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The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness
In this ground-breaking book perfect for readers of The Power of Habit and Quiet, Harvard scientist Todd Rose shows how our one-size-fits-all world is actually one-size-fits-none.
Each of us knows we’re different. We’re a little taller or shorter than the average, our salary is a bit higher or lower than the average, and we wonder about who it is that is buying the average-priced home. All around us, we think, are the average people—with the average height, the average salary and the average house.
But the average doesn’t just influence how we see ourselves—our entire social system has been built around this average-size-fits-all model. Schools are designed for the average student. Healthcare is designed for the average patient. Employers try to fill average job descriptions with employees on an average career trajectory. Our government implements programs and initiatives to serve the average person. For more than a century, we’ve believed that the best way to run our institutions is by focusing on the average person. But when you actually drill down into the numbers, you find an amazing no one is average—which means that our society built for everyone is actually serving no one.
In the 1950s, the American Air Force found itself with a massive problem—performance in expensive, custom-made planes was suffering terribly, with crashes peaking at seventeen in a single day. Since the state-of-the-art planes they were flying had been meticulously crafted to fit the average pilot, pilot error was assumed to be at fault. Until, that is, the Air Force investigated just how many of their pilots were actually average. The shocking out of thousands of active-duty pilots, exactly zero were average. Not one. This discovery led to simple solutions (like adjustable seats) that dramatically reduced accidents, improved performance, and expanded the pool of potential pilots. It also led to a huge change in planes didn’t need to be designed for everyone—they needed to be designed so they could adapt to suit the individual flying them.
The End of Average shows how success lies in customizing to our individual needs in all aspects of our lives, from the way we mark tests to the medical treatment we receive. Using principles from The Science of the Individual, it shows how we can break down the average to create individualized success that benefits everyone in the long run. It's time we stopped settling for average, and in The End of Average, Todd Rose will show you how.
Each of us knows we’re different. We’re a little taller or shorter than the average, our salary is a bit higher or lower than the average, and we wonder about who it is that is buying the average-priced home. All around us, we think, are the average people—with the average height, the average salary and the average house.
But the average doesn’t just influence how we see ourselves—our entire social system has been built around this average-size-fits-all model. Schools are designed for the average student. Healthcare is designed for the average patient. Employers try to fill average job descriptions with employees on an average career trajectory. Our government implements programs and initiatives to serve the average person. For more than a century, we’ve believed that the best way to run our institutions is by focusing on the average person. But when you actually drill down into the numbers, you find an amazing no one is average—which means that our society built for everyone is actually serving no one.
In the 1950s, the American Air Force found itself with a massive problem—performance in expensive, custom-made planes was suffering terribly, with crashes peaking at seventeen in a single day. Since the state-of-the-art planes they were flying had been meticulously crafted to fit the average pilot, pilot error was assumed to be at fault. Until, that is, the Air Force investigated just how many of their pilots were actually average. The shocking out of thousands of active-duty pilots, exactly zero were average. Not one. This discovery led to simple solutions (like adjustable seats) that dramatically reduced accidents, improved performance, and expanded the pool of potential pilots. It also led to a huge change in planes didn’t need to be designed for everyone—they needed to be designed so they could adapt to suit the individual flying them.
The End of Average shows how success lies in customizing to our individual needs in all aspects of our lives, from the way we mark tests to the medical treatment we receive. Using principles from The Science of the Individual, it shows how we can break down the average to create individualized success that benefits everyone in the long run. It's time we stopped settling for average, and in The End of Average, Todd Rose will show you how.
255 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 19, 2016
754 people are currently reading
11449 people want to read
About the author
Todd Rose
10 books229 followersTodd Rose is the cofounder and president of The Center for Individual Opportunity, and a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His work is focused on the science of the individual and its implications for advancing self-knowledge, developing talent, and improving our institutions of opportunity. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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November 12, 2015
It's one of those books where the author totally proved their point in the first couple of chapters. And then had to bulk out the rest of the book.
Would have been a great TED talk.
Would have been a great TED talk.
January 23, 2016
Averages are very convenient when used correctly, but even when dealing with statistics they can be misleading (when Bill Gates walks into a room of people who have no savings, on average they're all millionaires) - and it gets even worse when we deal with jobs and education. As Todd Rose and Ogi Ogas make clear, hardly anyone is an average person. Whether someone is trying to devise an aircraft cockpit for the 'average' pilot, define the average kind of person to fit a job, or apply education suited to the average student, it all goes horribly wrong.
If I'm honest, there isn't a huge amount of explicit science in the book (nor is it the kind of self-help book suggested by the subtitle 'how to succeed in a world that values sameness'), but scientific thinking underlies the analysis of how averaging people falls down, whether it's looking at brain performance or personality typing. What Rose and Ogas argue powerfully is that the way we run business and education is based on a fundamentally flawed concept that you can do the right thing for everyone by applying an averaged approach. This dates back to the likes of Galton, who believed that individuals had inherent capabilities and should be ranked and statistically managed accordingly.
Along the way, the authors demolish such concepts I have seen time and again as: selecting for jobs on having a degree; performance management systems that require a fixed distribution of high performers, average people and below average people; companies based around organisation charts rather than individuals; and education that simply doesn't work for many students. I was particularly delighted to see the way that they pull apart the ridiculous approach of personality profiling with devastating statistics that show that the way we behave is hugely dependent on the combination of individual personality and context - hardly anyone is an introvert or judgemental or argumentative (or whatever you like) in every circumstance.
The authors admit that the averaging approach was useful in pulling up a 19th century population that had few educational and job opportunities, but now, especially when we have the kind of systems and information we have, they argue that we should be moving beyond simple one-dimensional concepts like IQ and SAT scores and exam results and using multidimensional approaches that take in far more, and which enable us to build employment and education around the individual, rather than the system's idea of an average worker or student. Of course, there is more work involved that with the old averaging, but Rose and Ogas point out this benefits both the workers and the companies (or the educators and the educated). And they show that it is possible to take this approach even in apparently low wage, impersonal, cookie-cutter jobs like workers in a supermarket or manufacturing plant.
