What the comparison leaves out
Most of us measure ourselves against other people more often than we would like to admit. The trouble is, we're often comparing the result, not the cognitive process behind it.
I've done it since I started my career. Nearly everyone I worked with seemed better at the parts of the work I found the hardest. They stayed on track with a project schedule. They could review the numbers until they were certain. They knew who to bring in to get something moving.
Even now, running my own business, I still have moments of thinking I should be doing things better - like the people who publish steadily, week after week, the people who check the data on everything they do, the people whose follow-up looks automatic.
What gets compared in those moments isn't comparable. What one mind does easily, another has to work at.
So just as I compare myself to people who are more Analytical, Logistical or Relational than I am, I know people look at what I do - putting a big idea into the room, making something complicated feel simple - and think, he makes that look easy.
And they're right. That part is easy for me. It's my Conceptual thinking, and it's the part of the day I look forward to.
What we often see is the result of someone's mind operating in its natural modality - and that distinction matters. The goal isn't to become equally good at every kind of thinking. It's to know which parts of the work deserve our effort, which require support, and which might be better left to someone who thinks differently than us.
I still compare myself to people who are more consistent than I am, more rigorous, better at maintaining relationships - and I suspect I always will. But I've stopped taking it as evidence that I should become more like them. It's a description of someone else's mind, not a measure of my own.
Gregor