Winning Words 3/30/10
“Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.” (Laurence Peter) LP is best known for his Peter Principle, “Employees tend to rise to the highest level of incompetence.” The cartoon Dilbert is based on this principle. However, I think that the value of Peter’s Principle is in the eye of the beholder. I generally see it as applying to “the other guy.” ;-) Jack

FROM PRJS IN MICHIGAN: Not necessarily.....I think it ought to jog each of us to assess his/her abilities realistically and look for that spot that fits us. So Peter was of use to me....not in judging others but in judging myself. FROM JACK: As the quote put it: "It's in the eye of the beholder."

FROM JN IN MICHIGAN: Congratulations on your recovery! I may have missed a previous earlier edition of Winning Words, but this is the earliest time I've noticed. I enjoy reading your Winning Words every week day and I'm glad I don't have to see or hear them when they are first "e-published." FROM JACK: Yep! I'm back in the saddle again, back where a friend is a friend etc.

FROM MOLINER CF: The eye of the beholder generally has tunnel vision.

FROM OUTHOUSE JUDY: Dilbert is one of our favorites. It's so easy to believe you are the only one who has the answers....correct ones at that....and truth and beauty are in the eye of the beholder. Interesting quote. FROM JACK: Which reminds me of verse 8 of the Robert Burns poem, To A Louse: (O would some power the gift to give us to see ourselves as others see us.)

FROM SH IN MICHIGAN: The first WW and the last WW have made me think the most today. Especially reflecting upon how few things we tie today, compared with Joubert's time and probably how many more people back then wore patches over their bad eyes as compared to today and still the WW strike a chord of common sensibility even taking them as referring to something non-literal. Thanks for making them available for reflection. Many of us would never have heard of them otherwise.

FROM MT IN PENNSYLVANIA: Competence remains in the eye of the beholder only until you can measure it. The missing part of the Competence equation is (or was) the measuring of people's effectiveness in working with others. The Gabriel Institute (which I've been working with for the past 14 months) has developed a completely new way to predict how people will perform in teams to benefit their group, overcome a challenge, or achieve a common goal. http://www.thegabrielinstitute.com In hopes of improving 'quality of hire', organizations have been using personality tests that were designed (in the 1940's & 50's) to measure individual characteristics or traits. Such tests are very well documented, but personality factors do not predict how people will actually behave. In contrast, TGI's Role-Based Assessment (RBA), was designed from
the very beginning to measure 'teaming characteristics'. It is used for hiring & promoting, works extremely well in matching people to the functional mission of their team, and also for analyzing and solving team performance problems.