
Circle of Competence: Avoid Ambiguity Traps - remotists
https://models.substack.com/p/circle-of-competence-avoid-ambiguity
======
jancsika
A piano teacher my junior year of high school had me do exercises I didn't
understand. A teacher in my college audition heard the result of those lessons
and started me down another path of exercises. Essentially, the one teacher
had communicated certain skills _through me_ to the next teacher without my
knowledge.

During one particular lesson my junior year of college, everything clicked and
I began to play a melody with more control and direction. It was only at that
moment that I could hear and feel the result of those exercises.

Furthermore, that teacher later speculated about the lessons my previous
teacher had taught me. That speculation lined up pretty well with what I
remembered of the exercises she gave me. And it was only then that I
understood the efficacy of those lessons toward connecting a melodic line on
the piano.

That's about 4 1/2 years and two mentors setting me toward developing a skill
(in addition to others, granted), the process of which I didn't really
understand for another half year after that.

And that's the best case of someone willing to do what seems like arbitrary
work, and lacking the skills at the time to rationalize persuasive reasons to
avoid doing that work. In my experience adult students are experts at talking
themselves into the skills they _think_ they already have, and talking
themselves out of the will to learn new ones.

So without a decent mentor I'd speculate most people are hopelessly
incompetent at assessing their circle of competence. Or at least they are if
we widen the circle from "getting ahead in business" to "life."

~~~
dhosek
There's a lot of this in mathematics education. Unfortunately, a lot of math
_teachers_ don't realize themselves the importance of the things that they're
setting up in students' education. Having been through the educational process
for getting a secondary math education certification, it felt like too much of
this was left implicit. Worse still, there were cases like in abstract algebra
where students would do exercises on the group a+b\sqrt(-2) without any
indication of the significance that this would play later in the algebra
course. Heck, high school algebra, I think students learning that being able
to solve for x in ax+b=c equations turns into a goal or transforming more
complex problems into that simpler problem.

~~~
lmkg
My advisor for my math degree told me straight-up "You don't _really_
understand a math course until you take the next class in the series." I'm
really glad he told me that, because it sharpened my perception of how well I
understood different subjects. It also shaped which classes I took for the
rest of college, tending towards depth over breadth.

Too many students think that math is just an arbitrary collection of arbitrary
steps. It all _makes sense_ , but you have to have at least one teacher
contextualize it for you in order for all of it to click.

~~~
riverlong
Hell, I don't think anyone really understands fractions until they've taken
Elementary Set Theory and constructed the reals, and I don't think anyone
really understands high-school trig until they've taken real analysis, etc.

It's a great feeling to come back to the "simple" topics from early in school,
and to realize how much rich knowledge they communicate, and the level of
detail that really sits underneath them.

------
leto_ii
I have to say I find the way of thinking presented in this article to be wrong
in a fundamental way.

I realize that this is (more or less) how we're all brought up to think about
our place in the world, but I have come to see it as a very destructive way of
self-development.

> The idea behind this model is to focus on your strengths that you are either
> born with or something you have developed over the years instead of
> investing time and resources on trying to do anything and everything for the
> sake of it.

Why should my life be centered on the 'thing I'm good at'? What does that even
mean? Is it the thing I like to do and that makes me happy, or the thing that
can bring me money? Since the common understanding (I think) points more
towards the latter interpretation, is this a desirable way to live your life,
or to expect others to live their lives? Should we all be efficient production
machines where our efficiency is dictated by whatever the economic needs of
the moment are?

> Focussing [sic] on your strengths does not imply that you need to avoid
> exploring other areas, but it is rather about not letting those other areas
> take away too much time and resources that could be better utilised on your
> strengths.

How does such self-optimization relate to the aspiration of living a free
life?

> Focussing [sic] will help you accumulate experience and knowledge in a
> particular domain giving you an almost unfair advantage over others who are
> much more scattered in their approach in the field.

Why should you aim to have an unfair advantage over anybody? More so, what
happens if industry trends shift and it turns out you specialized on the
'wrong' thing (e.g. you're the best mainframe programmer, but the PC
revolution has come)?

~~~
tenebrisalietum
The article to me seems to be saying that if you pour your heart and soul into
a skill, let's say playing guitar, and after several years despite your best
efforts you are still not very good, you probably should not depend on it to
support yourself financially. This doesn't preclude you doing it for fun on
your own terms.

