The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness

by Todd Rose

The jaggedness principle makes it easy to see why they failed so badly: because basketball talent is multidimensional. One mathematical analysis of basketball performance suggests that at least five dimensions have a clear effect on the outcome of a game: scoring, rebounds, steals, assists, and blocks.24 And most of these five dimensions are not strongly related to one another—players who are great at steals, for instance, are usually not so great at blocking. Indeed, it is exceptionally rare to find a true “five-tool player.” Out of the tens of thousands of players who have come through the NBA since 1950 only five players have ever led their team on all five dimensions.

If the correlations between all the dimensions in a system are strong, then that system is not jagged and you are justified in applying one-dimensional thinking to make sense of it. Consider the Dow Jones Industrial Index. The Dow is a single numerical score that represents the combined stock value of thirty large and famous “blue-chip” companies. At the close of each American business day, the financial news dutifully reports the value of the Dow to the hundredth decimal place (it was 17,832.99 on January 2, 2015) and whether this number has moved up or down. Investors use the Dow to evaluate the overall strength of the stock market, and for good reason—between 1986 and 2011 (twenty-five years), the average correlation between the Dow and four other leading stock market indices was extremely high: 0.94.31 Even though the stock market is multidimensional (there are thousands of publicly traded companies in the United States), its general vitality can be reasonably captured with a single number: using the Dow to assess the overall strength of the stock market is one-dimensional thinking at its most reasonable.

knowing someone’s height or neck thickness or grip width is unlikely to tell you much about the rest of his dimensions.

There was virtually no correlation at all.36 Mental abilities were decidedly jagged. For a devout believer in ranking, there was worse to come. Cattell also measured the correlations between students’ grades in college courses and their performance on these mental tests and discovered very weak correlations between them. And not only that—even the correlations between students’ grades in different classes were low. In fact, the only meaningful correlation Cattell found at all was between students’ grades in Latin classes and their grades in Greek classes.

No matter how fine you slice your mind, you are jagged all the way down.

question: If human abilities are jagged, why do so many psychologists, educators, and business executives continue to use one-dimensional thinking to evaluate talent? Because most of us have been trained in averagarian science, which implicitly prioritizes the system over the individual. It is entirely possible to build a functional evaluation system upon weak correlations: if you select employees based on a one-dimensional view of talent, while you may be wrong about any one individual, on average you will do better than someone who selects employees randomly. As a result, we have

I owe a debt of gratitude to my dad. His thoughtful consideration of my jagged profile—my individuality—led him to offer invaluable advice that changed the course of my life. If I had not switched to a visual way of analyzing the GRE problems, I would have performed poorly on the test and, as a result, would probably never have gotten into Harvard. That is the power of the first principle of individuality. When we are able to appreciate the jaggedness of other people’s talents—the jagged profile of our children, our employees, our students—we are more likely to recognize their untapped potential, to show them how to use their strengths, and to identify and help them improve their weaknesses, just like my dad did.

Recognizing our own jaggedness is the first step to understanding our full potential and refusing to be caged in by arbitrary, average-based pronouncements of who we are expected to be.

According to situationists, the results of this study proved that a strong situation influences the behavior of most people, even compelling them to acts of cruelty.

While the situation psychologists were able to predict, on average, how most people would behave in a situation, they could never predict how any particular individual was going to behave.

Tests that score us on a set of traits are popular because they satisfy our deep-seated conviction that we can get to the heart of a person’s “true” identity by knowing those traits that define the essence of that person’s personality. We tend to believe that, deep down in the bedrock of a person’s soul, someone is essentially wired to be friendly or unfriendly, lazy or industrious, introverted or extroverted, and that these defining characteristics will shine through no matter what the circumstances or task. This belief is known as essentialist thinking

But here’s the problem: when it comes to predicting the behavior of individuals—as opposed to predicting the average behavior of a group of people—traits actually do a poor job. In fact, correlations between personality traits and behaviors that should be related—such as aggression and getting into fights, or extroversion and going to parties—are rarely stronger than 0.30.12 Just how weak is that? According to the mathematics of correlation, it means that your personality traits explain 9 percent of your behavior. Nine percent! There are similarly weak correlations between trait-based personality scores and academic achievement, professional accomplishments, and romantic success.

