In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance the author puts forward two types of welders. One is the type that excels at really complex and difficult welds, but isn't very good at making simple welds in repetition. The other might get tunnel vision when trying to figure out an unusual weld, but has the discipline to produce consistent, flawless welds in great quantity.
It might be explained by what is know as Yerkes–Dodson law[1], which describes how performance increases with mental arousal up to a certain point then decreases. If different types of tasks correspond with different arousal for different people, then the type of welder or developer one is is orthogonal to their fundamental skill. Instead it would mean that the first type needs to cast the problem as something novel in order to gin up the necessary level of concentration to get the problem done, hence the rock solid code that has sloppy/inconsistent style.
It makes sense that a good advocate would be highly skilled, but the type who has difficulty with necessary work that seems mundane. In other workplaces this might be the person who seems to have low output, but gets their coworkers past their roadblocks.
It might be explained by what is know as Yerkes–Dodson law[1], which describes how performance increases with mental arousal up to a certain point then decreases. If different types of tasks correspond with different arousal for different people, then the type of welder or developer one is is orthogonal to their fundamental skill. Instead it would mean that the first type needs to cast the problem as something novel in order to gin up the necessary level of concentration to get the problem done, hence the rock solid code that has sloppy/inconsistent style.
It makes sense that a good advocate would be highly skilled, but the type who has difficulty with necessary work that seems mundane. In other workplaces this might be the person who seems to have low output, but gets their coworkers past their roadblocks.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes–Dodson_law