There are a few issues. There's an out-and-out error where they claim the word 'statistics' comes from 'static values' (it actually comes from 'state', as in country). And even the authors occasionally slip back into the old norms of success when, for instance, they refer to 'Competency-based credentialing [is that really a word?] is being tried out - successfully - at leading universities.' Surely the concept of a 'leading university ' just reflects the old norms of what constitutes success in education? And I think the practical applications of these ideas will generally be a lot harder than they seem to think - they have great examples of where a low-level worker is given the chance to make a change that benefits the company, for instance, but not of what do when someone makes a change that makes things go horribly wrong. Similarly they point out that individual treatment also risks dangers like nepotism - but not how to deal with it. However, that doesn't in any way counter the essential nature of their argument. Individuals work and learn and do everything better if treated as... individuals.
I really hope that those involved in business and education (and many other areas of public life) can get on top of this concept, as it could both transform the working experience of the majority and make all our lives better. I remember being horrified when consulting for a large company where pay rises were forced into a mathematical distribution - you had to have so many winners and so many losers, all based around an average performance. This kind of thing is becoming less common, but most businesses and education still has the rigid picture of averages and ranking that the authors demonstrate so lucidly is wrong and disastrous for human satisfaction.
In reality, I suspect the changes won't come too widely in my lifetime. But I'd love to be pleasantly surprised. And I hope plenty of business people and academics read and learn from this book.
If I'm honest, there isn't a huge amount of explicit science in the book (nor is it the kind of self-help book suggested by the subtitle 'how to succeed in a world that values sameness'), but scientific thinking underlies the analysis of how averaging people falls down, whether it's looking at brain performance or personality typing. What Rose and Ogas argue powerfully is that the way we run business and education is based on a fundamentally flawed concept that you can do the right thing for everyone by applying an averaged approach. This dates back to the likes of Galton, who believed that individuals had inherent capabilities and should be ranked and statistically managed accordingly.
Along the way, the authors demolish such concepts I have seen time and again as: selecting for jobs on having a degree; performance management systems that require a fixed distribution of high performers, average people and below average people; companies based around organisation charts rather than individuals; and education that simply doesn't work for many students. I was particularly delighted to see the way that they pull apart the ridiculous approach of personality profiling with devastating statistics that show that the way we behave is hugely dependent on the combination of individual personality and context - hardly anyone is an introvert or judgemental or argumentative (or whatever you like) in every circumstance.
The authors admit that the averaging approach was useful in pulling up a 19th century population that had few educational and job opportunities, but now, especially when we have the kind of systems and information we have, they argue that we should be moving beyond simple one-dimensional concepts like IQ and SAT scores and exam results and using multidimensional approaches that take in far more, and which enable us to build employment and education around the individual, rather than the system's idea of an average worker or student. Of course, there is more work involved that with the old averaging, but Rose and Ogas point out this benefits both the workers and the companies (or the educators and the educated). And they show that it is possible to take this approach even in apparently low wage, impersonal, cookie-cutter jobs like workers in a supermarket or manufacturing plant.
There are a few issues. There's an out-and-out error where they claim the word 'statistics' comes from 'static values' (it actually comes from 'state', as in country). And even the authors occasionally slip back into the old norms of success when, for instance, they refer to 'Competency-based credentialing [is that really a word?] is being tried out - successfully - at leading universities.' Surely the concept of a 'leading university ' just reflects the old norms of what constitutes success in education? And I think the practical applications of these ideas will generally be a lot harder than they seem to think - they have great examples of where a low-level worker is given the chance to make a change that benefits the company, for instance, but not of what do when someone makes a change that makes things go horribly wrong. Similarly they point out that individual treatment also risks dangers like nepotism - but not how to deal with it. However, that doesn't in any way counter the essential nature of their argument. Individuals work and learn and do everything better if treated as... individuals.
I really hope that those involved in business and education (and many other areas of public life) can get on top of this concept, as it could both transform the working experience of the majority and make all our lives better. I remember being horrified when consulting for a large company where pay rises were forced into a mathematical distribution - you had to have so many winners and so many losers, all based around an average performance. This kind of thing is becoming less common, but most businesses and education still has the rigid picture of averages and ranking that the authors demonstrate so lucidly is wrong and disastrous for human satisfaction.
In reality, I suspect the changes won't come too widely in my lifetime. But I'd love to be pleasantly surprised. And I hope plenty of business people and academics read and learn from this book.
September 26, 2018
This is a must-read for any parent or educator. There is no such thing as an average person. And to say that is not just fluffy "be yourself" sort of crap. Rose really breaks down recent research on how kids learn differently, test uniquely, etc. If you want the right employee for a job, you need to consider what the job demands and not use grades and standardized tests. I have found this to be true in my own experiences hiring people, but Rose provides some scientific and business backing for these findings. The book is also a nice challenge to the way schools measure student performance through timed tests. I have one child who excels at timed tests (as I did) and two others who can figure out any problem, but not under pressure. Schools have always rewarded the first sort of test-taker even if there is no reason to believe that person is better or smarter.
September 4, 2017
I bought this book after the speaker at last year's Diocesan curriculum conference lauded it as a "life changing book" that was sure to "revolutionize how you work in the classroom" because it was the best book he had read in 10 years.
Conclusion: he needs to read more.
Conclusion: he needs to read more.
February 12, 2017
I read this for a faculty discussion group at work. I find I agree more with Rose's observations on what isn't working than on his proposed solutions, but it has generated some interesting directions of thinking. I enjoyed ruminating on my jaggedness (too many books, not enough kissing) from the average and thinking about the Gallup StrengthsFinder in the scope of this book. He's not a huge fan of tests like Myers Briggs but then talks about strengths-based job design and degree programs. I'm still thinking about where the line is between personality (which he sees as situational) and strengths (wouldn't these also be situational?)... but we have one discussion to go.
August 4, 2019
Everyone needs to read this book!
June 5, 2016
tl;dr - individuals are worth more than a single axis of value
The basic premise is that the explosion of data collection in the late 19th century led to the concept of "an average person" which was great for elevating culture out of the pre-industrial age, but hurt the individual because no human being is average. The proposed solution is to embrace that individual on their own terms, using a multi-dimensional match of their mix of skills against the mix of needs from industry. The power of averagarianism and statistics was born from "aggregate, then analyze" and came at a cost. This proposal for individualism and dynamic systems works when you "analyze, then aggregate" and carries its own cost.
