Competence Archives - Page 9 of 9

The Altair BASIC Bluff

In January 1975 Popular Electronics put the Altair 8800 computer on its cover. Bill Gates and Paul Allen saw it. Gates was a 19-year-old Harvard student. Allen worked at Honeywell.

They called the maker, MITS, and said they had a BASIC for the Altair. They had no Altair and no code. They wrote the program in eight weeks on a simulator. Allen finished the loader on the plane to Albuquerque.

The first time the code ran on a real Altair was the demonstration itself. The machine answered two plus two with four. Microsoft was founded that April.

The DRI

Directly Responsible Individual. Apple’s internal practice attaches a single name to every item on a meeting agenda, and the name is visible to everyone. American project management more broadly insists on one accountable person per item, and the phrase single throat to choke is used without embarrassment.

The case method

Harvard Business School teaches almost entirely by case. Students are given an incomplete business situation, cold-called without warning, and required to state what they would do. Not what the considerations are — what they would do. And a substantial part of the grade is participation, so silence is penalised directly.

Class participation

American schools grade it, from elementary through university, and it appears on the syllabus as a percentage. A student who has understood everything and said nothing receives a lower mark than one who spoke up and was partly wrong.

The vocabulary of results

Results-oriented. A standard phrase on an American résumé. The claim is not that the person works hard or knows the field, but that they can be judged by what came out.

Deliverables. American project language names the output as the unit of work. Not tasks, not effort, not hours. The thing handed over.

Track record. Not qualifications, not references, not what someone believes about themselves. What has already been produced, and can be pointed at.

Best practice. Methods are adopted from a competitor, another industry, another country, on the grounds that they work. There is no loyalty in the concept — the practice earns its place by outcome and loses it the same way.

Return on investment. Every expenditure becomes a candidate for the calculation, including training, meetings, research and attention. The question is not whether the thing is good. It is what came back.

The stretch assignment

American development practice deliberately places people in roles beyond their current competence, on the argument that the growth happens there. Being underprepared is treated as the point rather than as a risk.

Up or out

American law firms, consultancies and accounting firms run partnership tracks on which an associate who is not promoted within a defined period leaves. Standing still is not an available option — it is the definition of failure.

Whose work it is

That’s Mike’s project. She owns the redesign. He built that. Her numbers. American workplace speech attaches work to a named person as a matter of routine, in praise and in criticism alike. The attribution is automatic, and it runs both ways.

Employee of the month

An American workplace institution with a photograph on the wall, a parking space, a plaque and a public announcement. Nothing about it is private. The recognition is designed to be seen by everyone who was not chosen.

Resumé

A persuasive curriculum vitae (resumé) in the American context stresses achievements, awards and areas of special competence. It is not an official document produced by a neutral party such as a government agency or an educational institution, but rather a testament to how what was learned has been applied in the real world.

Resumés in the U.S. are in a way (self-)marketing documents. Americans highlight not only their subject area expertise, but also their character strengths, such as persistence, discipline, teamwork and, of course, leadership. Every American reader of an American resumé knows that they are carefully written subjective statements aimed at a specific effect.