In Genuine Curiosity’s Incompetence is wonderful post, he discuss the four stages of learning model. A person goes from unconsciously incompetent to consciously incompetent to consciously competent and finally to unconsciously competent. This mirrors one of my analysis on hiring people. I learn this from somewhere but I forgot where:
You can draw up a two by two matrix:
| incompetent | competent | |
|---|---|---|
| not self aware (unconscious) | avoid at all cost — “I thing I know it all” | Hire !! undiscovered star |
| Self aware (conscious) | Hire — willing to learn | avoid depending on personality — star vs diva |
And look for the undiscovered star or the “willing to learn” as you next hire.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Sam // Mar 1, 2006 at 9:47 am
I’m somewhat afraid to ask where I fit in among the 4 categories yet curious enough to post this comment.
2 pk // Mar 1, 2006 at 10:01 am
Well, obviously you fit in one of the “good” quadrant since we used to work together, right? In fact, IMHO, without exception everyone at the old company fits into one of the good quadrants. One of the things that were great about our team is our very thorough team based interview process, resulting in a pretty good team. Sure, there were personalities, but overall things were great. In hindsight, the only things I should do differently is perhaps to pay everyone a little less, and make everyone come to work earlier in the morning
!!
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