Circle of Competence: Avoid Ambiguity Traps

A piano teacher my junior year of high school had me do exercises I didn&#x27;t understand. A teacher in my college audition heard the result of those lessons and started me down another path of exercises. Essentially, the one teacher had communicated certain skills <i>through me</i> to the next teacher without my knowledge.<p>During one particular lesson my junior year of college, everything clicked and I began to play a melody with more control and direction. It was only at that moment that I could hear and feel the result of those exercises.<p>Furthermore, that teacher later speculated about the lessons my previous teacher had taught me. That speculation lined up pretty well with what I remembered of the exercises she gave me. And it was only then that I understood the efficacy of those lessons toward connecting a melodic line on the piano.<p>That&#x27;s about 4 1&#x2F;2 years and two mentors setting me toward developing a skill (in addition to others, granted), the process of which I didn&#x27;t really understand for another half year after that.<p>And that&#x27;s the best case of someone willing to do what seems like arbitrary work, and lacking the skills at the time to rationalize persuasive reasons to avoid doing that work. In my experience adult students are experts at talking themselves into the skills they <i>think</i> they already have, and talking themselves out of the will to learn new ones.<p>So without a decent mentor I&#x27;d speculate most people are hopelessly incompetent at assessing their circle of competence. Or at least they are if we widen the circle from &quot;getting ahead in business&quot; to &quot;life.&quot;

I have to say I find the way of thinking presented in this article to be wrong in a fundamental way.<p>I realize that this is (more or less) how we&#x27;re all brought up to think about our place in the world, but I have come to see it as a very destructive way of self-development.<p>&gt; The idea behind this model is to focus on your strengths that you are either born with or something you have developed over the years instead of investing time and resources on trying to do anything and everything for the sake of it.<p>Why should my life be centered on the &#x27;thing I&#x27;m good at&#x27;? What does that even mean? Is it the thing I like to do and that makes me happy, or the thing that can bring me money? Since the common understanding (I think) points more towards the latter interpretation, is this a desirable way to live your life, or to expect others to live their lives? Should we all be efficient production machines where our efficiency is dictated by whatever the economic needs of the moment are?<p>&gt; Focussing [sic] on your strengths does not imply that you need to avoid exploring other areas, but it is rather about not letting those other areas take away too much time and resources that could be better utilised on your strengths.<p>How does such self-optimization relate to the aspiration of living a free life?<p>&gt; Focussing [sic] will help you accumulate experience and knowledge in a particular domain giving you an almost unfair advantage over others who are much more scattered in their approach in the field.<p>Why should you aim to have an unfair advantage over anybody? More so, what happens if industry trends shift and it turns out you specialized on the &#x27;wrong&#x27; thing (e.g. you&#x27;re the best mainframe programmer, but the PC revolution has come)?

There are several diverse viewpoints on this.<p>One aspect is that being excellent at one thing is hard. Be really good at two things. And thats how you will stand out because it is the fusion of two skils that makes you unique.<p>First: Some advice on this by Scott Adams. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dilbertblog.typepad.com&#x2F;the_dilbert_blog&#x2F;2007&#x2F;07&#x2F;career-advice.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dilbertblog.typepad.com&#x2F;the_dilbert_blog&#x2F;2007&#x2F;07&#x2F;car...</a> I love this one.<p>Also a book that pretty much centers around the same point. I think the book itself is a great read. And I recommend it. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Medici-Effect-Elephants-Epidemics-Innovation&#x2F;dp&#x2F;1515959341" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Medici-Effect-Elephants-Epidemics-Inn...</a><p>And then there is a quote by Robert Anson Heinlein, if you want to take it to heart and live on other extreme. By no means it is a career advice but surely an interesting take.<p>A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

For a book-length exposition on this theme, read <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;First-Break-All-Rules-Differently&#x2F;dp&#x2F;1531865208" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;First-Break-All-Rules-Differently&#x2F;dp&#x2F;...</a>.<p>The book didn&#x27;t intend to be a book-length exposition. But the common insight that they found among good managers is that people come lop-sided. They have strengths and weaknesses that they aren&#x27;t going to change. When you try to make people work on their weaknesses, you&#x27;re virtually guaranteed to fail and make them miserable in the process. But instead figure out how to tailor their jobs to their talents and they will outperform. If you can pair up people with complementary talents, the combination will do much better than either person could on their own.<p>The book then includes example after example from industry after industry. For everything from housekeeping in a hotel to being a bartender to data entry. For each of these jobs, there are people whose talents will make them ridiculously better at it.<p>(Side note. That is the only management book that I recommend to non-managers.)

