Thanks for the post! I agree with the importance of peer accountability and I have been trying to apply it myself. Some comments about helpful and unhelpful butt-kicking:
You say the butt-kicking is called for when the person has a better understanding of the opportunities to be considered, but I don’t think this is necessarily the case. I think hardly someone else will have a better idea of how opportunities fit within our own plans but the value can come precisely from the butt kicker´s ignorance about all of the uncertainties involved (the factors paralyzing our own decisions). The butt kicker is able to “zoom out” of the actual situation and “remove the noise” from the decision...maybe? That’s how I feel it sometimes haha.
You also mentioned that butt-kicking is not ideal when the bottleneck is related to financial or psychological issues. I think this one could go both ways; I can imagine a situation in which the person is stuck with a harmful decision (such as a terrible boss, burnout, etc) but justifies not taking the next step due to psychological issues that come as a result of those harmful environments. In that case an external person kicking your butt can be particularly useful, perhaps even more than in other situations. I think this butt kicking thing can be a way of acknowledging and avoiding your own biases and motivated reasoning to stay in harmful situations that stall your career.
So in general thanks for the post and for sharing your ideas. Hope to see more butt-kicking tools inside EA community.
In that case an external person kicking your butt can be particularly useful, perhaps even more than in other situations. I think this butt kicking thing can be a way of acknowledging and avoiding your own biases and motivated reasoning to stay in harmful situations that stall your career.
This is true, but perhaps it’d not extrapolate so well for everyone—I can imagine the risk of making the butt-kicked person just feel even more pressured. But if you really master the Art of Butt-Kicking (I’d say “softly butt-kicking,” but it sounds creepy), I see how this can go well ;)
Thanks for the post! I agree with the importance of peer accountability and I have been trying to apply it myself. Some comments about helpful and unhelpful butt-kicking:
You say the butt-kicking is called for when the person has a better understanding of the opportunities to be considered, but I don’t think this is necessarily the case. I think hardly someone else will have a better idea of how opportunities fit within our own plans but the value can come precisely from the butt kicker´s ignorance about all of the uncertainties involved (the factors paralyzing our own decisions). The butt kicker is able to “zoom out” of the actual situation and “remove the noise” from the decision...maybe? That’s how I feel it sometimes haha.
You also mentioned that butt-kicking is not ideal when the bottleneck is related to financial or psychological issues. I think this one could go both ways; I can imagine a situation in which the person is stuck with a harmful decision (such as a terrible boss, burnout, etc) but justifies not taking the next step due to psychological issues that come as a result of those harmful environments. In that case an external person kicking your butt can be particularly useful, perhaps even more than in other situations. I think this butt kicking thing can be a way of acknowledging and avoiding your own biases and motivated reasoning to stay in harmful situations that stall your career.
So in general thanks for the post and for sharing your ideas. Hope to see more butt-kicking tools inside EA community.
This is true, but perhaps it’d not extrapolate so well for everyone—I can imagine the risk of making the butt-kicked person just feel even more pressured. But if you really master the Art of Butt-Kicking (I’d say “softly butt-kicking,” but it sounds creepy), I see how this can go well ;)