Daniel Levitin’s The Organized Mind is a curious book. It is highly influenced by academic research (the author is an academic). Yet, I wouldn’t say it was an academic book. It tells us something about research and popular advice and how they mix.
Academic Self-Help
Levitin’s doesn’t read like the standard academic book: “here — in an easy to digest form — is my research over the years”. Levitin refers to his work but it really doesn’t impinge too much on the overall narrative. It isn’t a grand public intellectual book (a la Steven Pinker). The book feels too small for that. It doesn’t have an especially grand theme behind it.
Research And Popular Advice
Instead, this feels a bit more of a self-help book with a higher quality of research behind it. To be fair much of it seemed like good advice. E.g., take into account base rates when judging likelihoods. Key advice included, be prepared to satisfice. This is finding something that is good enough rather than striving for perfection on tasks that don’t matter. I.e., don’t invest more in getting the best outcome if the investment is more than the incremental benefit compared to getting a decent but not quite as good outcome.
Occasionally I felt that the research could be better explained. I wasn’t 100% convinced by some of the assertions. It wasn’t that the research was obviously flawed, I’m assuming that Levitin has a good eye for credible research. Indeed, a lot of what he cited made a lot of sense to me. For example, the work of Amos Tversky, Herb Simon etc… He was, however, just a bit more certain of his conclusions than I am used to from academics. I just wanted a few more details before I would accept it.
Junior People Think They Are Less Talented. Why?
A great part of the book was the description of why juniors in organizations think they are less talented than their bosses. Supervisors create situations where they are almost bound to look good. They can choose when to show their perfected work to their subordinates. (When it is looking great). The subordinates have to show all their mistakes to a boss. Basically, it is easier to hide and obfuscate when you are king.
In academia Ph.D. students are too humble. Students see the finished product of their advisors. Yet, they never know how rubbish prior attempts were before the finished product arrived. The students see all their own poor attempts. They know that they have many failures.
All the graduate student ever sees is the finished product [of the advisor] and the gap between it and her own work”.
Levitin, 2014
Don’t Dither
This leads students to dither and think they can never finish their Ph.D. They often are/become perfectionists. I laughed a bit because I’m not sure my advisor, Mark Bergen, would think of me as too obsessed with perfection. To me, good enough is always good enough. I’m pleased to follow the tradition of Herb Simon and Satisficing. It is not just me being lazy. Instead, I am research-led in my lack of attention to detail. I think Levitin would approve.
For more on effective decision-making see here, here, and here.
Read: Daniel Levitin (2014) The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight In The Age Of Information Overload, Penguin