If our personality and behavior are not explained by a collection of enduring traits, then how do we explain our personalities? After all, our behavior is not random—and it doesn’t just depend on the situation alone. The reason trait theory, and the essentialist thinking that supports it, does such a poor job explaining human behavior is because it completely ignores the second principle of individuality: the context principle

The Myers-Briggs, for example, definitely does not say that our traits fundamentally change depending on the setting; as a matter of fact, it says the opposite: that dispositions like whether we are introverted or extroverted influence our behavior no matter the situation. Trait-based personality tests assume that we can be either extroverts or introverts . . . but not both. Yet, Shoda discovered that every child really was both.

The way someone behaved always depended on both the individual and the situation. There was no such thing as a person’s “essential nature.” Sure, you could say someone was more introverted or extroverted on average—this was, in fact, exactly what trait psychology amounted to. But if you relied on averages, then you missed out on all the important details of a person’s behavior.

Shoda demonstrated that, in fact, there is something consistent about our identity—it just wasn’t the kind of consistency anyone expected: we are consistent within a given context

behavior is not determined by traits or the situation, but emerges out of the unique interaction between the two. If you want to understand a person, descriptions of their average tendencies or “essential nature” are sure to lead you astray. Instead, you need a new way of thinking that focuses on a person’s context-specific behavioral signatures.

Character is no different than any human behavior: it is meaningless to talk about it in the absence of context.

Kidd conducted her own version of the marshmallow study, with a crucial twist: she placed one group of children in a “reliable” situation and another group in an “unreliable” situation. Before the marshmallow test began, the kids in the unreliable situation encountered an adult who did not keep his word—for example, during an art project the adult promised the child that if she waited for a little while he would bring her a new set of art supplies to replace her container of broken and well-worn crayons. After a few minutes, he returned empty-handed. The kids in the reliable group, meanwhile, encountered an adult who delivered the new supplies exactly as promised.41 The kids in the reliable situation behaved pretty much like the kids in previous marshmallow studies: a few kids gave into temptation quickly, but about two-thirds of them managed to wait all fifteen minutes—the maximum time. Things were quite different for the kids in the unreliable situation. Half of them devoured the marshmallow within the first minute after the adult departed. Only one child lasted long enough to get a second marshmallow.42 Self-control feels like some kind of essential trait, but Kidd helped show that it, too, is contextual.

The popularity of the marshmallow test and its conclusion that self-control is the key to success shows that the one domain where society remains most bound to essentialist thinking is in our attitude toward ability, talent, and potential. We imagine that these are essential qualities—that individuals either possess them or they don’t, that circumstances might have some minor influence over something like talent, but the circumstances don’t determine or create talent.

Companies that apply the context principle—companies that attempt to match the if-then signatures of candidates with the performance profiles of the positions they are trying to fill—will end up with more successful, loyal, and motivated employees. For our part, we will have the chance to enjoy a career that matches who we really are.

But a better career match is not the only thing that the context principle opens up for us. It also presents us with a better map for understanding ourselves as well as other people and their talents, abilities, and potential. And this deeper understanding of who we are and how we interact with those around us is at the heart of our personal and professional success.

The idea that who we are changes according to the circumstances we find ourselves in—even if those changes are unique to our own self—seems to violate the fundamental tenet of identity: to us, our personality feels stable and steadfast.

Other people’s personalities seem stable to us, however, for a different reason: we tend to interact with most people within a narrow range of contexts. We might know a colleague solely at work, for example—not at home with his family. Or we go out shopping and drinking with a friend on weekends, but never see her in the boardroom. We spend time with our children at home, but rarely see them at school or with their friends. Another reason people’s behavior feels trait-like is that you are a part of their context. Your boss might think you are a timid person when you know that you are only timid around her; at the same time, we might think our boss is overbearing and arrogant, even though she might be only behaving that way around you. We simply do not see the diversity of contexts in the lives of our acquaintances or even those closest to us and, as a result, we make judgments about who they are based on limited information.

In many ways it’s not hard to develop awareness of the contexts where we are ourselves successful, and the contexts where we struggle. The hard part is to think about other people’s if-then signatures. Essentialist thinking still pervades every aspect of our social lives, and it is hard to resist the pull of false certainty. That’s the challenge for all of us—and where the context principle may offer its biggest benefits. Each time we find ourselves thinking someone is neurotic, aggressive, or aloof we should remember that we are only seeing them in one particular context.

