I was left with a handful of leftover thoughts from Astroball that I thought I should highlight on this space. First, the book taught me a couple of things I didn’t know. One example was how naps have been shown to have very little cognitive effect unless a person went through a full sleep cycle the night before. Another note was how since the Earth isn’t technically round, there are mountains whose peaks are further away from the Earth’s core than Mount Everest.
Then there was the category of things I did know but often forget. One of these notes I want to make sure I remember is that people will often make assumptions about someone’s maturity or character based on how frequently they break eye contact. Another such thought was how a leader’s main role in a team full of divergent opinions is to ensure that everyone understands the final rationale behind divisive decisions.
The final category of leftover thoughts was related to statistics. Astroball points out that the big drawback with regression is its struggle to properly consider outliers. This is related to one of the book’s main themes – the limitations of a purely statistical assessment approach – because people are so varied that we are all outliers in one dimension or another. This means people will eventually disagree with how they are being assessed, especially if the statistical model is known to ignore certain variables. If a decision maker wants to limit the perception that a statistically driven approach is dismissing the key intangibles that are not being measured by the model, it is my advice to always remember that humans are defined not just by their metrics but also by their ability and willingness to adjust, adapt, and evolve. Knowing how to identify a person’s growth mindset and making exceptions for anyone who consistently demonstrates the desire and ability to improve can overcome the limitations of any model.
