The End of Average: How to Succeed in a World that Values Sameness by Todd Rose

Averagatarians use an aggregate-then-analyze approach to problem solving. This can often disguise individual patterns and lead to incorrect conclusions. Individualists use the analyze-then-aggregate approach, which can reveal individual growth and development. There is the story here of how the average crowd thought that babies losing and then regaining the ability to move their feet as if they were walking was normal development. It took an individualist to realize that losing this walking ability was a function of added weight in children with chubbier thighs.

For many years, big companies like Google and Microsoft hired and evaluated employees using a single metric based on grandes, test scores, and selectivity of their colleges. About 15 years ago, they realized that doing so resulted in missing out on some top talent. They realized that talent is jagged, which means that there are many aspects that are usually not strongly correlated with each other.
Todd tells his story of preparing for the logic portion of his GRE. He was relying on his short-term memory, which was not his strength. His father told him to try using his stronger visual ability by making sketches to represent each problem. When he did, he was able to score much higher, and when he took the GRE, he did well enough to get accepted to graduate school. The key is to realize that your talents are jagged too.

Trait psychologists argue that our behavior is determined by well-defined personality traits such as introversion and extroversion. Situation psychologists, on the other hand, claim the environment drives our personality and behavior far more than personal traits. They believe that culture and immediate circumstances determine how we behave.
Modern theory suggests that your behavior is determined by how your traits respond to the specific context. More innovative employers have realized this and pay attention to how an applicant’s skills and traits will work in the context of the specific job in question. Managers from large established companies, for example, may not do well when hired by a small start-up. (Doug: I can relate as I am an extrovert in some contexts and an introvert in others. Be sure to ask yourself how your traits function in various contexts.)

For any accomplishment, there are many different paths. Studies of how babies learn to walk show that there is not one sequence. This is known as The Pathway Principle. Many studies in education show that allowing students to learn at their own pace is much more effective than one-size-fits-all lessons, but most schools still follow this ineffective approach. This makes no sense as the technology we have today makes self-paced learning more possible and easier. If driver’s tests and bar exams allow for unlimited retakes, why doesn’t everything else?
Todd tells the story of his path through college. As a high school dropout with a D- average, he knew enough about himself to know that the standard advice was not likely to serve him well. The story of the path he successfully figured out and took is a lesson about first knowing yourself and defining your own path, which is likely to be unique. (Doug: In my case, I knew that I could make a bigger difference as the principal of the poorest elementary school in the region than I could continuing as the director of computer services. By many metrics, my 13 years as a principal were a big success.)