Even if we are not entrusted to help others succeed, remembering that we only see others we interact with—like a coworker or boss—in a single context can help us to be more compassionate and understanding with others. If we could see that “difficult” coworker in all her contexts, we might find her to be a devoted friend outside the office, a caring sister, a loving aunt to her nieces. It’s then harder to judge that coworker, to reduce her to a singular unflattering personality trait and in the process strip her of what makes her human—her complexity. Remembering that there is more to that person than the context that finds both of us together in that moment opens up the door for us to treat others with a deeper understanding and respect than essentialist thinking ever allows us to. And that understanding and respect are the foundation of the positive relationships that are most likely to lead to our success and happiness.

Taylor’s standardization of factory time also inspired the inflexible pathways of our educational system developed and implemented by Thorndike and the educational Taylorists.3 Our schools still follow the same rigid march through time as they did a century ago, with fixed class durations, fixed school days, and fixed semesters, proceeding through the same unyielding sequence of “core” courses, all of which ensure that every (normal) student graduates from high school at the same age with, presumably, the same set of knowledge.

“Every baby solves the problem of movement in her own unique way.”

the West, we take it for granted that the floor of our home is relatively free of dangerous germs, and so never question whether crawling is an essential stage in motor development. It is a powerful reminder that far too often we interpret average patterns of behavior as proof that something is innate and universal, when in fact the patterns might stem entirely from social customs that constrain what pathways are even possible in the first place.

The fact that there is not a single, normal pathway for any type of human development—biological, mental, moral, or professional—forms the basis of the third principle of individuality, the pathways principle. This principle makes two important affirmations. First, in all aspects of our lives and for any given goal, there are many, equally valid ways to reach the same outcome; and, second, the particular pathway that is optimal for you depends on your own individuality.

The assumption that faster equals smarter was introduced into our educational system by Edward Thorndike. He believed that the pace at which students learned material was correlated with their ability to retain it, which in turn was correlated with academic and professional success. Or, in his words, “it is the quick learners who are the good retainers.”21 He explained this purported correlation by arguing that differences in learning were a result of differences in a brain’s ability to form connections.

Bloom showed that when students were allowed a little flexibility in the pace of their learning, the vast majority of students ended up performing extremely well. Bloom’s data also revealed that students’ individual pace varied depending on exactly what they were learning. One student might breeze through material on fractions, for instance, but grind through material on decimals; another student might fly through decimals, but take extra time for fractions. There was no such thing as a “fast” learner or a “slow” learner. These two insights—that speed does not equal ability, and that there are no universally fast or slow learners—had actually been recognized several decades before Bloom’s pioneering study, and have been replicated many times since, using different students and different content, but always producing similar results.30 Equating learning speed with learning ability is irrefutably wrong.

the pace at which any given student learns is not uniform: we all learn some things quickly and other things slowly, even within a single subject.

After his research undermined the notion of fixed sequences and helped resolve the crisis of variability, Fischer offered a new metaphor for development that he felt would allow people to break free of the old averagarian one. “There are no ladders,” Fischer once told me. “Instead, each one of us has our own web of development, where each new step we take opens up a whole range of new possibilities that unfold according to our own individuality.”

The pathways principle assures us that just as there are no fixed ladders of development in reading, there are no fixed ladders of development for any other aspect of our lives, including our careers.

“It’s important to realize that excellence is in every pattern. There’s not one way,” Vinkenburg told Science Careers magazine. “You can have an excellent research idea while taking care of seven kids or looking after a sick parent—or being in the lab 24 hours a day. It shouldn’t matter how you got there.”

When I consider the decisions I made that contributed to my college success, every one of them was rooted in the belief that a path to excellence was available to me, but I was the only one who would be able to figure out what that path looked like. And to do that, I knew that I needed to know who I was first.

My decisions also demonstrate how the jaggedness principle, context principle, and pathways principle ultimately all work hand in hand. To choose the right path for me—selecting the sequence of classes to take, for example—I had to know my own jaggedness (such as my low tolerance for boredom, as well as my ability to focus with laser intensity on those things that did manage to captivate me), and I had to know about the contexts where I would be performing (avoiding classes with kids I knew from high school, and seeking classes that focused on arguments and ideas). By knowing my jagged profile and my if-then signatures, I was able to choose a unique pathway that suited me best.