> Why should you aim to have an unfair advantage over anybody?

Cynical: This makes life easier. Exploiting an unfair advantage over others
ensures you don't have to spend a large percentage of your life fighting for
the basic elements of survival. It's selfish, but the number of people you are
is 1 and not more or less, which also matches the number of people who truly
care about your quality of life.

Your mainframe example is bad because those people are still making a lot of
money maintaining legacy systems somewhere.

~~~
ozim
I would oppose even stronger against "unfair advantage", author in the article
wrote "almost unfair". If you worked harder than others to achieve some level
of understanding or mastery it is not something I would ever call "unfair
advantage".

~~~
Viliam1234
The "unfair" part is that people have different personality traits and thus
enjoy different things. Working hard to become great at something you enjoy is
relatively easier than working hard to become great at something you hate.

For example, my programming skills are a result of time and effort I spent
learning programming, and the fact that even in my free time I learned new
things and worked on my personal projects. Thus I "deserve" to be better than
someone who doesn't care, doesn't learn, and doesn't practice.

But the "undeserved" part is that enjoy exploring technical details and
working alone; those are traits I was born with. If a person without these
traits would try to spend the same time and effort doing the same things, it
would be much harder for them, because they would suffer along the way, and
they wouldn't get the emotional rewards along the way that I did. In that
sense I have an advantage, because the same amount of hard work is less of a
sacrifice for me.

The opposite situation for me is social skills. I also spent a lot of work
here, read various books, and practiced various techniques. First, the results
are mediocre, simply because unless I force myself, I ignore many
opportunities to practice. (Because, unlike with programming, this practice is
not intrinsically pleasant to me.) Second, sometimes I focus and do a good
job, but from inside it feels like hard work, even if from outside it seems
"natural". I can seem like I enjoy it, but it actually makes me very tired and
I need a break afterwards. This whole coronavirus situation feels like a
wonderful vacation to me. The only way to excel in this area would be to
torture myself (just like other people need to torture themselves to solve a
simple math problem).

So it makes sense, when you choose your career, to consider not just how well
it pays and how much work is needed, but also how much suffering that work
brings to you. If you are lucky, there is a profitable career where you have
the unfair advantage that the same amount of work causes you less suffering
than to your potential competitors. So you can work harder than them and still
have more enjoyable life.

------
priyaaank
There are several diverse viewpoints on this.

One aspect is that being excellent at one thing is hard. Be really good at two
things. And thats how you will stand out because it is the fusion of two skils
that makes you unique.

First: Some advice on this by Scott Adams.
[https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/car...](https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/career-
advice.html) I love this one.

Also a book that pretty much centers around the same point. I think the book
itself is a great read. And I recommend it. [https://www.amazon.com/Medici-
Effect-Elephants-Epidemics-Inn...](https://www.amazon.com/Medici-Effect-
Elephants-Epidemics-Innovation/dp/1515959341)

And then there is a quote by Robert Anson Heinlein, if you want to take it to
heart and live on other extreme. By no means it is a career advice but surely
an interesting take.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a
hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a
wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act
alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a
computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization
is for insects.”

~~~
arkades
> One aspect is that being excellent at one thing is hard. Be really good at
> two things. And thats how you will stand out because it is the fusion of two
> skils that makes you unique.

This is a difference of semantics. "Do a thing you are especially good at" vs.
"Do two things you're really good at ... to create a unique result" is another
way of saying "find a thing you're uniquely good at."

~~~
unishark
Well if you assume the basis set of things you can be good at is arbitrarily
chosen. But I think the point was to define things" based on how skills are
broken up in society. It's certainly much easier to learn them this way. You
probably can't find many books or college classes in "public speaking in
Mathematics", to help you become the best at this specialized focus, but it's
easy to independently study these two specializations.

------
btilly
For a book-length exposition on this theme, read
[https://www.amazon.com/First-Break-All-Rules-
Differently/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/First-Break-All-Rules-
Differently/dp/1531865208).

The book didn't intend to be a book-length exposition. But the common insight
that they found among good managers is that people come lop-sided. They have
strengths and weaknesses that they aren't going to change. When you try to
make people work on their weaknesses, you're virtually guaranteed to fail and
make them miserable in the process. But instead figure out how to tailor their
jobs to their talents and they will outperform. If you can pair up people with
complementary talents, the combination will do much better than either person
could on their own.

