Hire the Meta Thinker

In the past few months I’ve seen suggestions such as fire the workaholics all the way to fire the underachievers. Then you’ll see suggestions about how to hire and what to hire. What I don’t understand is that everyone is looking for specific traits, “has xx years working with J2EE, has handled a project from start to finish, has lead a team of 5+ people, has a 4 year CS degree”. What is the point? None of the above is going to really help when it comes down to producing something good. I say skip the crap and focus on thoughts and thought process. Hire the meta thinker.

I find that the quality produced from meta thinkers is far superior to the contrary. The reason I say this is because the person writing the code cares about asking what and why. Simply asking “What is this method supposed to accomplish?” and “Why am I writing this method?” starts the thought process into what will inevitably be a much more powerful set of tools.

Not only will those tools, functions, libraries, etc. be more powerful, they will be reusable. The reason I say this is because a meta thinker will think about the practicality of the functions or libraries. Meta thinkers aren’t concerned with the number of lines being produced, in fact, it tends to be the reverse. A meta thinker strives to drive the number of lines required down to the optimal level. The optimal level being the most efficient level. This ties into the “what”; the reason I am writing this function is because it allows me to create an object within the database. A meta thinker asks, how can I make this universal. How can I make this work outside of my specific scenario.

The other reason a meta thinker will produce better code is because of the “why”. A meta thinker understands that not everything requires separation, but attempts to see whether it makes sense to do so. To develop great software you will want some people who ask “why am I writing this?” One thing that will come out of that question is the finding of libraries or other tools. Also, you’ll find that the task at hand may be too complex for the purpose and realize and architectural fault in the system…Why am I really required to write ASM for this web app? Is the speed increase necessary? Maybe it’s time for a new framework. A meta thinker will find flaws less obvious than this one.

Beyond this, a meta thinker is someone you want around because you can bounce ideas off of them. A meta thinker will be able to help you flesh out ideas. These people will be able to expose issues or bless your concept. You are nearly always guarenteed to have a good idea of the more difficult parts of the operation once you’ve talked with these people.

Another reason you want to hire meta thinkers is because they are interesting to talk with. Not only do you build your level of understanding, you start to think differently. You learn and adapt your thought patterns similarly such that you’ll find yourself asking why a lot more. You’ll find that, after a period of time, you are the meta thinker.

This process is enlightening. You find that you try to solve a problem before solving the problem. Instead of diving into an issue you will think about it before and then attempt to solve the problem. This produces cleaner code and better performance, both in code efficiency and in the rate at which you write your code. By meta thinking, you find that you are solving the problem of how to solve problems. You are finding out how to write reusable methods by thinking about how to write methods. Your thoughts begin to change and your notion of just getting it done changes because you know that there is a better way.
Now think about it, would you rather work with someone that comes into the office and just does what is necessary for the day and then heads home, or would you rather work with someone that meta thinks about problems and come up with a crazy solution to a problem? I prefer the latter, it is just more interesting to me but, bottom line, I would prefer to gain more value for my buck.