Are you above average? Is your child an A student? Is your employee an
introvert or an extrovert? Every day we are measured against the
yardstick of averages, judged according to how closely we come to it or
how far we deviate from it.
The assumption that metrics comparing us to an average--like GPAs,
personality test results, and performance review ratings--reveal
something meaningful about our potential is so ingrained in our
consciousness that we don't even question it. That assumption, says
Harvard's Todd Rose, is spectacularly--and scientifically--wrong.
In The End of Average, Rose, a rising star in the new field of the
science of the individual shows that no one is average. Not you. Not
your kids. Not your employees. This isn't hollow sloganeering--it's a
mathematical fact with enormous practical consequences. But while we
know people learn and develop in distinctive ways, these unique patterns
of behaviors are lost in our schools and businesses which have been
designed around the mythical "average person." This
average-size-fits-all model ignores our differences and fails at
recognizing talent. It's time to change it.
Weaving science, history, and his personal experiences as a high school
dropout, Rose offers a powerful alternative to understanding individuals
through averages: the three principles of individuality. The jaggedness
principle (talent is always jagged), the context principle (traits
are a myth), and the pathways principle (we all walk the road less
traveled) help us understand our true uniqueness--and that of
others--and how to take full advantage of individuality to gain an edge
in life.
Read this powerful manifesto in the ranks of *Drive, Quiet, and
Mindset--*and you won't see averages or talent in the same way again.
