Not sure who said this first, but the classic quote is "If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room."
If you're the big fish in a small pond you're not only missing out on learning from others, and creating impressive things, but ingrained cynicism and having an over-inflated sense of worth are also risks.
Fortunately having an unchallenging job can provide lots of time and energy for research and side projects that can lead to jumping into more interesting work.
"If you're the big fish in a small pond you're not only missing out on learning from others, and creating impressive things, but ingrained cynicism and having an over-inflated sense of worth are also risks."
Absolutely true.
"Fortunately having an unchallenging job can provide lots of time and energy for research and side projects that can lead to jumping into more interesting work."
You know, in theory this is true. In practice, I've been in this situation a couple of times in my career. And it sucked. Hard. It was soul crushing. It was depressing. I found myself emotionally drained at the end of every day. I would complete my work in a short timespan every morning, then somehow end up mindlessly cruising Facebook (or whatever passed for Facebook back then) throughout the day. My latent productivity plummeted in direct correlation to my plummeting mental engagement.
Maybe I'm an unusual case. But oddly enough, I find a boring, trivial, meaningless job almost more draining than a challenging and extremely fast-paced one. In the latter, at least I am revved up, and thus I have energy for side projects on the weekends.
I couldn't agree with you more. I actually said this at my last job interview when asked why I was leaving. I've learned more in the last 6 months being surrounded by much smarter people than the 6 years of being "the smart one".
I won't lie though, the ego-hit of being "the dumb one" when surrounded by truly brilliant people is hard - 100% worth it - but hard.
I took a job after the dot com bust where I knew at the interview they were not a high-quality team, but I felt like I had no choice. I took the job and was told after a year there and at age 25 that my tech skills were "the finished product" which was high praise, but just made me sad. I was by far their best programmer but only because the rest of the team were nearly worthless.
I can't tell whether or not this is an advertisement.
The sentence:
"You can start getting your Human-Voiced Resume™ together now and be in a new job by Halloween"
sounds like an advertisement.
It also bothers me that the title is 'HELP! Im too smart for my job', when it isn't actually someone asking for help.
Maybe the story inside is true, and Drew is real. It's well written.
But I don't know what to make of a story like this if I can't tell whether its true or not.
I stopped reading when I realised it was an ad for snake oil, but lots of people feel like Drew at work. And they are all justified, even when working together. Drew IS the smartest guy at his job, when it comes to the things he cares about. The trick is, most of his co-workers are also smarter than everyone else, when it comes to the things they care about and specialise in.
People come to me at work all the time frustrated about something. "Sometimes I am the only one who has any idea about X and is actively trying to push it at this company". And they are right. When it comes to X, they are far too clever for the company. But when it comes to Y and Z they are just like everyone else, except for the guy that really gives a shit about Y and knows its the most important thing the company should be concentrating on, and the guy that really gives a shit about Z and knows that its the most important thing the company should be focussing on.
We are all in our own little bubbles and have trouble considering that fact that maybe we aren't so smart after all. We just need to start seeing things from other peoples perspectives. Maybe X, Y AND Z are important so why not recognise how clever other people actually are work together. Those people that can manage to realise that they aren't in fact the only one who cares, and get past their egos and manage to work with others and connect all those important things are the true people who are clever enough to work anywhere.
Edit: So yeah, this smart clever things isn't really such a black and white dichotomy. Pretty much all of us are clever at some thing, yet utterly stupid at most things, that is just how things are. That is why we need to work together to get anything done.
> There's almost no focus on anything that could have impact outside a tiny circle of bureaucrats. It's a shame, not to mention frustrating."
> "Well, I get to be the rabble-rouser, which is frustrating at times but satisfying at others," said Drew.
I worked in government/academia (big public U) for a long time. This is pretty much why I left. I agree to an extent that there's some value in the "If you're not the smartest person in the room..." quote, but there's something to be said for it. At least every person on my team at the BigU had the ability to drive change.
In a more startup-like culture with obvious rockstars, it feels like only the rockstars get to drive the change and the rest are supposed to follow along even when they don't agree. It's something that managers should sit on, but they often don't, and it leads to monocultures of thought that aren't necessarily the best for the business.
I'm not even sure this is "too smart" for your job, this feels a lot more like "too driven" or maybe more accurately a willingness to stay complacent. If you give any value to the personality tests that exist something like 60%+ of all Americans have a stable personality, one that is happy with what is happening now and doesn't want to rock the boat. This is normal, and to me what this article is really calling out is that if you're not one of those people, don't become one just because it's what you think is stable.
But there are a lot of actually good reasons to stay in an easy (ie. stupid) job if it's a temporary situation with an exit in sight. Specifically, when bootstrapping/moonlighting a startup you have no energy left for an overly intense day job. So stick with the crappy job until it's time to take your passion full time.
So I'd suggest a modification to the old maxim: If you're the smartest person in the room, either leave the room or start to build a new one.
Ideally any group will have good intellectual variety (not an attempt to be PC. I mean that the group is composed of uniquely smart individuals in their field in a complementary way). My question is what is the role of the "smartest" person in the room? Obviously a group won't survive if the smartest person is always moving on. Assuming there is always 1 "smartest" person, this is an inherently unstable system. Eventually all groups will be composed of one individual who is both the smartest and dumbest member of the group.