I agree with the book in that your best self shouldn't be defined against a mythical sense of average, and that it happens anyway. Mediocre schools, mediocre businesses, and mediocre people are all going to insist that you be "just like everybody else, only better" and in that context the single "can learn fast" measure of success -- a hallmark of averagarianism -- remains the best way to go along and get along. That doesn't mean this is how it should be. When you find those places and people who feed your best self while you do the same for them, truly amazing things happen. (n.b. Learning to believe in this alternative paradigm with my current employer has been the hardest part of the job, and one I wholly agree with even though it's taking me years to accept it.)
This idea that everybody is trying to be a square peg to fit a square hole is a basically flawed perception of how a person has to operate. I think it reflects how the author sees society, and the path he took to get where he is, but to borrow an idea he covers within the book: his path is not the path. Being your best self doesn't require a complete rethinking of society, just a willingness to redefine your measures of success.
The book lays a solid framework, provides quality references for each of the points he makes, and the history lesson is succinct and reasonable. I liked how he drew the connection from physics to social theory for the averagarian, and while he didn't call it out I know the same connection exists between newer physics and social theory for the individual. The proposal for change is good, with three excellent anecdotes that suggest it might be a broadly applicable pattern. But moving from one dimensional measures of success to multi-dimensional success can quickly blossom into infinitely subdividing each axis until you're left with a population of individuals that have no defining character. When everybody is a special snowflake, nobody is.
The basic premise is that the explosion of data collection in the late 19th century led to the concept of "an average person" which was great for elevating culture out of the pre-industrial age, but hurt the individual because no human being is average. The proposed solution is to embrace that individual on their own terms, using a multi-dimensional match of their mix of skills against the mix of needs from industry. The power of averagarianism and statistics was born from "aggregate, then analyze" and came at a cost. This proposal for individualism and dynamic systems works when you "analyze, then aggregate" and carries its own cost.
I agree with the book in that your best self shouldn't be defined against a mythical sense of average, and that it happens anyway. Mediocre schools, mediocre businesses, and mediocre people are all going to insist that you be "just like everybody else, only better" and in that context the single "can learn fast" measure of success -- a hallmark of averagarianism -- remains the best way to go along and get along. That doesn't mean this is how it should be. When you find those places and people who feed your best self while you do the same for them, truly amazing things happen. (n.b. Learning to believe in this alternative paradigm with my current employer has been the hardest part of the job, and one I wholly agree with even though it's taking me years to accept it.)
This idea that everybody is trying to be a square peg to fit a square hole is a basically flawed perception of how a person has to operate. I think it reflects how the author sees society, and the path he took to get where he is, but to borrow an idea he covers within the book: his path is not the path. Being your best self doesn't require a complete rethinking of society, just a willingness to redefine your measures of success.
The book lays a solid framework, provides quality references for each of the points he makes, and the history lesson is succinct and reasonable. I liked how he drew the connection from physics to social theory for the averagarian, and while he didn't call it out I know the same connection exists between newer physics and social theory for the individual. The proposal for change is good, with three excellent anecdotes that suggest it might be a broadly applicable pattern. But moving from one dimensional measures of success to multi-dimensional success can quickly blossom into infinitely subdividing each axis until you're left with a population of individuals that have no defining character. When everybody is a special snowflake, nobody is.
June 26, 2021
Quick take: felt like a Ted Talk fleshed out into a book. V laboured, ultimately rational, nothing challenging or overly insightful. I question whether Rose presents an argument for how to succeed in a world that values sameness, rather asserts that the world should stop valuing sameness. Are 3 stars too many? It feels like it might be.
March 14, 2017
As with most books like this, a ten minute TED talk would suffice. But, since we were reading it for a faculty book study, I plugged through the whole thing.
Rose's point is compelling: by trying to adapt to an average person, we essentially make sure no one fits the mold. This has obvious implications for education, with grade-level concerns, questions about age appropriateness, IEP qualifications, and those darn letter grades that are due from teachers next Wednesday at 11 p.m.
However, Rose spends 188 pages avoiding proposing a solution for K-12 education and, when he does, his advice is "textbooks designed 'to the edges.'" What does that look like? How does a printed textbook adapt sentence structures to different readers' needs? Is all of the content the same? Is the class-of-students-with-one-teacher model also antiquated? (Rose might think so, even if he doesn't outright say it. He's a big fan of Khan academy and digitally available, fully self-paced learning.) Rose did a great job describing how the system is broken and why it's a problem, but now I feel sad and powerless and like I'm failing my students by not restructuring all of society.
On the bright side, though, I learned a strange amount about the Morning Star tomato company!
Rose's point is compelling: by trying to adapt to an average person, we essentially make sure no one fits the mold. This has obvious implications for education, with grade-level concerns, questions about age appropriateness, IEP qualifications, and those darn letter grades that are due from teachers next Wednesday at 11 p.m.
However, Rose spends 188 pages avoiding proposing a solution for K-12 education and, when he does, his advice is "textbooks designed 'to the edges.'" What does that look like? How does a printed textbook adapt sentence structures to different readers' needs? Is all of the content the same? Is the class-of-students-with-one-teacher model also antiquated? (Rose might think so, even if he doesn't outright say it. He's a big fan of Khan academy and digitally available, fully self-paced learning.) Rose did a great job describing how the system is broken and why it's a problem, but now I feel sad and powerless and like I'm failing my students by not restructuring all of society.
On the bright side, though, I learned a strange amount about the Morning Star tomato company!
December 26, 2017
Rose succeeds at making his work accessible - no easy feat considering he's dealing with statistics and many interdisciplinary strains of thought. I appreciate that he challenges assumptions about the concept of "average" as representing normalcy, and his explanations of how faith in averages underpin much of the way society was or is organized. I hadn't really thought too much about that considering how natural taking the average of something feels. I certainly agree that organizations that allow individuals to both feel valued and have agency to create something valuable will thrive in the post-industrial world. So in the sense it's hard for me to dislike the book.
But I felt the argument was a bit simplistic and the limits of average is something that is well taught in statistics and social sciences. Some of his examples of the failure of "average" actually seem like issues of correlation is not causation. I found it curious he doesn't tackle concepts like the normal distribution or standard deviation.
