Sunday, April 20, 2008

How tall is your career?

Ok, you might want to correct my sentence above, but I wrote that way intentionally.

I'm reading this book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. It's really interesting book, however I found some of the topics the author talking about is not really something new, it's just the basic things that sometimes you forget. About the intuition, I do use it toward my works. When you are in this business for quite sometimes, you will have that intuition that sometimes you didn't realise you have it, by just looking at the creative works you will know that if the client won't buy it. It's just there.. the hunch, the common sense...

But, what I want to talk about here is about the Warren Harding error. The Warren Harding error is the dark side of rapid cognition. It is at the root of a good deal of prejudice and discrimination. He was the perfect man for president based on physical well-being and sincere kindliness of heart. But Warren Harding was not a particularly intelligent man. But the voters overwhelmed by the first impression that Harding would make a "great President". Harding served two years before dying unexpectedly of stroke. He was, most historians agree, one of the worst presidents in American history (quoted from the book).

Malcolm Gladwell wrote about unconsciously we have different attitude toward tall people. He polled about half of the companies on the fortune 500 list - the list of the largest corporation in the United States - asking each company questions about its CEO. Overwhelmingly, the heads of big companies are, as I'm sure comes no surprise to anyone, white men, which undoubtedly reflects some kind of implicit bias. But they are also almost all tall.

Based on my personal observation:
- CEO of Nutricia Indonesia is tall, really tall. I don't know tall is he, but he's above average of western heights.
- Finance Director of Nutricia Indonesia, another tall guy. About the same height as the CEO.
- Former Country Head of Ogilvy & Mather Advertising Indonesia, tall guy. A little bit shorter than the CEO of Nutricia.
- Current Country Head of Ogilvy & Mather Advertising Indonesia, tall woman. She's 175cm. Quite tall for an Indian woman.

Some of you might say that it's just a coincidence, maybe. But maybe not.

Maybe these tall persons are smarter than others, but maybe Malcolm Gladwell theory is right. Maybe.

Please look around you and start an observation about big shots around, are they tall persons or short or just simply normal height.

No harm to make a fun observation like that, no? And please do share the result of your observation.

Makes me wondering since my height is normal for Indonesian woman, how high my career can be... Hopefully, my career can be higher than my height.

10 comments:

Finally Woken said...

Napoleon Bonaparte and Kylie Minogue. Nuff said.

Anonymous said...

Maybe I'm in for a bright future, being taller than most!!! or maybe its all about talent not height.
I'll work on both!!

Cheers
GJ

Therry said...

Tom Cruise? he's short but seems to have a fetish for tall women.

Andy Laver Sirait said...

if you like Malcolm Gladwell, you may want to read his other book, "The Tipping Point"..it's pretty interesting as well. Anyway, salam dr Tokyo..nice blog you have here :-)

Anonymous said...

is there any correlation? i dun agree.... it's only a coincedence.. i think

Anonymous said...

i think it's only a coincedence deh...

Anonymous said...

G**damn, you're right. Checked Wikipedia: 4% of the variation in intelligence is explained by variation in height.

Well, 96% fortunately not. There's still hope for short people.

As for the Nutricia ( or rather: Danone) tall guys, in my opinion this ever green joke about boards of directors applies: 'is it their policy or have they thought it over?'

Pojok Hablay said...

my current boss is tall. very.

I choose stiletto to get some height :)

Unknown said...

here's a picture for you. and here's an economic theory why that is so.

As for the O&M case, tall and skinny, so probably not very telling, probably need to wait a lil bit.
LOL

Momisodes said...

The millionaires I know, are all short :( At least all the men are.