Sunday, October 05, 2014
The INTP Strategy
INTP here refers to the Myers-Brigg type. This is my type. It's not a common type and it has its issues. I have no proof that the strategy I am about to describe is uniquely or especially INTP, but my intuition says it is, so just humor me and assume it is, because I just chose the name as a convenient descriptor for the strategy I am about to describe and discuss.
When confronted with a task - a goal - a problem - people generally go through the following process:
1) Evaluate the task - just exactly what is it?
2) Decide on an approach to completing the task, reaching the goal, or solving the problem,
and finally,
3) Work away at it, using the selected approach until completion, revaluation, or abandonment
Most people only move on to 3 if they can get through 1 and 2 fairly rapidly. They prefer to use an approach they have been provided by a teacher or an expert. Few people are actually capable of devising approaches and even fewer actually enjoy devising approaches. People often enjoy the "working away at it" for things that suit them, especially if there is visible progress and low chance of failure.
For typical humans, they like to spend 1% of their time in stage 1 and 2 and 99% of their time in stage 3. In their minds, Stage 3 is where all the progress is made and if you want to complete the task, you better get to doing something that makes progress.
My approach is rather different and flips the process on its head. I enjoy stage 1 and 2 far more than 3. My big thrill comes from devising some clever approach that accomplishes 3 with the minimum of effort and/or superior results. Sometimes that means I have to spend a lot of time in stage 1 really understanding the problem. Sometimes that means I have to spend a lot of time in stage 2 thinking of novel approaches and testing them out or simulating them in my head. In my ideal world, I would spend 99% of the time in stage 1 and 2, and 1% in 3. In my ideal world, I would still be the first one to finish the task out of 100 random people. And it would be the best. That's what I strive for. This is my modus operandi. It is a ballsy approach. I am assuming I am clever enough to come up with a better way. I am betting the farm that I won't run out of time.
This has several implications.
Assuming I manage to come up with an approach that is much faster and better, do I share it or keep it all to myself? Well, that depends. In a competitive environment, I am highly motivated to keep it to myself. It gives me quite an edge. If I am able to conceal my advantage from my competitors, I can outperform them indefinitely and still have time to spare. This makes it advisable to not be too obvious. Best to seem to be busy and just finish a little early. This is a strategy I have employed all my life. Even better, you can move on to the next problem and start your steps 1 and 2 on that one and get even farther ahead. The challenge here is not to be detected, so deception becomes part of your strategy. This means you are going to seem aloof to many.
In a cooperative environment, of course, you want to share. Now your team all gets the benefit along with you. Maybe you get some credit. If you are lucky, they reward you in some special way. In reality, this rarely goes so well. In reality, this often leads to you being stuck with leadership responsibilities. This style can be adapted to leadership roles, since you can give yourself the job of process improvement and guidance. It's why I migrated to a management role in consulting and stayed with it for 20 years. On the negative side, my time was not used in an optimal way, since my job was not innovating, it was management. This was a compromise, a not entirely satisfactory compromise.
The INTP approach really conflicts with the desires of most authority figures, even well-meaning ones. The first time through, you will look like a slacker all along the way. It is very incompatible with earned value, progress metrics, and teamwork in general. Your pace is unique. It's out of step. In any environment where incremental progress is tracked and counted you will be anomalous and often you will be weeded out. You may be punished. Many teachers and managers insist that you do it the "correct way". The "correct way" kills your soul. I think this is why INTPs are often poor performers in school. Over and over, I have found my thinking style to cause conflict.
And then, there is the interesting question of why? Why is this my approach? How did I come by it? Is it nature or nurture? Can it be learned? What's special about me cognitively?
Despite annoying people, my unique approach is very obviously valuable. Evolution no doubt produces people like me at some low rate so that innovations happen. As long as a society incorporates the accomplishments of this strategy, it will progress. I would guess that the rate of progress depends greatly on the level of nurturing and tolerance for people like me. Progress is not always something people like. Some people prefer things to be stable - especially people who are the elites in the current arrangement. And then, sometimes the elites keep all the innovations to themselves, generally by making sure that the innovators work directly for them.
And then there is a question of whether this could be done "en masse"? Is this best a solitary approach? Could you form teams of people like this? Are there teams doing this? Or are there really just people working on various aspects in parallel? I am not sure.
And then there is the productivity paradox. Normal people think of the process output as the product. They think "This would be great. If I could do this I would be so much more productive.". But that assumes that you would deploy it only selectively and be focused on producing the normal output the rest of the time. Perhaps your time would be spent 10% on innovating and 90% on production? It just does not work this way. To deploy the INTP strategy you have to be uninterested in spending your time in producing the ordinary results. The object of your interest is the process itself. That's the real product to you. So you will spend most of your time "thinking" and begrudgingly a small amount of time doing. You will seem very unproductive to most people, because they are judging you by normal standards. If you were paid by the hour spent in production, you would be very poor. Even being paid by the piece, you make no special amount of money. Only if you are paid royalties will you be rich. Programming is a good occupation for people with this skill, as long as it is automating something tricky. You figure it out once, capture it in code, and then sell the code while you go off to solve another problem.
