sandberg said she would take two more questions: “all the women put their hand down, and then you took more questions, only from the men.”

The Extrovert Ideal

In 2012 Susan Cain published Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. She described an “Extrovert Ideal”: the belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha and comfortable in the spotlight. She called Harvard Business School one of its centers.

In her TED talk the same year, she said: “There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” The book became a long-running bestseller.

Its success suggests how strong the expectation to speak is, and how many Americans feel its cost.