The book then includes example after example from industry after industry. For
everything from housekeeping in a hotel to being a bartender to data entry.
For each of these jobs, there are people whose talents will make them
ridiculously better at it.

(Side note. That is the only management book that I recommend to non-
managers.)

------
Dowwie
When I first started running outdoors for exercise, I couldn't run a mile. I
was in really poor physical condition. 5 days a week, I'd go outside and do
whatever I could, stopping as my heart rate demanded. I was really bad at
running. My form was poor. I was overweight. Yet, I persisted. I learned how
to celebrate small victories. Successes slowly compounded. I persevered. I
kept training and improving. A few years passed and I successfully finished my
first marathon. I was slow as molasses and stopped a lot after mile 20. I was
one of the heavier finishers that day, too. I also raised 3 grand for the
Leukemia Lymphoma Society in the process (Team in Training). My colleagues
were shocked to find out what I did, and it inspired at least one to sign up
and give it a try. What I learned about myself from running is that I had the
capacity to go far beyond limits that my _mind_ sets for me. The more familiar
I became with physical and mental pain, the more I learned how to manage the
urge to quit -- stopping before injury most of the time. I've experienced this
process of development in other aspects of my life and career. It never feels
easier to do something that I'm not good at, but I know how to deal with a
strong urge to quit and do something else.

For a long while, I haven't improved as a runner, running only 3-4 miles a
session. Instead, I keep my perseverance reserve for my work, where I've spent
years doing work that has been very outside of my comfort zone, compounding
one small success at a time. I have been far from the best at what I've done,
but boy do I have a long line of accomplishments that I am proud of.

If you want to grow as a person, try moving outside of your circle of
competence and grow the circle. It's not about achieving more than everyone
else. It's about doing what your former self _wouldn 't_. Do it enough times
and you may one day find that moving beyond your comfort zone is a strength.

------
taeric
I'm not seeing his this relates to ambiguity traps. What is the trap?

In general, I think doubling down in success makes sense versus starting over.
Even if it is small success. But, most people making drastic changes probably
aren't doing so by choice alone. Are they?

------
rdiddly
It all depends on what you want out of life. If you want to stay in one area
and go as far as possible, yes I would follow this advice. You'll probably be
more "successful" overall. But I was never that type of person; I've always
been pulled in several directions. So I've sequentially focused on each of
those, and made shorter careers out of each. Of course I haven't gotten as far
in each, because there just isn't time. And I've struggled harder, stepping
into new areas and being a beginner over and over. But it can't help but make
you stronger and more of a person overall, or at least I like to tell myself
that. Every minute Willard sits in that room he gets weaker, while every
minute Charlie squats in the bush he gets stronger! And there still end up
being weird little synergies sometimes, where something unrelated nonetheless
applies in an unexpected way, usually on more of a metaphorical or symbolic
level, that gives some insight.

I should say I've basically still been honoring my 3 or 4 main circles,
plural, of competency, i.e. I still pursued things for which I had aptitude
and interest, and not totally random ones!

------
chadlavi
What if your core competence is fucking around and trying out stuff? I'm uh...
asking for a friend.

~~~
_jal
The article assumes a serious emphasis on specialization is the only way to
"succeed", which is also left undefined.

Both of those tell you more about the author than provide any objective
advice.

------
hcarvalhoalves
I believe this way of thinking is an (ocidental?) cultural bias \- "god gave
you talent", "you're the chosen one", "your fate is sealed".

In other cultures (Korea/Japan, at least?) it seems it's more common to
attribute success to hard work and mentoring and less on innate abilities. You
can't walk into a dojo and just tell the sensei "Mom said I'm very talented -
please give me a black belt", you have to put in the work like everybody else.

I wonder how much that shapes people's perception of what they can do,
motivation, etc.

~~~
culopatin
This article promotes fixed mindset, if you follow it and you think you have
no natural abilities, you’re set as a failure for the rest of your life.

------
blintz
Is it me, or is this a rather depressing way to view oneself?

> Focussing on your strengths does not imply that you need to avoid exploring
> other areas, but it is rather about not letting those other areas take away
> too much time and resources that could be better utilised on your strengths.

I think that there is something especially rewarding in pursuing an activity
at which you lack natural talent. It teaches very important lessons about hard
work, makes you question yourself, and can help you be less arrogant. I think
sometimes, it can actually be far less of a waste of time than pouring more
hours into something you already very well.