These employee-friendly stats did not happen by accident. They are a direct consequence of the company’s philosophy toward the individual. “Investing in individuals is the core of what we do,” Costco founder Jim Sinegal explained to me. “It’s not just a slogan. People often say they care about individuals, but it’s something they print up for PR, not something they believe in. But our assumption all along has been that if you hire great people, give them good wages, treat them with dignity, and give them an honest path for a career, great things will happen.”

The difference between the two companies lies in what each company truly values. Walmart adopted a Taylorist mindset treating its employees as statistics, as a column of Average Joes who can easily be replaced. Costco makes a meaningful attempt to understand the jaggedness of its employees, recognizing the importance of matching employees to the specific contexts in which they thrive, and empowering employees to pursue their unique pathways. Costco is a place where a part-time worker can become a vice-president, and an accounting assistant can become one of the most powerful wine buyers on the planet. Its employees, in turn, reward Costco with their loyalty and engagement, which fuels Costco’s superior performance, customer service, and bottom-line results.

“You cannot run a company like Costco without thinking about individuals. Period,” Sinegal told me. “You can make money the other way, but you cannot create a place where everyone wins.”

“Treat individuals with respect, as individuals, and you will get out more than what you put in.”

That sense of belonging and personal purpose—that sense that you can add value to the company by sharing your ideas, and that the ideas will be listened to and, if they are good ideas, implemented—is at the heart of Morning Star’s success. In traditional Taylorist organizations, that freedom to innovate is often curtailed or employees are discouraged to participate in the innovation process by the nature of their hierarchical structures. In such organizations, a specific division might be dedicated to innovation—research and development, for instance—or high-priced management consultants might be hired to suggest innovative processes or new products, but for most roles—like my job in the layaway department—ingenuity is actively frowned upon.

In contrast, innovation occurs frequently and organically in an individual-centric company like Morning Star, where temporary workers conduct assembly-line experiments and day laborers tinker with business-critical equipment. When you take individuality seriously—when you set up a business designed to embrace that individuality—innovation occurs everywhere, all the time, at every link of the network, because every employee is transformed into an independent agent tasked with figuring out the best way of doing her job and contributing to the company.

“We’re not any kind of charity organization—every employee must earn their place here,” emphasizes Green. “But Morning Star gives everyone the freedom to earn their place. People are happiest when they ...

Seventy years ago, Taylorism was considered “a characteristic of American civilization.” But the principles of individuality show us the path to a better society, one that embraces individual freedom, initiative and responsibility, without sacrificing free enterprise. Costco, Zoho, and Morning Star demonstrate that when an organization makes the decision to value the individuality of its employees, it is not only the employees who win—the system wins, too, and wins bigger than ever. This is win-win capitalism, and it’s available to any business in any industry in any country.

it is possible for any business and any manager to implement the principles of individuality, and when you do—when you choose to invest in individuals—those individuals become loyal, driven, and passionate. It is possible to have engaged and productive employees who help companies win at the bottom line, even in the most averagarian of industries. You just can’t have them on average.

Like so much of the business world, the educational model of our system of higher education (and, just as important, its business model) is based on Taylorism.8 Our contemporary universities are caretakers of an averagarian system they inherited that enforces the conviction that the system is more important than the individual and compels the standardization of all educational processes. The shortcomings of our system—its costs and, most important, the gap between what graduates learn and their ability to get a job—are due to a deeply entrenched averagarian architecture that was established long ago.

To transform the averagarian architecture of our existing system into a system that values the individual student requires that we adopt these three key concepts: • Grant credentials, not diplomas • Replace grades with competency • Let students determine their educational pathway These concepts offer a blueprint for establishing an educational system that is consistent with the principles of individuality, and that will help all students choose and get trained for a career.

“If someone proposed combining measures of height, weight, diet, and exercise into a single number or mark to represent a person’s physical condition, we would consider it laughable. . . . Yet every day, teachers combine aspects of students’ achievement, attitude, responsibility, effort, and behavior into a single grade that’s recorded on a report card and no one questions it.”