Competence Archives - Page 7 of 9

The Matthew Effect

In January 1968 Robert K. Merton of Columbia University published “The Matthew Effect in Science” in the journal Science. The name comes from the Gospel of Matthew: “For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance.” Merton described “the accruing of large increments of peer recognition to scientists of great repute.”

A Nobel laureate in physics put it simply: “the man who’s best known gets more credit, an inordinate amount of credit.”

The biologists R. C. Lewontin and J. L. Hubby described what happened to their joint work. Population geneticists, they wrote, “have consistently regarded Lewontin as the senior member of the team and given him undue credit for what was a completely collaborative work.”

The Brag Document

In June 2019 Julia Evans advised the readers of her programming blog to keep a “brag document.” She started from a common belief. “There’s this idea that, if you do great work at your job, people will (or should!) automatically recognize that work and reward you for it with promotions / increased pay.” In practice, she wrote, “it’s often more complicated than that.”

Her advice is to write down your own work before performance reviews. “And if you don’t remember everything important you did, your manager (no matter how great they are!) probably doesn’t either.” Work that is hard to see belongs in the document too, “because it’s the most likely to fall under the radar!”

Brag!

In 2003 Warner Books published Brag! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It, by Peggy Klaus. Klaus is a communication and leadership coach who works with Fortune 500 companies.

A summary of the book describes its target as a “venerable performance myth”: “A job well done speaks for itself.” Those who believe it, the summary warns, will find that others “will never know” what they can do. According to Publishers Weekly, Klaus teaches readers to keep a “bragalogue.” This is a short story about their own achievements that they update regularly.

Screenplay By

A Hollywood screenplay often passes through many writers. The screen credit names only a few. Under the rules of the Writers Guild of America, a screenplay credit “is normally shared by no more than two writers.” On an original screenplay, the first writer receives credit if his or her contribution is more than 33 percent of the final shooting script. A later writer who is not a production executive must contribute 50 percent.

When writers dispute a credit, three Guild members with no interest in the outcome decide. Credit affects a writer’s reputation, pay, residuals and future work.

For The Flintstones (1994), thirty-two writers took part in round-table sessions. The final writing credit named three people.

The Winning Pitcher

In Major League Baseball, the official scorer credits one pitcher with the win and one with the loss. Rule 9.17 gives the win to “that pitcher whose team assumes a lead” while he is pitching, with some exceptions. A starting pitcher usually has to complete five innings to get it. The loss goes to the pitcher who is “responsible for the run that gives the winning team a lead.”

Rule 9.12 does the same for mistakes in the field. An error is “a statistic charged against a fielder” whose misplay helped the other team.

The win is a famous number and a disputed one. In 2020 Matt Snyder of CBS Sports called it the “dumbest stat in all of sports.” In one game he described, a relief pitcher who recorded one out got the win. The starter threw four scoreless innings and did not get it.

Whose Is It?

Who owns this? This is the first question about any task. The answer is a name.

Point person. This is the one named person who handles an issue.

Go-to person. This is the person everyone turns to for a certain kind of problem.

On the hook. A person on the hook is personally responsible for a result. If it fails, the blame is theirs.

The ball is in your court. The next move is yours, and nobody else can make it.

That’s on me. The speaker takes personal responsibility for a mistake.

Too many cooks spoil the broth. Work with too many people in charge goes badly.

Real Artists Ship

At a retreat of the Macintosh team in Carmel, California, in January 1983, Steve Jobs told the team: “Real artists ship.” To ship is to deliver a finished product to customers. The account comes from team member Andy Hertzfeld, who wrote about it later. Quote Investigator concludes that Jobs popularized the expression.

The Peter Principle

In 1969 Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull published The Peter Principle. Its rule: “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”

The mechanism is that employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs. Each success earns the next, larger job, until a person reaches a job he can no longer do well.

Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos at 19. She promised to revolutionize blood testing, detecting hundreds of diseases with blood from a simple finger prick. Her board included the former secretaries Henry Kissinger and James Mattis. She raised billions of dollars, and the company was at one point valued at more than $9 billion.

According to NBC News, the technology did not appear to work as claimed. In January 2022 a jury found Holmes guilty on four counts of fraud and conspiracy involving investors. She was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months.

Pay Your Dues

Merriam-Webster defines paying one’s dues as “to earn a right or position through experience, suffering, or hard work.” Its example: “He’s paid his dues and deserves a promotion.”

Dictionary.com gives another example. “She’d paid her dues in small-town shows before she finally got a Broadway part.”

The phrase credits long experience and hardship, not only results.