The best thing I ever did was take classes outside of CS in college - I
quickly realized I could not skate by in linguistics or writing classes. My
proudest academic achievement is probably a B- in a grad linguistics class I
took.

A nice article that explains this better than I can:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/smarter-living/the-
case-f...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/smarter-living/the-case-for-
hobbies-ideas.html)

Of course, these feelings could just be a rationalization for a 'dabbler'
complex, it's hard to tell.

------
padiyar83
Book - Range by David Epstein - covers this topic really well. The book shows
how expanding into neighboring areas increases your performance in your chosen
field itself.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PHLNR28/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PHLNR28/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

------
duxup
What's the Ambiguity Trap here?

That aside I find this more useful when it comes to organizations where
momentum is pretty hard to change. I can't tell you how many initiatives I've
seen with "We're going to do this now!" and really that group doesn't do that
well, is busy not doing that, and just as an organization isn't built to do
... the new thing. The result is inevitable.

------
TrackerFF
You know, it's a hard pattern to break out of.

For me, I've always worked the hardest on the things I've failed the hardest
at. Failing motivates me to try more - even if I only achieve supbar results
after not failing.

In my later years, I've become better at being selective about these things. I
try not to spend too much resources on things I know will not mater, or bring
me any more happiness.

------
lowmemcpu
I also read yesterday's post from the same author, but neither article is
really a mental model (despite that being the subject of the entire blog), and
they aren't particularly informative enough to be on the frontpage for the
blog's first two posts?

If you upvoted this one, what am I missing that you liked about it?

~~~
dqpb
I didn't upvote this, as this is just some guys heuristic.

But, I find the exploration vs exploitation mental model useful. There is
theory behind it (which is used in reinforcement learning):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-
armed_bandit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit)

------
droctothorpe
> Another example could be switching to a career at 30 years old when you do
> not have the required social skills. You are better off focussing your
> efforts on a career that you will thrive in as an introvert while at the
> same time giving some room to improve on your social skills without making
> it your focus. Trying to put all your chips on a career based on a skill
> that you have not mastered or you struggle with is not the smartest bet to
> make.

This could have been written about me. I'm a software engineer who switched
careers (from filmmaking) at 30. One of the best decisions I ever made. I love
my job. I'm good at it. I have more (hard-earned) people skills than your
average developer, but I'm fundamentally an introvert, and love my
distraction-free IC time.

------
nickthemagicman
One interesting about being in the technology field, is that it can make you
better in any sphere, as you can pick up the software quicker or write code to
make things better, or simply can technically analyze things as a strength.
Also, project planning and dealing with abstract ideas.

Tech is crazy in that it enhances you in a lot of areas that apply in numerous
ways in the modern world.

------
SubiculumCode
Interesting article. Then I cam across the term "man management" in the
article. Is that a real thing, or a typo?

~~~
asciimo
Yeah, that knocked me off balance, too. But it's a thing, if antiquated:
[https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/man-...](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/man-
management)

------
mips_avatar
Some skills are facilitating skills, and they come back to bite you if you
don't sufficiently master them. For me, writing was always massive source of
frustration. Not knowing how to write persuasively has limited me in my
career. I've hired a writing tutor, which I hope helps me.

------
WillDaSilva
This way of thinking presupposes that not being (highly) competent at whatever
it is you're doing is losing (or will lead to losing) in some form. Maybe this
is true in some environments, but I don't think it's generally true, or
particularly valuable life advice.

------
dqpb
Reinforcement Learning takes a principled approach to analyzing the
exploration/exploitation trade-off.

If you're interested in using this knowledge to manipulate your behavior, I
recommend learning a little theory before letting internet wisdom dissuade you
from exploring.

------
non-entity
And what if said strengths are deemed worthless by the market?

~~~
jonny_eh
That can change at any moment. Being good at video games was worthless until
Twitch and eSports.

------
monkeydust
interesting - runs contrary (to the most part) - of The Range which I read
recently ([https://amzn.to/3dCTqcE](https://amzn.to/3dCTqcE)). There is
something to be said on focussing though, to easy to get distracted.

------
seanwilson
Is Ambiguity Trap defined somewhere?

~~~
awinter-py
author left it ambiguous for effect

------
agentdrtran
This assumes your objective of learning different skills is to be financially
successful, no?

------
z5h
Work on what you can't stop thinking about. You'll get good at that.

------
m3kw9
Sounds about right, also is to notice earlier the better

