In Praise of Dullness | Hacker News Reader

In Praise of Dullness

nytimes.com

41 pointsrobg12 comments

I don't understand where the study he sites leads to the conclusion that good corporate leaders should be dull. He mentions: "The traits that correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours."

That doesn't mean someone is dull. They could be funny, engaging and thoughtful and still be detail-oriented and hard working. Brooks is just playing off of stereotypes to reach his conclusion.

True. Wouldn't you have to say that Steve Jobs has all those traits? Does anyone think he's dull?

Another one in the same (dull) vein by Brooks: 'Genius, the Modern View': http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html

It seems that Mr. Brooks likes to do at least some of his editorializing based on actual research. We need more like him.

Good article but I found the last paragraph to be wildly speculative and not particularly well thought out.

This essay seems particularly relevant (and contradictory): http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/09/stratified-by-c.html

I think that two different cultures are being discussed here.

> I expect that my life experience constitutes an extremely biased sample of the power elite. I don't have to deal with the executives of arbitrary corporations, or form business relationships with people I never selected. I just meet them at gatherings and talk to the interesting ones.

I would be more interested in a study of CEOs that looked at the kind of company being run. I expect the subset of CEOs that deal with transhumanism or new technologies to have a more winnowing route to the top than the CEOs of larger or more traditional companies - a Sears can only innovate so much, and even with a looter CEO can manage to stay afloat.

> On the contrary, a study by Ulrike Malmendier and Geoffrey Tate found that C.E.O.’s get less effective as they become more famous and receive more awards.

I can't help but think of Buffett's investors-as-coin-flippers.

> After ten flips there would be approximately 260,000 people that had successfully called ten consecutive coin flips. After 20 flips, based purely on chance, there would be approximately 250 people that had called 20 consecutive coin flips - a seemingly miraculous feat.

from http://www.investorhome.com/coinflip.htm

"...extroversion, agreeableness and openness to new experience did not correlate well with C.E.O. success. Instead, what mattered was emotional stability and, most of all, conscientiousness — which means being dependable, making plans and following through on them."

Brooks' article greatly simplifies CEO personality traits as compared to different types of roles they must fill (growing a small company, turning around a failing business, etc.) just as the original article Brooks cited (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=972446) is reporting on data collected mostly by private equity companies to take charge of companies they own. The traits of that sort of CEO may be quite different from a startup CEO, a CEO who is hired to pump and dump, etc.

A surprising conclusion, for the NYT.

Brooks is one of their designated conservative columnists. Don't expect the op-ed page to sing with one voice.

Obama is the US's CEO. Maybe he should be more dull.

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