Ref 2: Detail shock/reality shock johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/real
Conversation
So one of the reasons I'm thinking about this is that work at abstract levels, like management and leadership, suffers from a lack of natural detail. A manager can't be a detail-oriented to the same degree as a mechanic because social reality has a lot less natural detail
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I think the way great managers and leaders become great is by creating a world of detail for themselves that is comparable to the natural detail environment that accompanies individual contributor work. Those who fail to do this fail at their jobs.
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The thing is, the "domain" of leaders/managers is other people, and people are not things. If you bring "thing" like detail orientation to people, you'll come across as creepy/stalkery. You don't want to obsess over people the way you might over a car engine.
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Some aspects do carry over. Attentive listening, empathy, individualization, are "detail orientation" in relationship mode, but it's fundamentally limited by the fact that the other person is a PERSON with boundaries beyond which they reserve details for themselves.
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If the point is not clear: if you don't like the way a rug looks, you can adjust it so it is exactly right on the floor. If you don't like the way someone's hair looks, you can't go around adjusting it.
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So with people-work, while the principle of "reality has a surprising level of detail" holds, that detail is not yours to work with generally speaking.
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But otoh, doing good mindful work and investing satisfying effort requires *some* domain of demanding detail to work with. This is why so many managers get tempted into bullshit work -- it creates the faux-detail the mind demands out of process bureaucracy stuff.
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But *good* managers and leaders otoh, find a way to be usefully and deeply detail oriented without either being creepy about personal boundaries OR getting sucked into bullshit work.
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Technology and finance are functional domains where it is possible to craft a "managerial detail" domain that fits this prescription. It is possible to be very detail oriented in both functions without working at the hands-on "object level"
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Micromanagement is also a symptom of this syndrome.
Which needs a name. Something like "The no-there-there problem of people work: the lack of default potential for a satisfying universe of detail in people work and how people cope with it"
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Went down this bunnytrail via the post I just wrote on leverage... there's a leverage vs. detail tradeoff in work that can kill you.twitter.com/artofgig/statu
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Hmm... I think there's a fundamental tradeoff between leverage (in the effort multiplier sense rather than debt sense) and detail orientation. Leverage spreads the same amount of detail over more area, creating fragility.
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Replying to
Agree with tech people; engineering in general (tech or otherwise) has more there there. My experience w/ finance people - not vast mind you - is that they can get kinda neurotic (weirdly distrustful/competitive/insecure/delusional).

