not every thing is easy for every person

One thing I do that I don't blog about much is read a ton of books tangentially related to academia. These books often inspire ideas and posts, which sometimes get finished and sometimes do not. I've decided to introduce the post label "psyc girl reads a book" and purposefully blog about the things I'm reading more often. 

I just finished reading this book: Multipliers: How The Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, which was recommended to me by a friend. I really like the premise of the book (how to be the kind of leader who maximizes everyone's potentially, basically) and the fact that the authors have conducted their own research, which lends some street cred to the book in my view. I did not, however, completely love the book - I found the stories distracting after a while (I'm lazy, give me the details) and I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of recommendations. However, the authors note multiple times in the book that it would be crazy and overwhelming to implement all of the interventions they discuss.

In their chapter on being a talent magnet (a good start to being a Multiplier), the authors mention the concept of "native genius," which I found quite intriguing. According to Wiseman, "a native genius is something that people do, not only exceptionally well, but absolutely naturally. They do it easily (without extra effort) and freely (without condition)" (p. 47) This is something you do that comes naturally, doesn't require a herculean effort on your part, and without need for reward (according to the authors. That's what they mean by "without condition"). Furthermore, native genius might come so easily no one realizes they have this talent or skill that is even remotely special.

This concept was recently presented to me by someone else (but I didn't then have the label for it). In conversation, the person I was chatting with informed me that he believed I had some type of innate talent for some aspects of my professional life, because I managed to do quite easily and with little effort things that other people found quite challenging or impossible. The examples were my ability to organize my time and set goals.

"Those things aren't even hard," was my response. Now that I've read Multipliers, I'm realizing that "this isn't even that hard" might be a phrase that indicates a native genius skill.

Sometimes Often Pretty much constantly, I (and ECB as well) get frustrated by the things that I find incredibly easy that other people around me can't seem to do. I don't understand why they can't do "the simplest things." I realize now that my "simple things" might be someone else's impossibility or complete nightmare. Likewise, there are lots of things I suck at (organizing schedules for multiple people is one of them, for example) that other people I work with find relatively easy. I'm in awe of them - my brain can't seem to wrap itself around a task that others can do.

What to do with this concept? Two things, in my opinion:

First, as Multipliers recommends, observe those who work under us, find their native genius, and create opportunities for them. I think this could be especially helpful for a lab or team, where ostensibly each member likely has different native geniuses and you could likely maximize the team's output, happiness, and cohesiveness by developing everyone's (hopefully) complementing native geniuses.

Second, use the concept of native genius to dig deep for patience and empathy. When I'm incredibly frustrated that the people around me can't seem to do what I can do, I hope I am now able to remind myself that my native genius does not equal their native genius, and to also remember they they will have their own native genius that might be something I actually find impossible.