Intelligence: Critical Thinkers versus List People

After a while I ended up categorizing people into two simple groups so I could approach the job training from their way and get the knowledge in their head as quickly and easily as possible.

Group 1 I call critical thinkers, self empowered types. Show them the concept, talk about the goal and they'll pick up the pieces and run with it. Show someone from this group how to use a mouse in windows (pre tablet era) like this: left click is take an action, right click is give me choices (context menu), double left click is take the default (bold) action from the context menu. After that short explanation I could walk away and come back in an hour or two and they had pretty much figured out windows and become a 'competent user'.

Group 2 I call list people. The didn't want to hear about concepts. They didn't want to have too many choices. Too many choices frustrates and confuses them. They will actually tell you that YOU are the stupid one because you made it too complicated by having too many ways to do the same thing or you are drowning people in too many choices. These people you would have to approach training as a list. Step one, click start ("double click or single click?"..."uh, this list is all single click"... "ok good."), click the DatabaseEntryApp Icon, When window opens move cursor to first fill in the blank, put in appropriate data in blank, etc.

If the data entry screen changes, most of these folks would instantly become stuck and unproductive until we also updated them with the new list and gave them time to absorb it. And during that process that group would call us stupid and laugh at the 'idiot IT guys' who can't leave well enough alone. They didn't want to hear about explanations about the client signed a new contract and now we were obligated to collect more or different data. Or that the auditors required it. Or new tax laws made it so. "blah blah blah. You guys are so dumb. Why do you make our jobs so hard. Everything was perfect, why'd you change it?" Any answer to that question would just get frowns and ridicule.

In IT, the List People outnumber the Critical Thinkers by about 10 to 1 at the "I at least have a high school diploma or GED" level. When you get out numbered like that. They gang up and call everyone else stupid. A great example is the people in the future in the movie Idiocracy. When you move into a more 'professional' environment, more college diplomas in the room, people who run their own successful businesses or investments, the scale starts to tip more towards the Critical Thinkers, but there are still List People in those high ranks. I have never seen a group of humans where it was all Critical Thinkers. If a List Person is in charge and you are a Critical Thinker, beware and be careful how you phrase things.

There's nothing wrong with the List People, just different kinds of people. Both groups have pro's and con's.

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