Stepping outside statistics, I also thought he might be a bit too convinced of the faith society blindly places in averages. Individualism is well remarked upon by historians, philosophers, and others - perhaps seen as the defining characteristic of "Western" civilization like America compared to more "Eastern" ones (say, China). Overlooking or neglecting this body of thought, his book seems to designed to be a crowd-pleaser, validating our desires to be seen as "not just a cog" or "not just a number", rather than a full consideration of society. Individuals are complex, but so are organizations. Social norms, standard operating procedures, tiles, roles, responsibilities, "the law" are part of the trade offs individuals make to create and thrive in organizations and, indeed, society. What is the right balance? That is truly a timeless question readers will have to go elsewhere to consider.
But I felt the argument was a bit simplistic and the limits of average is something that is well taught in statistics and social sciences. Some of his examples of the failure of "average" actually seem like issues of correlation is not causation. I found it curious he doesn't tackle concepts like the normal distribution or standard deviation.
Stepping outside statistics, I also thought he might be a bit too convinced of the faith society blindly places in averages. Individualism is well remarked upon by historians, philosophers, and others - perhaps seen as the defining characteristic of "Western" civilization like America compared to more "Eastern" ones (say, China). Overlooking or neglecting this body of thought, his book seems to designed to be a crowd-pleaser, validating our desires to be seen as "not just a cog" or "not just a number", rather than a full consideration of society. Individuals are complex, but so are organizations. Social norms, standard operating procedures, tiles, roles, responsibilities, "the law" are part of the trade offs individuals make to create and thrive in organizations and, indeed, society. What is the right balance? That is truly a timeless question readers will have to go elsewhere to consider.
August 26, 2017
A book which ought to be read by anyone involved in standardised systems: teachers, managers, admissions officers, pretty much everyone. The solutions aren't easy, but they are definitely worth it.
___
The central premise of this book: No one is average.
If you design a cockpit to fit the average pilot, you've designed it to fit NO ONE.
Averages have their place. If you are comparing groups of people, the average can be useful.
But the moment you need to make a decision about an individual (to teach this child or hire that person), the average is useless. In fact it is worse than useless, because it creates the illusion of knowledge while disguising what is most important about an individual.
From the early 1900s, Francis Galton's idea that human worth could be measured by how far they were from the average had thoroughly infiltrated all social and behavioral sciences.
Typing and ranking have become so elementary, natural and right that we are no longer conscious of the fact that every such judgment always erases the individuality of the person being judged.
Frederick Taylor's Scientific Management put the system first, forcing individuals to conform to the average as closely as possible, or be like everyone else, only better.
But standardisation left one crucial question unanswered: who should create the standards that governed a business? Thus the field of management was born. And management consulting followed soon after this separation of thinking and planning from making and doing. Its role? To tell businesses the best way to manage, employing the average as its key tool. SOPs and manuals ensued.
Taylorism contributed to a relatively stable and prosperous democracy, at the cost of narrowing expectations of success, and losing our dignity of individuality.
The fallacy of Quetelet and Lord and Novick: assuming that measuring one person many times and measuring many people one time were interchangeable.
The three principles:
1) Jaggedness: Jagged qualities consist of multiple dimensions that are weakly correlated. Height is one-dimensional, size is not. E.g. People can have widely differing waist sizes and shoulder widths, in different directions. There is no simple answer to the question: "Which man is bigger?"
When we are able to appreciate the jaggedness of other people's talents - we are more likely to recognise their untapped potential. And when we become aware of our own jaggedness, we are less likely to fall prey to one-dimensional views of talent that limit what we are capable of.
2) Myth of Traits: We behave similarly across time in similar contexts. When the context changes, our behaviour can also change. Fixed traits do not exist.
Companies always lament a shortage of talent, that there's a skills gap, but really there's just a thinking gap. If you spend the effort thinking through the contextual details of the job, you're going to be rewarded.
People's behaviour feels trait-like because you usually observe them in the same context, and when you observe them, YOU are part of that context. 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.
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.
3) We all walk our own paths. When learning skills (e.g. learning to walk), everyone has their own pathway to competence.
Equating learning speed with learning ability is irrefutably wrong, yet pervades the education system when time limits are imposed on exam papers. By demanding that our students learn at one fixed pace, we are artificially impairing the ability of many to learn and succeed. What one person can learn, most can learn if they are allowed to adjust their pacing.
From the author: 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 the path looked like. And to do that, I knew that I needed to know who I was first (jaggedness, if-then signatures).
When you take individuality seriously, 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.
The diploma as a basic unit of higher education has an unwieldy length (4 years), and is insufficiently granular. A better approach is credentials, which emphasises awarding credit for the smallest meaningful unit of learning. And this credit is pass/incomplete, assessing someone's competency at a given task.
The present architecture of our higher education system is based on a false premise: that we need a standardised system to efficiently separate the talented from the untalented.
Fit Creates Opportunity. If the environment is a bad match for our individuality - e.g. the cockpit doesn't fit the short pilot - our performance will always be artificially impaired.
Opportunity has hitherto been defined as equal access, where it aims to maximise individual opportunity on average by ensuring equal access to the same standardised system, whether or not that system fits. But only equal fit creates equal opportunity.
___
The central premise of this book: No one is average.
If you design a cockpit to fit the average pilot, you've designed it to fit NO ONE.
Averages have their place. If you are comparing groups of people, the average can be useful.
But the moment you need to make a decision about an individual (to teach this child or hire that person), the average is useless. In fact it is worse than useless, because it creates the illusion of knowledge while disguising what is most important about an individual.
From the early 1900s, Francis Galton's idea that human worth could be measured by how far they were from the average had thoroughly infiltrated all social and behavioral sciences.
Typing and ranking have become so elementary, natural and right that we are no longer conscious of the fact that every such judgment always erases the individuality of the person being judged.
Frederick Taylor's Scientific Management put the system first, forcing individuals to conform to the average as closely as possible, or be like everyone else, only better.
But standardisation left one crucial question unanswered: who should create the standards that governed a business? Thus the field of management was born. And management consulting followed soon after this separation of thinking and planning from making and doing. Its role? To tell businesses the best way to manage, employing the average as its key tool. SOPs and manuals ensued.
Taylorism contributed to a relatively stable and prosperous democracy, at the cost of narrowing expectations of success, and losing our dignity of individuality.
