JUST A JUDGEMENTAL JACK

We've been repeatedly taught never to judge a book by its cover, but that goes against our very nature as human beings. And despite what we say or believe, when we interact with something for the very first time, we will always judge it before we get more information about it. Whether we then alter our premature and premeditated judgment afterwards, is another story entirely.

Human beings...

As humans we are wired to look on the outside and not the inside, to use our senses to make immediate inferences, without the extra effort of turning the cover page.

That's who we are. "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's definitely a duck," and there's absolutely no need for a forensic analysis of its degree of duckiness. It's a duck based on what we've seen and heard.

What we've seen and heard...

Our ability to perceive rightly and make good decisions is highly dependent on the amount of information we have on any subject; what we've learnt from those who taught us and what we've read from those it taught. Hence, for many, all their experience and exposure does is create a rigid lens through which they now look at everything and everyone relating to the subject they believe they now know so well.

They no longer even bother looking at the cover before judging the book, all they need to know is title and they'll make their judgements without even seeing the book itself.

Soon they'll move from hearing the book title to focusing only on the author's name or pedigree, perhaps even the publisher or one of the famous people whose quotes lie on the back page.

The content of the book may never get a look in, simply because the person looking at it wasn't trained to open the book before passing judgement on it. His training focused exclusively on what to read and not how to find what to read. So, great books pass him by just because he's not learnt how discover the right one.

Once in a while, he stumbles on a good book or two, but even then, he doesn't have the patience to endure past the opening chapters. He wants to see the beautiful cover art replicated inside the book, but so far it's full of boring sentences instead. Lines upon lines of it. His expectations aren't met, so he closes the book and puts it away, deciding to continue his hunt for the perfect book.

Now, not only is he wrongly judging books by their covers, he's impatient with the few good ones he finds. And if you ask him who's to blame for his terrible experience with books, he'll blame their authors and the publishers who gave them a chance for conspiring to serve him several plates of painfully putrid or poorly prepared porridge.

It would never be the fault of his uneducated and unrefined palate or his uninitiated taste buds. It's the bad author, who like an unskilled chef, just couldn't put together a delightful dish.

Soon he'll grow a complete distaste for books and begin to loathe the art of reading as a whole. Maybe he'll find a new hobby like listening to music, but even then, he'll still end up judging the album by its cover.

Watching movies? Nah, same old same, he'll judge those the same way too.

Is there no hope for our Judgemental Jack?

Now what if instead of reading books, listening to music and watching movies to determine the best ones, Judgemental Jack tried his hands on interviewing candidates for jobs instead?

What if Judgemental Jack became the HR Manager at the firm you applied to and you were the book he's too impatient to?read?

I've heard it said that in the first ten seconds after you enter a room, the people inside are trying to decipher your intent and if you have the ability to carry it out. Our Judgemental Jack will be no different. Once you get into the interview room, no matter how well-rehearsed your performance is on the day of the interview, all he hears when you speak to the panel is his own inner voice asking how you slipped through the superficial selection gates, designed to keep candidates like you out.

At his level he can tell good candidates from their CV. They'd have graduated from the best schools with the best grades and gathered generous experience at great companies. That's the default setting on his judg-o-meter, he's not entertaining candidates outside that box.

And for those who happen to slip through, Jack and his army of judgers would be waiting for them with prejudicial performance appraisal systems when they resume. How good a book you are will then depend entirely on how good a reader they are.

If you're that complex character with his own peculiar but productive approach to work, they'd easily drop you like a good book with a complex storyline and leave you lying on the shelf until someone who gets you picks you up.

But its not entirely the fault of Jack and Co. The founders and leaders who gave them the responsibility have a bigger chunk of the blame.

They too judged a book by its cover when they hired Judgemental Jack to manage their talent. They were so distracted by the academic awards, accomplishments and accolades that they failed to pay attention to his obvious lack of patience, empathy and compassion staring them in the face.

Now Jack and Co continue the trend of making wrong decisions on talent, and the pick and drop cycle never ends.

Dear founder, your claim to fame is that your discovered a rare solution to an age-old problem. You were both inquisitive and adventurous. You didn't go with the norm, you followed the unconventional path and blazed your own trail. Why not follow your same tried and tested approach when hiring and managing talent?

Don't suddenly become a Judgemental Jack now that your business is up and running. Users and investors took a chance on you, why not do same for the many raw talents seeking to blaze their own trails?

To your success,

Olayinka A. Williams?

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Copyright ? 2022 Olayinka A. Williams - All rights reserved.