ABOUT THE PROJECT

One of the most profound books I have read is Now, Discover Your Strengths by Don Clifton, a product of decades of research with 25 million copies sold.

The thesis of the book is that you are better off spending more time developing your strengths than undoing your weaknesses.  Sadly, however, too many people spend time trying to fix their weaknesses.  This is the unfortunately product of our schooling system and to a large extent modern parenting.  We are punished or laughed at for failing in some subjects or activities, while our strengths are seldom nurtured when they are still developing.

After explaining the thesis, the book offers an online self-assessment tool that reveals your top 5 strengths out of a collection of 32.  Guided by the book, the tool shares insights about the path towards strengthening and actualising, as can be argued, your God-given talents.

This became an influential book for me and I have since distributed many copies to friends and associates.  When I was leading a company turn around, I insisted that everyone take the strengths finder test.  In keeping with the book’s thesis, the idea was to figure out our organisational strengths and use the insights as levers to multiply our collective effort.  I went as far as using the book’s principles to compose my executive committee – as you can see, I was dedicated disciple.

I am currently student, pursuing a masters in Applied Ethics (broadly, moral philosophy), and as a result I have a deeper appreciation of the book’s thesis and underlying assumptions. Above all, it is rooted in the broader psychological assumption that our personalities are like riverbanks that shape the course of our decisions and actions.  While this view finds residency in psychology, it is less welcomed by some philosophers.

A cohort of philosophers like Karl Popper (1902 – 1994) and Friedrich Hayek (1899 – 1992) accuse the social sciences as pretending to do “real” science whereas in earnest they merely mimic it.  The thrust of their argument is that the natural science, like physics and chemistry – which studies inanimate objects – provide reliable insights that are replicable.  In some instances, the scientific method reveals unshakable laws of nature that remain true everyone in the universe.  However, thinking participants, that is, the subjects of social science, behave differently in every account.  Therefore, it is not obvious that the same experimental conditions can produce the same results.  On these grounds, social science can at best produce principles with many contingencies, but not stable laws as can its more favoured sibling, natural science.  Therefore, the use of the scientific method in social science is mere mimicry; it is like lending a friend’s chopper to run errands at one’s farm.  It is better than walking but remains inappropriate, strictly speaking.

This account is growing on me and casts longer shadows of doubt as I think about it.  How do psychometric tests account for changes in one’s views.  For instance, one could meet an influential person or find themselves in circumstances that alter their views. It seems these would register as changes in one’s personality.  Now, therefore, it strikes me that there must be at least two possible assumptions underlying the world of psychometric testing.  The first is that personality is fixed and the test is meant to reveal the nature of one’s otherwise unchanging self.  However, this view fails to account for accuracy.  If I take three tests, say over three to five years, each with varying results but claiming to reveal my true nature, then which one ought to be deemed the most accurate one?

The second assumption is that the personality is always in flux, and that personality test are a reflection of where one is at that point in time.  In some sense, the personality test in this line of thinking is a GPS for one’s position on the personality landscape.  This is a more cogent argument in my view but it also has a problems. If I am ever-changing then on what grounds do I know right from wrong – if it is to be assumed that right is right and wrong is wrong regardless of personality.  In other words, how do I ground my sense of morality over time if I am never quite the same person.

I am likely not doing justice to the field of psychology because I am not a psychologists.  Nevertheless, the philoso-preneurial gene in me thinks there is an opportunity for developing a tool that tests for one’s moral intuitions rather than one’s personality dispositions.  Moral intuitions, I argue, do not change much.  They are somewhat etched in stone and take considerable (and intentional) effort to revise.  For instance, it is not overnight that one switches from believing in monogamy to polygamy, two institutions with different moral underpinnings.  I am not claiming that morality is fixed, but I am suggesting that one’s moral dispositions are not trivial; changes in moral disposition do not go unseen (as do changes in personality – I claim) because the sheer impact of morality, expressed through moral-emotions like shame, betrayal, abandonment, compassion and guilt, do not fly under the radar.

These are the grounds on which I am building a tool to examine one’s sense of morality.  I believe this is more likely to produce an accurate sense of one’s intuitions.  In addition (also unlike psychologists, it seems) I do not have a commitment to helping people live a good life –  at least not through this project.  Studying one’s “strengths” in itself assumes that they are good things and that cultivating them leads to a good life. I do not harbour such teleological ambitions even though it might be the case that knowing’s one’s moral intuitions makes life easier to navigate. For all I know, one might fall into a crisis upon understanding that one’s sense of morality is not at all aligned with one’s aspirations, family or the laws upheld in one’s country.  Also, I am not claiming that people are oblivious to these discrepancies (where they exist), but their articulation has a mobilising effect. This agnostic attitude to the promise of a good life, I believe, sets the stage for creating a neutral tool with not promises except to reveal one’s sensibilities and intuitions.

Finally, this project will take a lot of time, research and effort.  Not only do I have to build the technology, but I will have to develop the academic grounding as well.  This letter does not even scratch the surface for the amount of thinking that is required and more than likely, the collaboration needed.

Nevertheless, over and above understanding one’s intuitions, I see applications in a wide array of fields including organisational design, conflict management and family planning.  All of this is only possible, however, with your support. 

If you are keen to support this project with a donation, please follow this link. The form will collect your contact details and I will get in touch as soon as possible.

With warmth,

Vusi Sindane