When I first started running outdoors for exercise, I couldn&#x27;t run a mile. I was in really poor physical condition. 5 days a week, I&#x27;d go outside and do whatever I could, stopping as my heart rate demanded. I was really bad at running. My form was poor. I was overweight. Yet, I persisted. I learned how to celebrate small victories. Successes slowly compounded. I persevered. I kept training and improving. A few years passed and I successfully finished my first marathon. I was slow as molasses and stopped a lot after mile 20. I was one of the heavier finishers that day, too. I also raised 3 grand for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society in the process (Team in Training). My colleagues were shocked to find out what I did, and it inspired at least one to sign up and give it a try. What I learned about myself from running is that I had the capacity to go far beyond limits that my <i>mind</i> sets for me. The more familiar I became with physical and mental pain, the more I learned how to manage the urge to quit -- stopping before injury most of the time. I&#x27;ve experienced this process of development in other aspects of my life and career. It never feels easier to do something that I&#x27;m not good at, but I know how to deal with a strong urge to quit and do something else.<p>For a long while, I haven&#x27;t improved as a runner, running only 3-4 miles a session. Instead, I keep my perseverance reserve for my work, where I&#x27;ve spent years doing work that has been very outside of my comfort zone, compounding one small success at a time. I have been far from the best at what I&#x27;ve done, but boy do I have a long line of accomplishments that I am proud of.<p>If you want to grow as a person, try moving outside of your circle of competence and grow the circle. It&#x27;s not about achieving more than everyone else. It&#x27;s about doing what your former self <i>wouldn&#x27;t</i>. Do it enough times and you may one day find that moving beyond your comfort zone is a strength.

I&#x27;m not seeing his this relates to ambiguity traps. What is the trap?<p>In general, I think doubling down in success makes sense versus starting over. Even if it is small success. But, most people making drastic changes probably aren&#x27;t doing so by choice alone. Are they?

It all depends on what you want out of life. If you want to stay in one area and go as far as possible, yes I would follow this advice. You&#x27;ll probably be more &quot;successful&quot; overall. But I was never that type of person; I&#x27;ve always been pulled in several directions. So I&#x27;ve sequentially focused on each of those, and made shorter careers out of each. Of course I haven&#x27;t gotten as far in each, because there just isn&#x27;t time. And I&#x27;ve struggled harder, stepping into new areas and being a beginner over and over. But it can&#x27;t help but make you stronger and more of a person overall, or at least I like to tell myself that. Every minute Willard sits in that room he gets weaker, while every minute Charlie squats in the bush he gets stronger! And there still end up being weird little synergies sometimes, where something unrelated nonetheless applies in an unexpected way, usually on more of a metaphorical or symbolic level, that gives some insight.<p>I should say I&#x27;ve basically still been honoring my 3 or 4 main circles, plural, of competency, i.e. I still pursued things for which I had aptitude and interest, and not totally random ones!

What if your core competence is fucking around and trying out stuff? I&#x27;m uh... asking for a friend.

I believe this way of thinking is an (ocidental?) cultural bias - &quot;god gave you talent&quot;, &quot;you&#x27;re the chosen one&quot;, &quot;your fate is sealed&quot;.<p>In other cultures (Korea&#x2F;Japan, at least?) it seems it&#x27;s more common to attribute success to hard work and mentoring and less on innate abilities. You can&#x27;t walk into a dojo and just tell the sensei &quot;Mom said I&#x27;m very talented - please give me a black belt&quot;, you have to put in the work like everybody else.<p>I wonder how much that shapes people&#x27;s perception of what they can do, motivation, etc.

