> Below the fold: "Track record is king. It's all DNA. People don't change. Your fate is sealed."

You read it wrong - it's not about DNA or fate. It's about what a person has done recently. It's a good predictor of what they're going to do next. As soon as someone changes for real, they build a new and healthy track record.

In general, you should weight a person's actions - track record - over what they say. It's a people skills thing more than a destiny-predicting thing.

> FWIW, I tend to agree more with your below-the-fold views based on most people I've met.

Huh, well, I admire you saying that, it's not a fashionable viewpoint these days. I'd predict a person's actions 95% by what they've done recently and 5% what they talk about, but I think it's possible for anyone to change through incremental improvement. Many people won't, but everyone could. There's always some little incremental improvement you could make. But for important roles in your life, you can't gamble - look for someone with a good track unless you're in a position to make a good evaluation, and be careful even then.

Isn't it possible that a person will act the same based on track record because their environment is always the same and therefore there isn't an incentive to change their habits, especially if they are unaware of this? People can change enough to make a big difference when their eyes are opened and they realize what really matters in life. I've seen it happen.

Yes, but creating that environment for change is a pretty difficult task. As an example, several times I've hired people who did customer support before to do customer support for me, and de-training all the customer-hostile and ultimately time-wasting behaviors is really hard. I mean, sure, it can be done, if you understand the behaviors and values you want, and if the employee is willing to work with you, but it is /hard/

My experience with this sort of thing is that if the person looks like they failed in the past due to having a bad boss[1], yeah, I can fix it. But otherwise? you are in for a whole lot of work with a very small chance of success. Sometimes, it's worth it, but you need to go in with your eyes open.

[1] oh man, bad bosses do a whole lot of damage. that's the funny thing; I don't think a good boss, even a really good boss helps all that much. I mean, sure, they help a little. I try to be a good boss. But a bad boss can easily swing productivity in to the negative. Goal one is to not be a bad boss.