This case, you’ll have noticed, is by no means unique. Throughout this book we’ve told stories about lower-level employees making multimillion-dollar financial decisions without getting approval from the boss. Outsiders are often puzzled about how this can work in a financially responsible organization. The answer is simple: it’s because of the alignment.

People who score high in neuroticism often struggle. Neuroticism is linked to higher rates of depression, eating disorders, and stress disorders. Such people go to the doctor more often. They are quick to make unrealistic plans for themselves and quick to abandon them. Even though they are always ready to perceive danger, neurotics often enter into relationships with precisely those people who will threaten them. They also have a lot of negative emotions toward themselves, and think they deserve what they get.” (Brooks,

“How to Know a Person”, p.183)

“AGREEABLENESS. Those who score high on agreeableness are good at getting along with people. They are compassionate, considerate, helpful, and accommodating toward

others.

Those who score high in agreeableness are naturally prone to paying attention to what’s going on in other people’s minds. If you read high-agreeable people complex stories, they have so much emotional intelligence that they will be able to recall many facts about each character. They are able to keep in mind how different people are feeling about one

another. In one experiment that Daniel Nettle describes, high agreeables could keep track of four levels of social belief: “Tom hoped that Jim would believe that Susan thought that Edward wanted to marry Jenny.

OPENNESS. If agreeableness describes a person’s relationship to other people, openness describes their relationship to information. People who score high on this trait are powerfully motivated to have new experiences and to try on new ideas. They tend to be innovative more than conventional, imaginative and associative rather than linear, curious more than closed-minded. They tend not to impose a predetermined ideology on the world and to really enjoy cognitive exploration, just wandering around in a subject.” (Brooks,

“How to Know a Person”, p.185)

“When we approach a painting or a song, we want it to be familiar but also a bit surprising. That’s known as the fluency sweet spot. People low in openness feel comfortable when the artwork feels familiar. People high in openness find anything moderately familiar to be

boring.

It’s easy to take comfort in the fact that other people agree with us. As legendary investor Warren Buffett pointed out, though, “The fact that other people agree or disagree with you makes you neither right nor wrong. You will be right if your facts and reasoning are correct.”

The people executing established practices say they want new ideas, but they don’t want the bad ones. And because they so want to avoid the bad ones, they never deviate enough to find good ones.