[roel_v]

This article somewhat seems to assume that 'everyone is good at something' (although at the end it veers towards 'it doesn't matter if someone is good at anything', so it's a bit unclear at that). But anyway it seems that people only think that to make themselves feel good, as logic dictates otherwise. Say there are 10 traits in which one can be good (some of such traits are enumerated in the article, but let's say for the sake of the argument there are 10). They are more or less independently assigned; and if they're correlated at all, that correlation is positive (being good looking and athletic, for example). Then it follows there will always be people who are above average on more than 5 traits, and there will be people where it's the other way around. There will be people who are great at everything, and some who suck at everything. Yet I don't see that addressed in pieces like this. What is the counter argument from this school of thought?

[sharemywin]

That their is a lot of traits that can't really be measured. There are other traits that a good for some purpose but are a hindrance to another. Many that aren't innate. A lot of tasks that only require proficiency. And then how do you value each trait against another.

Then, there's the whole topic of values. And what values are important to your organization.

[imustbeevil]

But that doesn't address the point. If we take two people, and one person is better at everything we can measure, the conclusion cannot logically be that the person who is worse at everything "must be good at something we aren't measuring". There's absolutely no data to support that conclusion, because the conclusion is literally based upon the idea that there is missing data. That's bad logic.