The fallacy of Quetelet and Lord and Novick: assuming that measuring one person many times and measuring many people one time were interchangeable.
The three principles:
1) Jaggedness: Jagged qualities consist of multiple dimensions that are weakly correlated. Height is one-dimensional, size is not. E.g. People can have widely differing waist sizes and shoulder widths, in different directions. There is no simple answer to the question: "Which man is bigger?"
When we are able to appreciate the jaggedness of other people's talents - we are more likely to recognise their untapped potential. And when we become aware of our own jaggedness, we are less likely to fall prey to one-dimensional views of talent that limit what we are capable of.
2) Myth of Traits: We behave similarly across time in similar contexts. When the context changes, our behaviour can also change. Fixed traits do not exist.
Companies always lament a shortage of talent, that there's a skills gap, but really there's just a thinking gap. If you spend the effort thinking through the contextual details of the job, you're going to be rewarded.
People's behaviour feels trait-like because you usually observe them in the same context, and when you observe them, YOU are part of that context. 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.
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.
3) We all walk our own paths. When learning skills (e.g. learning to walk), everyone has their own pathway to competence.
Equating learning speed with learning ability is irrefutably wrong, yet pervades the education system when time limits are imposed on exam papers. By demanding that our students learn at one fixed pace, we are artificially impairing the ability of many to learn and succeed. What one person can learn, most can learn if they are allowed to adjust their pacing.
From the author: 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 the path looked like. And to do that, I knew that I needed to know who I was first (jaggedness, if-then signatures).
When you take individuality seriously, 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.
The diploma as a basic unit of higher education has an unwieldy length (4 years), and is insufficiently granular. A better approach is credentials, which emphasises awarding credit for the smallest meaningful unit of learning. And this credit is pass/incomplete, assessing someone's competency at a given task.
The present architecture of our higher education system is based on a false premise: that we need a standardised system to efficiently separate the talented from the untalented.
Fit Creates Opportunity. If the environment is a bad match for our individuality - e.g. the cockpit doesn't fit the short pilot - our performance will always be artificially impaired.
Opportunity has hitherto been defined as equal access, where it aims to maximise individual opportunity on average by ensuring equal access to the same standardised system, whether or not that system fits. But only equal fit creates equal opportunity.
June 13, 2023
What a gift individuality is and what a shame it is to waste to the world’s machine. I appreciate the author’s attempt to educate and bring about change to many facets of life that value a nonexistent average. As a teacher, the parts of this book pertaining to education will stand out in my mind for a long time to come and will undoubtedly impact my thoughts as I teach kids across a range of abilities. I hope to encourage their unique talents within my classroom as the years go by!
A very interesting listen!
A very interesting listen!
September 26, 2016
"Our one-size-fits-all world is actually one-size-fits-none." The concept of "average" was developed some two hundred years ago and now suffused most areas of our life--education, aptitude tests, jobs, performance reviews. Todd Rose argues that it is time for the science of the individual to come to scene, as it could bring better results. Instead of "aggregate then analyze" we should shift towards "analyze then aggregate" approach. The book resonates quite strongly with a lot of my work and I find it relevant and timely, providing good case studies.
March 15, 2024
4.5 stars! Fascinating read about how averages of humans, our development, and our world have shaped the way society hires employees, teaches students, views intelligence. If no one is truly average (the book explains this and it WOWed me), why do we look to it to explain and drive our world? We are built as individuals for a reason. It’s a secular book but reminds me so much of how God knit us together so uniquely and for such specific purpose!
February 12, 2022
I wish this platform gave two options for writing a comment. 1. what you think about the book or 2. what you learned about the book.
Sometimes i’ll fall into the trap of reading a book to
check mark it off, and that defies the purpose for me, but i feel like this platform in a way encourages that.
I learned about the powerful shift in psychology from Adolphe Quetelet’s “Averagarian Thinking,” which makes up so much of our society today—i.e., comparing a student’s grade to the average, their SAT score to the average, a worker’s efficiency to the average, a worker’s average time it takes them to accomplish something… and you personally are either categorized as being below average or above average at that task.
I had a 75% test average in Physics before my last test, and something like 85% for Chemistry. But I understand Physics on a level that is incomparably higher than I do chemistry. And chemistry is really just the physics of small particles…. With averagarian thinking, individual contexts are removed, and you might say that overall I have an X gpa, removing all these what statisticians might deem outliers. But they’re not outliers… i really don’t understand chemistry, and i really understand physics but tend to develop test anxiety with those problems or overcomplicate certain things or have a completely wrong approach to problem solving. Averages obfuscate those contexts.
in this book, Todd Rose explains the shift from averagarian thinking to emphasizing individuality. This is powerfully summarized in the following quote: any system designed around the average person is doomed to fail. Rose justifies his belief about the importance of individuality through his emphasis on three main principles: the jaggedness principles, the contextness principle, and the pathways principle.
in short:
jaggedness principle - illustrates that there’s so much variability in humans. there’s no such thing as the average brain or the average body dimensions or the average hand size. if you take a 400 pound man, he might be above average in weight, but below average in most other dimensions, like reach, chest size, leg length, etc, and thus would he be considered average when taking all those body dimensions by an equal weighting system to someone that’s below average in weight, etc. but above average in height and reach. They’re incomparable, and averages don’t work in these contexts.
that lead to principle two.
contextness principle - explains that the behavior of people and certain patterns is heavily depend r on the contexts that they’re in. Ex: MBTI myers briggs test says i’m 60% introverted. in chem class im like 90% introverted but in math class or even english, im probably more extroverted. Averages make the picture less clear. someone might be more bossy when with their coworkers but less bossy with their friends. taking the average of their bossiness is possible, but how much information does that really provide? contexts are important.
pathways principle - who cares if it takes someone two weeks to learn quadratics vs. 1 week so long as they learn it anyway. everyone’s different and shouldn’t be following same pathways. there’s upwards of 50 ways that a baby can learn to walk. maybe it’s starting to crawl, then walking, or maybe it’s walking right away, or maybe walking then crawling then walking again much later.
overall, fantastic book. with lots of sense and interesting information from a learning-based perspective. 5/5 for the learnings.
Sometimes i’ll fall into the trap of reading a book to
check mark it off, and that defies the purpose for me, but i feel like this platform in a way encourages that.