The way I see it, the smart people can both:
- Satisfy their intellectual curiosity individually through their work or in personal extracurricular activities
- Establish a mentoring relationship with the rest of the group
Regarding the second option, I believe this is a healthy group dynamic. It raises the groups average IQ or expertise, and training / mentoring others helps to solidify your own understanding of a subject. Perhaps in time the mentee will get to the point where they can challenge and expand the mentor's own understanding.
I'm not sure there has to be just one "smartest person in the room"; people have different fields of expertise, so it's almost always possible to learn something from someone. You can be a mentor in one thing and a student in another if the room has a sufficiently diverse group of people.
The immediate and poisonous issue is not being recognized or rewarded. Typically you're better off by moving on sooner rather than later, becuase it's unlikely you're going to stanch the organizational entropy, no matter that you're carrying the rest of the department to verifiably higher levels of success.
OR, maybe you're not as smart and valuable as you believe, and you're better off if you STFU and produce.
[+] [-] mcantelon|12 years ago|reply
If you're the big fish in a small pond you're not only missing out on learning from others, and creating impressive things, but ingrained cynicism and having an over-inflated sense of worth are also risks.
Fortunately having an unchallenging job can provide lots of time and energy for research and side projects that can lead to jumping into more interesting work.
[+] [-] jonnathanson|12 years ago|reply
Absolutely true.
"Fortunately having an unchallenging job can provide lots of time and energy for research and side projects that can lead to jumping into more interesting work."
You know, in theory this is true. In practice, I've been in this situation a couple of times in my career. And it sucked. Hard. It was soul crushing. It was depressing. I found myself emotionally drained at the end of every day. I would complete my work in a short timespan every morning, then somehow end up mindlessly cruising Facebook (or whatever passed for Facebook back then) throughout the day. My latent productivity plummeted in direct correlation to my plummeting mental engagement.
Maybe I'm an unusual case. But oddly enough, I find a boring, trivial, meaningless job almost more draining than a challenging and extremely fast-paced one. In the latter, at least I am revved up, and thus I have energy for side projects on the weekends.
[+] [-] klt0825|12 years ago|reply
I won't lie though, the ego-hit of being "the dumb one" when surrounded by truly brilliant people is hard - 100% worth it - but hard.
[+] [-] reinhardt|12 years ago|reply
Corollary: every non-empty room has at least one person that is wrongly there.
[+] [-] tootie|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] deleted_account|12 years ago|reply
Of course we're all too smart for our jobs!
© Human Workplace 2013
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[+] [-] feral|12 years ago|reply
The sentence: "You can start getting your Human-Voiced Resume™ together now and be in a new job by Halloween" sounds like an advertisement.
It also bothers me that the title is 'HELP! Im too smart for my job', when it isn't actually someone asking for help.
Maybe the story inside is true, and Drew is real. It's well written. But I don't know what to make of a story like this if I can't tell whether its true or not.
[+] [-] MrKurtHaeusler|12 years ago|reply
People come to me at work all the time frustrated about something. "Sometimes I am the only one who has any idea about X and is actively trying to push it at this company". And they are right. When it comes to X, they are far too clever for the company. But when it comes to Y and Z they are just like everyone else, except for the guy that really gives a shit about Y and knows its the most important thing the company should be concentrating on, and the guy that really gives a shit about Z and knows that its the most important thing the company should be focussing on.
We are all in our own little bubbles and have trouble considering that fact that maybe we aren't so smart after all. We just need to start seeing things from other peoples perspectives. Maybe X, Y AND Z are important so why not recognise how clever other people actually are work together. Those people that can manage to realise that they aren't in fact the only one who cares, and get past their egos and manage to work with others and connect all those important things are the true people who are clever enough to work anywhere.
Edit: So yeah, this smart clever things isn't really such a black and white dichotomy. Pretty much all of us are clever at some thing, yet utterly stupid at most things, that is just how things are. That is why we need to work together to get anything done.
[+] [-] karlkatzke|12 years ago|reply
> "Well, I get to be the rabble-rouser, which is frustrating at times but satisfying at others," said Drew.
I worked in government/academia (big public U) for a long time. This is pretty much why I left. I agree to an extent that there's some value in the "If you're not the smartest person in the room..." quote, but there's something to be said for it. At least every person on my team at the BigU had the ability to drive change.
In a more startup-like culture with obvious rockstars, it feels like only the rockstars get to drive the change and the rest are supposed to follow along even when they don't agree. It's something that managers should sit on, but they often don't, and it leads to monocultures of thought that aren't necessarily the best for the business.
[+] [-] jhspaybar|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] morgante|12 years ago|reply
But there are a lot of actually good reasons to stay in an easy (ie. stupid) job if it's a temporary situation with an exit in sight. Specifically, when bootstrapping/moonlighting a startup you have no energy left for an overly intense day job. So stick with the crappy job until it's time to take your passion full time.
So I'd suggest a modification to the old maxim: If you're the smartest person in the room, either leave the room or start to build a new one.
[+] [-] dkokelley|12 years ago|reply
The way I see it, the smart people can both:
- Satisfy their intellectual curiosity individually through their work or in personal extracurricular activities
- Establish a mentoring relationship with the rest of the group
Regarding the second option, I believe this is a healthy group dynamic. It raises the groups average IQ or expertise, and training / mentoring others helps to solidify your own understanding of a subject. Perhaps in time the mentee will get to the point where they can challenge and expand the mentor's own understanding.
[+] [-] ucarion|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bulkington|12 years ago|reply
OR, maybe you're not as smart and valuable as you believe, and you're better off if you STFU and produce.
[+] [-] ateev|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] wellboy|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackmaney|12 years ago|reply