Malcolm Gladwell revisits the mismatch problem in the New Yorker. (Only now he calls it “The Quarterback Problem”). Whatever. The main thing you need to know is that for many professions, there are gates and gatekeepers. The gatekeepers use the gates–in the form of tests, degrees, or diplomas–to help them weed out the worthless and [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘Malcolm Gladwell’
November 13, 2008
Gladwell on Capitalization Rates
Another riveting talk from Gladwell on unexploited potential.
October 17, 2008
The Mismatch Problem Corroborated
His new book Outliers isn’t out for another month, but today Malcolm Gladwell might justly bask in that warm glow arising from confirmation bias. The mismatch problem, you’ll recall, is that we have no idea what we’re doing when we try to measure talent before it’s been put to actual use. Scouts fail to identify [...]
September 5, 2008
Gladwell’s Mismatch Problem
Malcom Gladwell has a thought-provoking video up, this time on something he calls the mismatch problem. In a nutshell, we think we know how to measure talent. The problem is that we have no idea what we’re doing. Our measurements appear to bear no relation to future performance. In Gladwell’s words, it’s a misjudgment that [...]
