Folks, in the original version of 'Offhand Studies' posted last week, I was going to throw my hands up and say 'look, I paraphrased the comment, find it here in this video'. But TOA is serious now, so I watched the tape to find the comment, and in the process ended up doing a running commentary about the entire panel.
First things first, as previously noted Morey's outburst is at the fifty-seven minute mark of the hour long clip. Honestly, it was like watching a tense soccer game, after fifty-six minutes I didn't think it would happen. Was my memory wrong about the quote? I was almost out of hope, but Morey came through at the end (GOOOOOOOOOOL) and saved me from having to rewrite my original post. Of course, this meant I watched the whole thing over, and that led to the following thoughts.
I remembered early on while rewatching that one surprising thought I had a year ago was that Nate Silver, known for his statistical work at FiveThirtyEight, came off during the conference like a lone prophet returning to warn the populace of the dangers in using too much analytics. In this panel, he makes a comment to this theme at around the 6:45 mark, admitting that he doesn't believe in using metrics for everything (but is willing to help anyone interested in doing analytics correctly). There was also another separate incident I heard about from an inside source involving Silver that, although I am not allowed to discuss in public (to the extent that this TOA nonsense is 'public'), I can confirm increased my admiration of his approach. Overall, I wasn't a massive fan of Silver before going to the conference but I came away from the event with a positive perception of him.
However, I was not impressed by how much he says right, right? Adam Grant is also a big 'right' guy. I'm curious about how saying right became a meaningless verbal tic, right, like, like, saying 'like', right? It doesn't serve the function of 'you know' or 'I mean', which at least demonstrate that the speaker is searching for the right words or thoughts. 'Right' just sounds like someone who wants to convince you that they are... well, right... without doing the work of providing proof.
The discussion starting from around the ten minute mark is illuminating. This group of four, successful in their fields in the most significant possible ways, has absolutely no clue about hiring. I did like Jessica Gelman's idea to ask references about how to best coach the new hire, but this thought would come after the most challenging parts of the application process - resume, interviews, and deliberation.
Morey's challenge at 17:45 about the study question demonstrates the underlying thinking behind his 'offhand' comment. It's not enough to ask Morey the blanket question, he needs to know more about it, but the study likely isn't taking the confusion indicated by such follow up questions into account. It reminds me of a thought I believe comes from Oprah - the most important question is the follow up question. (Perhaps in that wisdom lies a hint about conducting good job interviews.)
This challenge comes up again when Grant talks about narcissism (around twenty-four minutes). Again, Morey leads the way, and Gelman jumps in to add support. It's interesting that those two are more skeptical while Silver seems ready to accept the premise of the study. There's probably nothing deeper here than the backgrounds of the panelists - Morey and Gelman come from results-driven business backgrounds while Silver and Grant are more rooted in an academic way of thinking.