I learned about the powerful shift in psychology from Adolphe Quetelet’s “Averagarian Thinking,” which makes up so much of our society today—i.e., comparing a student’s grade to the average, their SAT score to the average, a worker’s efficiency to the average, a worker’s average time it takes them to accomplish something… and you personally are either categorized as being below average or above average at that task.
I had a 75% test average in Physics before my last test, and something like 85% for Chemistry. But I understand Physics on a level that is incomparably higher than I do chemistry. And chemistry is really just the physics of small particles…. With averagarian thinking, individual contexts are removed, and you might say that overall I have an X gpa, removing all these what statisticians might deem outliers. But they’re not outliers… i really don’t understand chemistry, and i really understand physics but tend to develop test anxiety with those problems or overcomplicate certain things or have a completely wrong approach to problem solving. Averages obfuscate those contexts.
in this book, Todd Rose explains the shift from averagarian thinking to emphasizing individuality. This is powerfully summarized in the following quote: any system designed around the average person is doomed to fail. Rose justifies his belief about the importance of individuality through his emphasis on three main principles: the jaggedness principles, the contextness principle, and the pathways principle.
in short:
jaggedness principle - illustrates that there’s so much variability in humans. there’s no such thing as the average brain or the average body dimensions or the average hand size. if you take a 400 pound man, he might be above average in weight, but below average in most other dimensions, like reach, chest size, leg length, etc, and thus would he be considered average when taking all those body dimensions by an equal weighting system to someone that’s below average in weight, etc. but above average in height and reach. They’re incomparable, and averages don’t work in these contexts.
that lead to principle two.
contextness principle - explains that the behavior of people and certain patterns is heavily depend r on the contexts that they’re in. Ex: MBTI myers briggs test says i’m 60% introverted. in chem class im like 90% introverted but in math class or even english, im probably more extroverted. Averages make the picture less clear. someone might be more bossy when with their coworkers but less bossy with their friends. taking the average of their bossiness is possible, but how much information does that really provide? contexts are important.
pathways principle - who cares if it takes someone two weeks to learn quadratics vs. 1 week so long as they learn it anyway. everyone’s different and shouldn’t be following same pathways. there’s upwards of 50 ways that a baby can learn to walk. maybe it’s starting to crawl, then walking, or maybe it’s walking right away, or maybe walking then crawling then walking again much later.
overall, fantastic book. with lots of sense and interesting information from a learning-based perspective. 5/5 for the learnings.
November 2, 2017
A few years back I decided that if I write a book in future, it's title would be "Being Average". And then I find this excellent book by Todd Rose. I wanted to write a book on being average to show the readers that there is nothing wrong in being average in anything or everything. But back then I was thinking about average only through few parameters which I had direct experience in. This book gave a very different outlook on how to understand averages and how the world adopted to Taylorist view of averaging everything.
I find the structure of sentences sometimes complex which hinders the flow of reading, but it is extremely rich in content. The real power of the book comes when reader links the content with personal experiences.
I would definitely recommend this book to all the students especially because it is the time when one compares his/her performance by comparing with that of others.
I used to feel very bad about my performance in few courses in my Masters, about the structure of the course and how I lost a lot of time just to complete the mandatory courses. I wanted to select the courses which I wanted to study, but due to the rigidity of system, I had to go through them. But now when I understand how that model of education came into practice, I can get over it and do something to rectify it.
I find the structure of sentences sometimes complex which hinders the flow of reading, but it is extremely rich in content. The real power of the book comes when reader links the content with personal experiences.
I would definitely recommend this book to all the students especially because it is the time when one compares his/her performance by comparing with that of others.
I used to feel very bad about my performance in few courses in my Masters, about the structure of the course and how I lost a lot of time just to complete the mandatory courses. I wanted to select the courses which I wanted to study, but due to the rigidity of system, I had to go through them. But now when I understand how that model of education came into practice, I can get over it and do something to rectify it.
August 1, 2023
"The hardest part of learning something new is not embracing new ideas, but letting go of old ones."
This was a great book for understanding the importance of individuality and how we can nurture it in various aspects of the world, however it was very repetitive and at times I don't think it considered the magnitude of the effort and cost needed to achieve its goal. While the emphasis on flexibility is valued, I think it's vital to keep in mind that too much of it can lead to a loss in the general semblance of structure/organisation that is natural and crucial to any given context for maintaining balance. I would've also liked to see some more direct and practical examples of how one can apply these concepts to everyday life as most of them were just skimmed over briefly.
Key takeaway: EQUAL FIT CREATES EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
Notes to self:
This was a great book for understanding the importance of individuality and how we can nurture it in various aspects of the world, however it was very repetitive and at times I don't think it considered the magnitude of the effort and cost needed to achieve its goal. While the emphasis on flexibility is valued, I think it's vital to keep in mind that too much of it can lead to a loss in the general semblance of structure/organisation that is natural and crucial to any given context for maintaining balance. I would've also liked to see some more direct and practical examples of how one can apply these concepts to everyday life as most of them were just skimmed over briefly.
Key takeaway: EQUAL FIT CREATES EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
Notes to self:
October 22, 2016
This is one of those books which comes about once in a blue moon and disrupts your traditional perception of the world. Goes into my must-read shelf. All in all average values mislead us into making wrong decisions about people and their behaviour.
August 28, 2019
Un ottimo libro che non riguarda solamente lo sviluppo individuale o la gestione delle risorse umane in azienda, ma anche il sistema educativo e la formazione. L’autore analizza i successi storici di una serie di assiomi psicologici e manageriali basati sul concetto di “media” o di “distribuzione”, sostenendo che qualsiasi disciplina che alla basa abbia questi assiomi, tende a proporre soluzioni per persone “medie” che nella realtà non esistono. Corroborato da importanti studi sul tema (non sempre ben accolti dalla comunità scientifica), il libro analizza anche i danni provocati dai test di personalità, per giungere poi a proporre una soluzione veramente basata sull’individuo.
Alcuni brevi casi reali mostrano come l’approccio abbia assolutamente senso.
Nonostante sia ampiamente divulgativo, il testo è supportato da un’ottima ricerca bibliografica.
Alcuni brevi casi reali mostrano come l’approccio abbia assolutamente senso.
Nonostante sia ampiamente divulgativo, il testo è supportato da un’ottima ricerca bibliografica.
