I appreciate your emphasis on leaders and can clearly see how someone like you would be particularly well-positioned to doing this. However, I think it’s worth high-lighting that there are other promising “audiences” who can benefit massively from coaching even though they’re currently less impactful. In particular, I’m thinking about underutilized talent (there’s so much out there!) as they have much lower opportunity cost on their time (and can more diligently carry out the actions and reflections) and are more flexible about certain worldviews, strategies, etc..
A simple toymodel to describe this with tentative ballpark numbers (sorry for the numbers. We’re all intrinsically valuable people capable of living our purpose for the greater good—I hope no one will be offended here):
EA leaders might have an expected lifetime impact of 100 points and great medium-term coaching might increase their lifetime impact by 30% [5%-60%]. 100*1.3 (coaching effect)=130. I.e., 30 counter-factual impact points.
Underutilized talent might currently have an expected lifetime impact of 5 points but can experience astonishing effects from great medium-term coaching and associated “growth time”. Concretely, it might increase by 250% [50%-500%]. 5*3.5 =17.5. I.e., 12.5 additional impact points which is the counter-factual.
These numbers are very rough and could easily be off by a factor of 5 in either direction but they do seem kind of reasonable to my first-hand experiences although it’s probably more likely than not that they’ll be overestimates. However, they broadly show that focusing on underutilized talent might be similarly promising to focusing on leaders although a group of coaches should seek to serve various groups.
What do you think about this—in particular the numbers that I brought forth?
How much unmet (known as well as unknown) demand do you think there currently are within the community? I.e., given the eagerness of the participants (as well as my personal experience) I’m inclined to think that virtually all EA leaders should have a coach.
it’s worth high-lighting that there are other promising “audiences” who can benefit massively from coaching even though they’re currently less impactful.
Couldn’t agree more. There were a set of strategic and tactical reasons why I felt it would be more compelling to make the case with leaders first. It seemed to me like a more straightforward way to cleanly demonstrate value in multiple ways. Others might disagree. Curious about your take.
As an example, in the case where a broader community-talent-enrichment-focused project needs to receive funding support, you first need funders to be able to approximate and properly appreciate the value of coaching.
This is quite a bit more difficult if you’re trying to project the value of future talent + (likely) getting lower valuations of the value of the coaching because early-career people have a different relationship to money & growth, not to mention the anecdotal anchoring that often obfuscates these decisions for funders that would likely work against trying to fundraise for a project like this.
You’d basically need tastemakers and purse-holders to have the willingness to evaluate this, ability to evaluate this, come to agree with this reasoning, and/or have high in-network-derived trust of an individual, in order to have a shot at doing that. Also curious if you have a take on that.
> What do you think about this—in particular the numbers that I brought forth?
It seems flatly clear to me that investing in the development of individuals at earlier inflection points would be extraordinarily valuable. Add-em-up methods of approximating value is not my strong suit unfortunately (nor my preferred method of approximating things in certain contexts), so I probably don’t have much to say on specifics of your BOTEC there
> How much unmet (known as well as unknown) demand do you think there currently are within the community? I.e., given the eagerness of the participants (as well as my personal experience) I’m inclined to think that virtually all EA leaders should have a coach.
I mention here that, strictly speaking, I don’t know for sure. I’d say that certainly there’s far more demand for professionalized support than we’ve clocked, and there’s far more developmental needs that individuals have ‘at the top’ than people realize. Being nitpicky, I’m not so sure that ambient demand or perceived need for coaching is a perfect proxy for whom, how much, and how useful it would be, though it does tend to be that those who recognize that they need help are much more easily helped.
The bigger coaching landscape:
I appreciate your emphasis on leaders and can clearly see how someone like you would be particularly well-positioned to doing this. However, I think it’s worth high-lighting that there are other promising “audiences” who can benefit massively from coaching even though they’re currently less impactful. In particular, I’m thinking about underutilized talent (there’s so much out there!) as they have much lower opportunity cost on their time (and can more diligently carry out the actions and reflections) and are more flexible about certain worldviews, strategies, etc..
A simple toymodel to describe this with tentative ballpark numbers (sorry for the numbers. We’re all intrinsically valuable people capable of living our purpose for the greater good—I hope no one will be offended here):
EA leaders might have an expected lifetime impact of 100 points and great medium-term coaching might increase their lifetime impact by 30% [5%-60%]. 100*1.3 (coaching effect)=130. I.e., 30 counter-factual impact points.
Underutilized talent might currently have an expected lifetime impact of 5 points but can experience astonishing effects from great medium-term coaching and associated “growth time”. Concretely, it might increase by 250% [50%-500%]. 5*3.5 =17.5. I.e., 12.5 additional impact points which is the counter-factual.
These numbers are very rough and could easily be off by a factor of 5 in either direction but they do seem kind of reasonable to my first-hand experiences although it’s probably more likely than not that they’ll be overestimates. However, they broadly show that focusing on underutilized talent might be similarly promising to focusing on leaders although a group of coaches should seek to serve various groups.
What do you think about this—in particular the numbers that I brought forth?
How much unmet (known as well as unknown) demand do you think there currently are within the community? I.e., given the eagerness of the participants (as well as my personal experience) I’m inclined to think that virtually all EA leaders should have a coach.
Couldn’t agree more. There were a set of strategic and tactical reasons why I felt it would be more compelling to make the case with leaders first. It seemed to me like a more straightforward way to cleanly demonstrate value in multiple ways. Others might disagree. Curious about your take.
As an example, in the case where a broader community-talent-enrichment-focused project needs to receive funding support, you first need funders to be able to approximate and properly appreciate the value of coaching.
This is quite a bit more difficult if you’re trying to project the value of future talent + (likely) getting lower valuations of the value of the coaching because early-career people have a different relationship to money & growth, not to mention the anecdotal anchoring that often obfuscates these decisions for funders that would likely work against trying to fundraise for a project like this.
You’d basically need tastemakers and purse-holders to have the willingness to evaluate this, ability to evaluate this, come to agree with this reasoning, and/or have high in-network-derived trust of an individual, in order to have a shot at doing that. Also curious if you have a take on that.
> What do you think about this—in particular the numbers that I brought forth?
It seems flatly clear to me that investing in the development of individuals at earlier inflection points would be extraordinarily valuable. Add-em-up methods of approximating value is not my strong suit unfortunately (nor my preferred method of approximating things in certain contexts), so I probably don’t have much to say on specifics of your BOTEC there
> How much unmet (known as well as unknown) demand do you think there currently are within the community? I.e., given the eagerness of the participants (as well as my personal experience) I’m inclined to think that virtually all EA leaders should have a coach.
I mention here that, strictly speaking, I don’t know for sure. I’d say that certainly there’s far more demand for professionalized support than we’ve clocked, and there’s far more developmental needs that individuals have ‘at the top’ than people realize. Being nitpicky, I’m not so sure that ambient demand or perceived need for coaching is a perfect proxy for whom, how much, and how useful it would be, though it does tend to be that those who recognize that they need help are much more easily helped.