Everyone’s a Winner (by Joel Best)

For the first time since winter break I managed to finish a book unrelated to my studies. Over the past several months I’ve started, among others, This Side of Paradise or The White Noise, but abandoned each half-way through because of an increasing amount of work (which of course was always meaningful, satisfying and appropriately judged).

But now I am sitting in the main reading room of the New York Public Library where I found a book that immediately caught my attention. Everyone’s a Winner: Life in our Congratulatory Culture (amazon link) is a book written by Joel Best, a professor of sociology at University of Delaware, that looks at the increasing tendency of… making everyone a winner.

In its few chapters (the whole book is only 166 pages long) it examines the debate about the purpose of schools (should they emphasize mastering of a subject or facilitate opportunities for social mobility?), describes the broadening definitions of heroism or exposes the tricks colleges employ to boost their U.S. News rankings. Its central idea concerns the state of status affluence, where various members of society (individuals, school, countries) accumulate recognition by receiving and giving out prizes.

Regrettably, I could identify way too many areas within Gettysburg that the book cites as examples of status inflation. At our school (and apparently elsewhere) everyone is a director, leader, above average… Prizes are given out like there’s no tomorrow (the membership criteria to the honor societies for economics and social sciences are laughable). Too often professors tend to value effort too close to mastery (by, say, increasing the frequency of homework assignments, allowing weak students to make their missteps statistically insignificant in the sea of grades).

The status abundance leads to a game theory-based question. Considering the status quo is so laughable, should I adjust my actions to minimize the amount of mockery I might possibly sustain? I have already made sure that my resume does not include any of the cheap “action terms” that we’re supposed to use to appear as stronger applicants. Making this decision was relatively simple as my resume is rather strong even without any inflated terms (apparently I also deleted the section about my humility). But what should I do with honor societies and other honors? If I delete them from my resume (like I just did from my LinkedIn profiles), am I putting myself at a disadvantage? Let’s hope not, I just deleted them. Instead I hope I will one day receive a prize for reversing the current laughable trend.

First good article on leadership in a long time

Blogpost for my econ 350 class.

William Deresiewicz writes in The American Scholar that great schools train great hoop jumpers and why it’s wrong.

At Gettysburg College it’s impossible to escape “leaderification.” It seems as though every element of life here is about leadership. Each club, regardless of size or activity, has a Fortune 500-like leadership board; every job for a student workers develop leadership; there is even a new center for leadership with an inspirational mission statement — “There are no bystanders at Gettysburg College. We believe anyone can be a leader.”

There is no definition of the word leader. Generally its meaning is obfuscated in management-speak and tautologies. Leader is the one who inspires and leads others.

The sad fact is that not everyone is meant to be a leader. As a matter of fact, a vast majority of people are not suitable to be leaders. Unfortunately, the status quo feeds everyone’s heads the exact opposite. In my opinion this has two major consequences that dramatically hinder collaboration: everyone wants to have a say in everything; and everyone thinks their idea is better. Non-working free riders is suddenly desirable as one finally doesn’t have to take into consideration their thoughtful input.

Working in groups on important projects has recently been impossible. Merit or knowledge are not taken into consideration as field is artificially leveled through leadership programs. Criticism is absolutely inappropriate (how could one be wrong when they’re constantly told they’re great leaders?), entitlement goes through the roof.

It would have been vastly preferable if the leadership fad died and the capable would learn the art themselves (Google’s Larry Page read books on business as a “young man”), if leadership was about creativity and not being trapped in dogmas, the results of other people’s thinking (as Steve Jobs noted during a Stanford commencement speech in 2005). Such reversal seems unlikely. In the meantime I will continue to dread group assignments.