When confronted with a task - a goal - a problem - people generally go through the following process:
1) Evaluate the task - just exactly what is it?
2) Decide on an approach to completing the task, reaching the goal, or solving the problem,
and finally,
3) Work away at it, using the selected approach until completion, revaluation, or abandonment
Most people only move on to 3 if they can get through 1 and 2 fairly rapidly. They prefer to use an approach they have been provided by a teacher or an expert. Few people are actually capable of devising approaches and even fewer actually enjoy devising approaches. People often enjoy the "working away at it" for things that suit them, especially if there is visible progress and low chance of failure.
For typical humans, they like to spend 1% of their time in stage 1 and 2 and 99% of their time in stage 3. In their minds, Stage 3 is where all the progress is made and if you want to complete the task, you better get to doing something that makes progress.
My approach is rather different and flips the process on its head. I enjoy stage 1 and 2 far more than 3. My big thrill comes from devising some clever approach that accomplishes 3 with the minimum of effort and/or superior results. Sometimes that means I have to spend a lot of time in stage 1 really understanding the problem. Sometimes that means I have to spend a lot of time in stage 2 thinking of novel approaches and testing them out or simulating them in my head. In my ideal world, I would spend 99% of the time in stage 1 and 2, and 1% in 3. In my ideal world, I would still be the first one to finish the task out of 100 random people. And it would be the best. That's what I strive for. This is my modus operandi. It is a ballsy approach. I am assuming I am clever enough to come up with a better way. I am betting the farm that I won't run out of time.
This has several implications.
Assuming I manage to come up with an approach that is much faster and better, do I share it or keep it all to myself? Well, that depends. In a competitive environment, I am highly motivated to keep it to myself. It gives me quite an edge. If I am able to conceal my advantage from my competitors, I can outperform them indefinitely and still have time to spare. This makes it advisable to not be too obvious. Best to seem to be busy and just finish a little early. This is a strategy I have employed all my life. Even better, you can move on to the next problem and start your steps 1 and 2 on that one and get even farther ahead. The challenge here is not to be detected, so deception becomes part of your strategy. This means you are going to seem aloof to many.
In a cooperative environment, of course, you want to share. Now your team all gets the benefit along with you. Maybe you get some credit. If you are lucky, they reward you in some special way. In reality, this rarely goes so well. In reality, this often leads to you being stuck with leadership responsibilities. This style can be adapted to leadership roles, since you can give yourself the job of process improvement and guidance. It's why I migrated to a management role in consulting and stayed with it for 20 years. On the negative side, my time was not used in an optimal way, since my job was not innovating, it was management. This was a compromise, a not entirely satisfactory compromise.
The INTP approach really conflicts with the desires of most authority figures, even well-meaning ones. The first time through, you will look like a slacker all along the way. It is very incompatible with earned value, progress metrics, and teamwork in general. Your pace is unique. It's out of step. In any environment where incremental progress is tracked and counted you will be anomalous and often you will be weeded out. You may be punished. Many teachers and managers insist that you do it the "correct way". The "correct way" kills your soul. I think this is why INTPs are often poor performers in school. Over and over, I have found my thinking style to cause conflict.
And then, there is the interesting question of why? Why is this my approach? How did I come by it? Is it nature or nurture? Can it be learned? What's special about me cognitively?
Despite annoying people, my unique approach is very obviously valuable. Evolution no doubt produces people like me at some low rate so that innovations happen. As long as a society incorporates the accomplishments of this strategy, it will progress. I would guess that the rate of progress depends greatly on the level of nurturing and tolerance for people like me. Progress is not always something people like. Some people prefer things to be stable - especially people who are the elites in the current arrangement. And then, sometimes the elites keep all the innovations to themselves, generally by making sure that the innovators work directly for them.
And then there is a question of whether this could be done "en masse"? Is this best a solitary approach? Could you form teams of people like this? Are there teams doing this? Or are there really just people working on various aspects in parallel? I am not sure.
And then there is the productivity paradox. Normal people think of the process output as the product. They think "This would be great. If I could do this I would be so much more productive.". But that assumes that you would deploy it only selectively and be focused on producing the normal output the rest of the time. Perhaps your time would be spent 10% on innovating and 90% on production? It just does not work this way. To deploy the INTP strategy you have to be uninterested in spending your time in producing the ordinary results. The object of your interest is the process itself. That's the real product to you. So you will spend most of your time "thinking" and begrudgingly a small amount of time doing. You will seem very unproductive to most people, because they are judging you by normal standards. If you were paid by the hour spent in production, you would be very poor. Even being paid by the piece, you make no special amount of money. Only if you are paid royalties will you be rich. Programming is a good occupation for people with this skill, as long as it is automating something tricky. You figure it out once, capture it in code, and then sell the code while you go off to solve another problem.
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