April 4, 2019
Got slightly repetitive but this book was so paradigm-shifting that I agree with the author‘s choice to hit us over the head with the message. Everyone should read this book, particularly new parents. I hope I remember to reread it if I’m ever in that position.
May 1, 2021
Tof! Sterk boek, goede onderbouwing en referenties!
Ook leuk om eea aan bekende zaken te lezen na bijna een jaar uni. Blij dat ik dit boek gelezen heb dat interessante raakvlakken met mijn opleiding heeft en relatief nieuwe kennis is binnen de sociale wetenschappen!
Ook leuk om eea aan bekende zaken te lezen na bijna een jaar uni. Blij dat ik dit boek gelezen heb dat interessante raakvlakken met mijn opleiding heeft en relatief nieuwe kennis is binnen de sociale wetenschappen!
October 21, 2021
Af en toe te langdradig door bewijsdrang, maar interessante inzichten over het inzetten van gemiddelden. Tijd om zoveel mogelijk naar de grilligheid van het individu en de als/dan-relatie bij het gedrag van individuen in sociale contexten.
June 3, 2020
A must read
August 6, 2022
If I could rate this book with 10 stars, I would do it!
Mindblowing from beginning to end.
Mindblowing from beginning to end.
January 25, 2023
This book had some interesting points, but it wasn’t near as entertaining as other reads over similar topics.
Instead, I’d recommend reading Outliers. It doesn’t cover identical content, but it covers some of the same ideas in a much more engaging way.
Instead, I’d recommend reading Outliers. It doesn’t cover identical content, but it covers some of the same ideas in a much more engaging way.
September 28, 2017
The premise of this book is that no one is average and systems designed around average measurements are doomed to fail.
Averages can be useful when comparing two groups of people, but they are useless when comparing individuals. In fact, they can be worse than useless because they create the illusion of knowledge.
The first part of the book tells the story of how averages were used in physics to reduce measurement error and the concept was carried over to measuring people. Since then, we have an idea that there is such a thing as an average person that we should compare individuals to and that deviations from this mythical average person represent some kind of error. Many of our employment and education systems have been designed around this idea.
Rather than aggregating data and then analyzing it for patterns, we should first analyze individuals and then look for patterns across people. In the digital age, we can more easily acquire, store, and manipulate the massive amounts of data needed to take an individual first approach.
Three principles for the science of the individual: jaggedness, context, and pathways.
Jaggedness - we cannot apply one dimensional thinking to something complex and jagged (multiple dimensions that are weakly related). Example: comparing size of a person, which is made up of many dimensions like height, weight, legs, chest, etc.
Context - people's behaviour is best modeled as an interaction between their personality and the situation they are in. People do not behave the same in every situation, nor does a situation affect everyone in the same way. This is important when hiring - e.g. instead of looking for an all-around "good communicator", look for someone who has proven that they can communicate well in the types of situations they will need to perform (eg asking questions to understand a customer's problem vs leading a full day presentation to a committee). Using an "if-then" strategy helps us remember that people act differently in different situations. It can also help you recognize situations in which you shine, or cut slack to people whose context is different than ours.
Pathways - for any given goal, there are many equally valid ways to reach the same outcome. The particular pathway that is optimal for you depends on your own individuality. This is especially important when we think of our education system, which forces everyone to learn at the same pace or fall behind. There is compelling research that says the majority of students can achieve mastery when allowed to move at their own pace - something that could be a reality with new, affordable technology. Rose argues that it shouldn't matter how long it takes someone to achieve mastery so long as they master it (eg learning to drive, solve a quadratic equation, perform a root canal).
Rose advocates for transforming higher education to help all students train for a career, rather than ranking students based on performance in a standardized curriculum. He suggests three concepts: grant credentials for each unit of learning rather than diplomas, replace grades with pass/fail competency that can be achieved through courses or exams proving existing knowledge, and let students determine their educational pathway that may move across departments or even schools.
Fit creates opportunity. "If we want equal opportunity for everyone, [...] then we must create potential, educational, and social institutions that are responsive to individuality."
Averages can be useful when comparing two groups of people, but they are useless when comparing individuals. In fact, they can be worse than useless because they create the illusion of knowledge.
The first part of the book tells the story of how averages were used in physics to reduce measurement error and the concept was carried over to measuring people. Since then, we have an idea that there is such a thing as an average person that we should compare individuals to and that deviations from this mythical average person represent some kind of error. Many of our employment and education systems have been designed around this idea.
Rather than aggregating data and then analyzing it for patterns, we should first analyze individuals and then look for patterns across people. In the digital age, we can more easily acquire, store, and manipulate the massive amounts of data needed to take an individual first approach.
Three principles for the science of the individual: jaggedness, context, and pathways.
Jaggedness - we cannot apply one dimensional thinking to something complex and jagged (multiple dimensions that are weakly related). Example: comparing size of a person, which is made up of many dimensions like height, weight, legs, chest, etc.
Context - people's behaviour is best modeled as an interaction between their personality and the situation they are in. People do not behave the same in every situation, nor does a situation affect everyone in the same way. This is important when hiring - e.g. instead of looking for an all-around "good communicator", look for someone who has proven that they can communicate well in the types of situations they will need to perform (eg asking questions to understand a customer's problem vs leading a full day presentation to a committee). Using an "if-then" strategy helps us remember that people act differently in different situations. It can also help you recognize situations in which you shine, or cut slack to people whose context is different than ours.
Pathways - for any given goal, there are many equally valid ways to reach the same outcome. The particular pathway that is optimal for you depends on your own individuality. This is especially important when we think of our education system, which forces everyone to learn at the same pace or fall behind. There is compelling research that says the majority of students can achieve mastery when allowed to move at their own pace - something that could be a reality with new, affordable technology. Rose argues that it shouldn't matter how long it takes someone to achieve mastery so long as they master it (eg learning to drive, solve a quadratic equation, perform a root canal).
Rose advocates for transforming higher education to help all students train for a career, rather than ranking students based on performance in a standardized curriculum. He suggests three concepts: grant credentials for each unit of learning rather than diplomas, replace grades with pass/fail competency that can be achieved through courses or exams proving existing knowledge, and let students determine their educational pathway that may move across departments or even schools.
