The Commonsense Hypothesis

The Commonsense Hypothesis is the best explanation of one’s perceptual experiences being as they are - Bull shit, I don’t understand, not even a bit !.  

Philosophical subjects like these never get into my head. Common sense Hypothesis could rather be  an explanation of one's judgment made on the most simplistic grounds just like tasting a tea; choosing one variety over the other without having any real grasp over its specifics to quantify the judgment - simple and pure !

The question is, do we use the same logic/ formula everywhere. The answer could be yes but most of the time our decisions do tend to get influenced by numbers, facts , figures , and/or precedents explaining one’s perceptual experiences being as they are.

Simple example is the Organizational Hierarchy; that always gives a small itch in my brain everytime i think about it. What is the logic that drives the promotion cycle for an employee? Logic says , it’s the  “numbers, facts , figures , and/or precedents”. Ironically true but is not the case everytime. There is a lot of common sense that goes into delivering the results. You don’t seem to agree with this? Ok, if this is not true and if the earlier logic about numbers still hold true, then chances are, only the best of the lot would keep on getting promoted till the level of their incompetency is met and one day the organization will only have the incompetent people at the top. Incompetent meaning, not that the job is difficult to handle but these people may lack the necessary skills to fit into this profile and make it a success story. This principle is also called as Peter Principle and you will find numerous references explaining this logic. 

So the point is, by what logic people get promoted and how can we overcome the effects of Peter Principle? For me, combinations of both numbers and behavioral skills base my observation; numbers being less significant of the two. Behavioral skills are driven by common sense hypothesis defined above. Probably this answers our question that comes to our mind when someone get promoted unreasonably- “He was sitting over an egg for the entire quarter and how the hell he got promoted?” That, of course, is an exaggeration. If you don’t meet nos., you are so fked up. Nos. are important but not everytime you take decisions based on it. Ironically, things of this sort are happening on a distressing scale.

The concept of merit or meritocracy is more and more confused. People are promoted or chosen because of protection by oligarchic power, superficial appearance, substance, intrigue and other reasons that have little, if anything, to do with “competence.” Tasks, including some very important ones, get assigned to people who are inept for the purpose. In this boiling – bubbling cauldron of complex organizations with duplicate roles even the rewards don’t go to the best people but to the most supporting roles that affected the result.

There are re-orgs, M&A and all the complicated ways to slaughter incompetence. But one thing that is eternal is the circumstances that took you there today would never help you stay there tomorrow !