Is it me, or is this a rather depressing way to view oneself?<p>&gt; Focussing on your strengths does not imply that you need to avoid exploring other areas, but it is rather about not letting those other areas take away too much time and resources that could be better utilised on your strengths.<p>I think that there is something especially rewarding in pursuing an activity at which you lack natural talent. It teaches very important lessons about hard work, makes you question yourself, and can help you be less arrogant. I think sometimes, it can actually be far less of a waste of time than pouring more hours into something you already very well.<p>The best thing I ever did was take classes outside of CS in college - I quickly realized I could not skate by in linguistics or writing classes. My proudest academic achievement is probably a B- in a grad linguistics class I took.<p>A nice article that explains this better than I can: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;10&#x2F;smarter-living&#x2F;the-case-for-hobbies-ideas.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;10&#x2F;smarter-living&#x2F;the-case-f...</a><p>Of course, these feelings could just be a rationalization for a &#x27;dabbler&#x27; complex, it&#x27;s hard to tell.

Book - Range by David Epstein - covers this topic really well. The book shows how expanding into neighboring areas increases your performance in your chosen field itself.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B07PHLNR28&#x2F;ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B07PHLNR28&#x2F;ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...</a>

What&#x27;s the Ambiguity Trap here?<p>That aside I find this more useful when it comes to organizations where momentum is pretty hard to change. I can&#x27;t tell you how many initiatives I&#x27;ve seen with &quot;We&#x27;re going to do this now!&quot; and really that group doesn&#x27;t do that well, is busy not doing that, and just as an organization isn&#x27;t built to do ... the new thing. The result is inevitable.

You know, it&#x27;s a hard pattern to break out of.<p>For me, I&#x27;ve always worked the hardest on the things I&#x27;ve failed the hardest at. Failing motivates me to try more - even if I only achieve supbar results after not failing.<p>In my later years, I&#x27;ve become better at being selective about these things. I try not to spend too much resources on things I know will not mater, or bring me any more happiness.

I also read yesterday&#x27;s post from the same author, but neither article is really a mental model (despite that being the subject of the entire blog), and they aren&#x27;t particularly informative enough to be on the frontpage for the blog&#x27;s first two posts?<p>If you upvoted this one, what am I missing that you liked about it?

&gt; Another example could be switching to a career at 30 years old when you do not have the required social skills. You are better off focussing your efforts on a career that you will thrive in as an introvert while at the same time giving some room to improve on your social skills without making it your focus. Trying to put all your chips on a career based on a skill that you have not mastered or you struggle with is not the smartest bet to make.<p>This could have been written about me. I&#x27;m a software engineer who switched careers (from filmmaking) at 30. One of the best decisions I ever made. I love my job. I&#x27;m good at it. I have more (hard-earned) people skills than your average developer, but I&#x27;m fundamentally an introvert, and love my distraction-free IC time.

One interesting about being in the technology field, is that it can make you better in any sphere, as you can pick up the software quicker or write code to make things better, or simply can technically analyze things as a strength. Also, project planning and dealing with abstract ideas.<p>Tech is crazy in that it enhances you in a lot of areas that apply in numerous ways in the modern world.

Interesting article. Then I cam across the term &quot;man management&quot; in the article. Is that a real thing, or a typo?

Some skills are facilitating skills, and they come back to bite you if you don&#x27;t sufficiently master them. For me, writing was always massive source of frustration. Not knowing how to write persuasively has limited me in my career. I&#x27;ve hired a writing tutor, which I hope helps me.

This way of thinking presupposes that not being (highly) competent at whatever it is you&#x27;re doing is losing (or will lead to losing) in some form. Maybe this is true in some environments, but I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s generally true, or particularly valuable life advice.

Reinforcement Learning takes a principled approach to analyzing the exploration&#x2F;exploitation trade-off.<p>If you&#x27;re interested in using this knowledge to manipulate your behavior, I recommend learning a little theory before letting internet wisdom dissuade you from exploring.

And what if said strengths are deemed worthless by the market?

interesting - runs contrary (to the most part) - of The Range which I read recently (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;amzn.to&#x2F;3dCTqcE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;amzn.to&#x2F;3dCTqcE</a>). There is something to be said on focussing though, to easy to get distracted.

Is Ambiguity Trap defined somewhere?

This assumes your objective of learning different skills is to be financially successful, no?

Work on what you can&#x27;t stop thinking about. You&#x27;ll get good at that.

Sounds about right, also is to notice earlier the better