<story><title>People prefer friendliness, trustworthiness in teammates over skill competency</title><url>https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/3318/research-people-prefer-friendliness-trustworthiness-in-teammates-over-skill-competency</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sbacic</author><text>&amp;gt; Except for marginal cases, it&amp;#x27;s not about how good you are at your job. You just have to be liked while being sufficiently good.&lt;p&gt;I think this is dangerous ground to thread. I don&amp;#x27;t like to work with assholes any more than the next guy and I&amp;#x27;d certainly prefer working with people I personally like but that kind of thinking opens doors to all kinds of abuse; from favoritism (I like him, therefore he gets a pass when somebody else might not), through promotions (what does giving a promotion to somebody likeable over somebody more competent do to morale?) to plain fuckarounditis (playing career games rather than what&amp;#x27;s good for the business, wasting company resources on petty political games).&lt;p&gt;I mean, I get it - it&amp;#x27;s human nature. But something feels off when we&amp;#x27;re justifying our simian prejudices in an environment where we&amp;#x27;re supposed to prioritize somebody else&amp;#x27;s satisfaction (whoever is paying us) but instead we do what we feel is best for us personally, using a fairly emotional and error prone system of judgment (I don&amp;#x27;t care if this guy sucks, I like him because he&amp;#x27;s my friend).</text></item><item><author>cletus</author><text>Roger Sterling of Mad Men said it best [1]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I don&amp;#x27;t know if anyone&amp;#x27;s ever told you that half the time this business comes down to &amp;#x27;I don&amp;#x27;t like that guy.&amp;#x27;&lt;p&gt;In all my years of working, this is probably the most important thing you can learn. Except for marginal cases, it&amp;#x27;s not about how good you are at your job. You just have to be liked while being sufficiently good.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also why the perennial &amp;quot;hiring is broken&amp;quot; posts and threads miss the point completely: really they&amp;#x27;re just trying to find someone they like. It&amp;#x27;s what &amp;quot;culture fit&amp;quot; really means. And people like people like themselves. This is part of what can lead to unlawful discrimination.&lt;p&gt;Trustworthiness is an interesting one as it seems to be hard to define but some people just have it and some don&amp;#x27;t. This has been studied and can have a profound effect on, say, criminal sentencing [2].&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;madmenqts&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;783648743690231808?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;madmenqts&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;783648743690231808?lang...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;sections&amp;#x2F;health-shots&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;423600926&amp;#x2F;in-court-your-face-could-determine-your-fate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;sections&amp;#x2F;health-shots&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;4236009...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>asdff</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s a pragmatic reason too for that. You work more efficiently when you work with your friends imo vs rigid or unagreeable personalities. You show up excited to work and contribute and share ideas vs wanting to get out of there and watching the clock tick slowly all day. I&amp;#x27;d say the friend effect is able to elevate people who have &amp;#x27;mediocre&amp;#x27; skills on paper to be efficient enough and start learning at a rate that sees them performing well above their qualifications. There is definitely a performance advantage towards feeling engaged and focused.</text></comment>
<story><title>People prefer friendliness, trustworthiness in teammates over skill competency</title><url>https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/3318/research-people-prefer-friendliness-trustworthiness-in-teammates-over-skill-competency</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sbacic</author><text>&amp;gt; Except for marginal cases, it&amp;#x27;s not about how good you are at your job. You just have to be liked while being sufficiently good.&lt;p&gt;I think this is dangerous ground to thread. I don&amp;#x27;t like to work with assholes any more than the next guy and I&amp;#x27;d certainly prefer working with people I personally like but that kind of thinking opens doors to all kinds of abuse; from favoritism (I like him, therefore he gets a pass when somebody else might not), through promotions (what does giving a promotion to somebody likeable over somebody more competent do to morale?) to plain fuckarounditis (playing career games rather than what&amp;#x27;s good for the business, wasting company resources on petty political games).&lt;p&gt;I mean, I get it - it&amp;#x27;s human nature. But something feels off when we&amp;#x27;re justifying our simian prejudices in an environment where we&amp;#x27;re supposed to prioritize somebody else&amp;#x27;s satisfaction (whoever is paying us) but instead we do what we feel is best for us personally, using a fairly emotional and error prone system of judgment (I don&amp;#x27;t care if this guy sucks, I like him because he&amp;#x27;s my friend).</text></item><item><author>cletus</author><text>Roger Sterling of Mad Men said it best [1]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I don&amp;#x27;t know if anyone&amp;#x27;s ever told you that half the time this business comes down to &amp;#x27;I don&amp;#x27;t like that guy.&amp;#x27;&lt;p&gt;In all my years of working, this is probably the most important thing you can learn. Except for marginal cases, it&amp;#x27;s not about how good you are at your job. You just have to be liked while being sufficiently good.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also why the perennial &amp;quot;hiring is broken&amp;quot; posts and threads miss the point completely: really they&amp;#x27;re just trying to find someone they like. It&amp;#x27;s what &amp;quot;culture fit&amp;quot; really means. And people like people like themselves. This is part of what can lead to unlawful discrimination.&lt;p&gt;Trustworthiness is an interesting one as it seems to be hard to define but some people just have it and some don&amp;#x27;t. This has been studied and can have a profound effect on, say, criminal sentencing [2].&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;madmenqts&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;783648743690231808?lang=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;madmenqts&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;783648743690231808?lang...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;sections&amp;#x2F;health-shots&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;423600926&amp;#x2F;in-court-your-face-could-determine-your-fate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;sections&amp;#x2F;health-shots&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;4236009...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Loughla</author><text>I agree with you, 100%. &amp;#x27;Culture fit&amp;#x27;, in my experience, leads to discrimination and in- and out-group thinking.&lt;p&gt;That being said; a challenge to your statements:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;[. . .] instead we do what we feel is best for us personally, using a fairly emotional and error prone system of judgment [. . .].&lt;p&gt;My experience has shown that a very cohesive team who like and appreciate each other, but is made of middle-ability individuals is much, much more productive to my measure as the boss than a team comprised of high-ability, but un-cohesive (non-cohesive?) individuals.&lt;p&gt;Soft skills and the ability to work well together without judgment are both wildly important. In a team of antagonists, it is difficult, if not impossible, to feel comfortable enough to take chances.&lt;p&gt;Not sure what the challenge is in that statement, but it&amp;#x27;s in there somewhere.</text></comment>