Fit creates opportunity. "If we want equal opportunity for everyone, [...] then we must create potential, educational, and social institutions that are responsive to individuality."
March 19, 2019
Книга, від якої вибухає свідомість. Раджу її прочитати усім, хто хоче зрозуміти, що саме не так в нашому житті. Чому ми не знаходимо собі місце у соціумі: чому наші проблеми починаються зі шкільної та університетської парти, продовжуються на роботі і отруюють все наше життя. Чому все навколо штучне та беззмістовне, чому ми не знаємо навіть самих себе і намагаємось і себе, і оточення загнати в шаблони, яких не існує. Чому "середнє" пояснює одночасно все і нічого. Чому "середнього" взагалі не існує. Ця книга може спровокувати революцію у вашому світосприйнятті, якщо ви досі шукаєте відповіді на незадані питання.
July 6, 2016
I get wary of trade books focused around advances in social science, not matter how much they are touted in the trade press. That was my original thought with this book, but I am glad I went ahead and read it.
What initially got my attention was when Rose newer thinking discrediting the importance of social science thinking based around means and standard deviations. For example when one consults studies of larger populations for guidance on hiring particular individuals. What is sought is a worker whose capabilities fit with the needs of particular employers in particular job situations not an employee who is seen as approaching the standard for some type. This is a huge issue in educational testing and reform efforts around the common core and related "innovations".
...the problem is one that is chronic in applied social sciences and quite a few professionals know about it. To see the problem in a related setting, consider advice given to patients facing severe treatments. How does one.come to an estimate of five year survival of 75% when a particular patient survives or does not and most certainly will not replay the situation 10 or 100 times? Does one take the mean of a broader group? If so, how appropriate is that given the particularities of individual medical conditions.
Rose then develops a broader story about how whole sectors of the economy have been shaped by "Taylorist" ideas ultimately based on overreliance on averages and work standards. While Taylorist critiques (and critiques of consultants in general) are thrown around too much in my opinion, Rose is generally on target with the story and it is well told. He also extends Taylorism to education and testing and by doing so provides good insight into the current battles over testing and reform.
Rose is careful enough to know that one cannot just discredit mainline social science based institutions but must also suggest alternatives if the critique is to be useful. He does a good job in going over the enlightened hiring practices at a variety of cutting edge firms but in the US and Asia. The examples are well known but still interesting.
Overall, this is a nice trade book that helps to put the meager statistics that most people know into a context that shows how statistical ideas can affect people, in good ways and in bad. That is a useful contribution to public discussions of work and education - and even health care. The book is very accessible and does not presume much statistical knowledge at all.
What initially got my attention was when Rose newer thinking discrediting the importance of social science thinking based around means and standard deviations. For example when one consults studies of larger populations for guidance on hiring particular individuals. What is sought is a worker whose capabilities fit with the needs of particular employers in particular job situations not an employee who is seen as approaching the standard for some type. This is a huge issue in educational testing and reform efforts around the common core and related "innovations".
...the problem is one that is chronic in applied social sciences and quite a few professionals know about it. To see the problem in a related setting, consider advice given to patients facing severe treatments. How does one.come to an estimate of five year survival of 75% when a particular patient survives or does not and most certainly will not replay the situation 10 or 100 times? Does one take the mean of a broader group? If so, how appropriate is that given the particularities of individual medical conditions.
Rose then develops a broader story about how whole sectors of the economy have been shaped by "Taylorist" ideas ultimately based on overreliance on averages and work standards. While Taylorist critiques (and critiques of consultants in general) are thrown around too much in my opinion, Rose is generally on target with the story and it is well told. He also extends Taylorism to education and testing and by doing so provides good insight into the current battles over testing and reform.
Rose is careful enough to know that one cannot just discredit mainline social science based institutions but must also suggest alternatives if the critique is to be useful. He does a good job in going over the enlightened hiring practices at a variety of cutting edge firms but in the US and Asia. The examples are well known but still interesting.
Overall, this is a nice trade book that helps to put the meager statistics that most people know into a context that shows how statistical ideas can affect people, in good ways and in bad. That is a useful contribution to public discussions of work and education - and even health care. The book is very accessible and does not presume much statistical knowledge at all.
December 3, 2017
Reading The End of Average in a public place will turn heads - not because of its cover, but because of its promise: “how to succeed in a world that values sameness”. It’s hard not to be swayed by the central premise when it catches the eye of passers by. You get the sense that they too want to escape the trappings of being average. We live in a world defined by adherence to averages - you might be interested in this book based on its average score on Goodreads!
The central thesis of moving against “averagarian” principles makes sense in some areas, less in others. The sections where Rose argues for better hiring practises and individual autonomy are compelling. In other areas, he brushes aside decades of psychological intelligence research on g without proposing a better fit for the evidence (read Stuart Ritchie’s book on intelligence research for a great summary).
Rose’s diagnosis is accurate, but his prescription for curing the disease - MOOCs for all, tailored education - just doesn’t scale. The End of Average falls short in offering real scalable solutions for these challenges. The result is it feels a little... well, average.
The central thesis of moving against “averagarian” principles makes sense in some areas, less in others. The sections where Rose argues for better hiring practises and individual autonomy are compelling. In other areas, he brushes aside decades of psychological intelligence research on g without proposing a better fit for the evidence (read Stuart Ritchie’s book on intelligence research for a great summary).
Rose’s diagnosis is accurate, but his prescription for curing the disease - MOOCs for all, tailored education - just doesn’t scale. The End of Average falls short in offering real scalable solutions for these challenges. The result is it feels a little... well, average.
May 23, 2017
As a people manager, I have always been perplexed at an employee's disappointment with a Meets Expectations rating. But when applied to our social standard of average, and the way culture perceives it, I could see the rationale because the employee is thinking he or she is merely average, or has a "C" rating, given they are not above expectations or below it. Rose's book tells how average evolved, why we have standards, why we all commonly buy into the ideals of 'type' and 'rank.' We live with these things every day, and yet they diminish us as individuals.
While society, employers and our institutions may be slow to embrace some of the changes recommended under the science of the individual, the concepts in the book can help us to rethink the way we look at ourselves, and people that we manage.
While society, employers and our institutions may be slow to embrace some of the changes recommended under the science of the individual, the concepts in the book can help us to rethink the way we look at ourselves, and people that we manage.
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