Beware the Clone Zone

In the world of problem solving there is an increasing emphasis on the importance of collaborative work by diverse team members over individual effort. All major organisations are more complex, tightly coupled and integrated than ever before.  When trouble strikes, or opportunity knocks individuals struggle to scope out the optimum route and uncover the best solutions.  In this hyper-connected environment individuals almost always lack the range to comprehend all the moving parts of any complex scenario.
 
Success, it seems, demands collaboration.
 
For example, in the world of science and engineering it is becoming increasingly difficult to find significant papers that have been comprised by individuals (sinking recently to below 10%) and even in the sphere of medicine, long-time bastion of the singular expert, the vast majority of significant papers are now collaborative; at a ratio of 3:1 at last count. This trend continues into the world of start-ups, fund-management and patents – and this divergence between teams and individuals shows no sign of tailing off any time soon.
 
It seems that the power of teams built on diverse thinking, an established mainstay of Root Cause Analysis theory, has finally broken into mainstream consciousness.  The period defined by organisations depending upon the performance of isolated subject experts “wheeled out” for particular problems or opportunities is coming to a close.  And although brilliance and expertise are no less important than ever, the challenges of the modern working environment can quickly overwhelm it when it is deployed in isolation. 
 
The more complex the challenge the more the pendulum swings from singular expertise to diverse competence.
 
This trend doesn’t only apply to functional knowledge.  The way in which individuals even start to engage with challenges can vary widely across sectors and cultures.  So significantly in fact, that crucial solutions can be ignored or misapplied – leaving risk and opportunity completely unaddressed. In Matthew Syed’s new book Rebel Ideas, he revisits a 2001 study from the University of Michigan (Nisbett and Masuda). Two groups are assembled, one from Japan and one from the USA. For the experiment they are shown video clips of underwater scenes. When asked to describe what they have seen the Americans talked about the fish.  They described their numbers, size, colour, activity and so on.  On the contrary, the Japanese response was focussed on the context. The Japanese described the colour of the water, the rocks, the shells, the air bubbles etc.  Of course, they didn’t ignore the fish, but they were by no means the focus of their attention.
 
Take a few moments to consider the implications of this.  We tend to think that all people comprehend the world in a broadly universal way.  Indeed, whole schools of thought and industrial models have been built on such a belief. However, it appears this is not the case. In the example above it’s as if the groups were viewing completely different scenes.  For the more individualistic Americans the focus was on the actions and moving parts.  For the Japanese, with their more contextual frame of reference the focus was on the environment, the context and the conditions.
 
Now consider this in terms of workplace problem solving, decision making and planning. One of our groups would focus very heavily on people, decisions, actions and behaviours.  The other group would most likely focus their attention on structures, processes, materials, procedure and documentation. Individually both groups are operating with just a partial picture, not recognising their enormous blind spots.  
 
When we are in a position to build diverse teams, we can combine multiple frames of reference and immediately reduce or eradicate these dangerous blind spots. 
 
Finally, now consider the implications of building a team of clones, one that lacks significant diversity in its approach, experience and knowledge; in practice one consisting of a single frame of reference. Despite the fact this type of team will usually be full of expertise, enjoy working together, display confidence and will not lack productivity, upon review their outcomes are somewhat troublesome. Their solutions are often deep but narrow, focussed in limited areas. Groupthink is prevalent and blind spots go unaddressed. If one were to think of a solutions portfolio as a piece of chain, many of the links in this scenario become incredibly strong, while a good many of the weakest links are completely ignored – their very existence going unrecognised. It’s not difficult to see how this can lead to an illusion of certainty, false sense of security and undeserved confidence.
 
In the golden three of problem solving; Team, Time and Technique, it is no mere accident that Team comes first.  A well assembled team, built to combine diverse knowledge, experience and frames of reference will always be the best way to combat scale and complexity in any challenge.  Give that team the time to understand the challenge at hand and a powerful shared technique to analyse and report on it and your problem solving will be optimised, no matter the complexity.