The Analects
Three layers of looking at a person
Each layer is harder to fake than the last
Analects 2.10
Everyone misreads people. The useful part of his method is the order: the three layers get progressively harder to perform.
What actually happened?
See what he does. Mark his motives. Examine where he rests. The three clauses climb. The first is behaviour, which anyone can stage. The second is the road he took to arrive — what he spent, what he went around, who paid — and staging a road costs real effort. The third is what he is comfortable with when nothing is at stake, and almost nobody can hold a pose down there. Then the line that closes it, said twice over: how can a man conceal himself, how can he conceal himself?
The first layer: what he did
Behaviour is the easiest thing to observe and the easiest thing to perform. A person can produce any behaviour you like for the three months somebody is watching. Read only this layer and what you are grading is the performance.
Excellent through probation, unrecognisable after. He did not change. The observation ended.
The second layer: how he got here
The road shows what he was willing to spend, what he went around, and who carried the cost. Two people reach the same number by completely different routes, and the route is the stable part. People repeat their routes.
Both hit the quarter. One pulled next year's budget forward out of existing accounts; one opened three channels. The next quarter separates them without help.
The third layer: where he rests
This asks what he can be at ease with. Some people cannot settle after shipping something they know is bent, and some can. It runs with nobody supervising, which is why it is almost impossible to fake and why it predicts what he does unwatched.
Handed in with a flaw he knows about, one person goes back to fix it and the other waits to see whether anybody notices.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: deciding whether someone can be handed something heavier than he has carried.
Ask first: how did his last real piece of work actually get done, and was he easy with himself afterwards?
Where it goes wrong: grading results and manner and calling it judgement; or substituting a longer watching period for a real question about the road, when time surfaces neither of the deeper layers on its own.
Lines to keep
How can a man conceal himself? How can he conceal himself?
The worry is not being unknown. It is not knowing others.
Same situation, other people are asking
He says all the right things and I'm not sure I believe him.He talks well. I've never seen him deliver.She is the strongest candidate and the way she operates worries me.Three months of doing everything right. Is that enough to go on?Can I trust this person · all 7 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.