Recently, an interesting article about Leonardo Da Vinci unraveled an aging theory in my head. As a well-regarded genius of an artist, the epic nature of his failure might perhaps come as a surprise to many. And I will address this shortly.
But first, as fellow critical-thinker Mishaal Al Gergawi explores in his piece (World Collaboration Manifesto - Gulf News), one of the fundamental tenets of the Industrial Age has been the commonly accepted concept of ’specialisation.’
Our educational system seeds such thinking very early on. Followed soon afterwards by the urgent need to ‘pick’ a niche, and as a result, a career, all whilst still in high-school. Fast forward to the workplace, the ‘drone syndrome’ quickly catches on, rewarding competency development that shrinks daily into tunnel vision the size of a key-hole. The less you’re involved in, the greater your chances of success and elevation. It doesn’t nearly end there, not even close. Gradually, entire organizations ferment within this all-consuming culture, becoming collectively less relevant on a daily basis.
Like it or not, life in general doesn’t quite work that way. And especially less in 2010 — a decade into civilization’s apparent reawakening. The ‘Knowledge Economy’ they called it. Sadly, it has remained a glorified label. This is evident in the Gulf, perhaps more prominently than many other economies today. Reasons of which to be explored in another article.
A single thing — regardless of how petty — impacts everything else. Life requires an ‘always-on’ balancing act, combining challenges that range from the individualistic to familial, from work/business to extracurricular and so on. Let me ask you this: what if we adapted the unquestioned approach of ’specialisation’ to everyday life? What would you pick? Family or work? Personal development or greater social change? Money or contentment? Sport or politics? Paper or technology?
Unfair? Yes. Untrue? No.
Back to Da Vinci. His journals unearthed a spectacular archive of thoughts, ideas, theories and designs. Not all art, as one might imagine, but tangible scientific inventions: new kinds of clocks, a double-hulled ship, flying machines, military tanks, an odometer, the parachute, and a machine gun, to name just a few. His endeavors in art have found a place in history. But at what cost? The sheer opporunity cost of the unrealized potential makes Da Vinci’s artistic body of work, dare I say, almost pale in comparison to what could easily have been.
To take Al Gergawi’s argument a step further, I ask: does evolution stop with the end of law-firms and creative-agencies and the birth of agile and affordable freelance specialists? I think not.
I firmly believe we’re headed not only towards the death of industrially-structured service firms, but will have no choice but to embrace the concept of what I call ‘Hybrid Thinking.’ An economy where, to mirror life itself, even those individual consultants of the future will need to become multi-disciplined. Each with certain areas of greater experience than others ofcourse, but fundamentally playing the role of knowledge-bearers. Those that understand business above all, then contribute knowing full well what the bigger picture is. And not just conceptually, but tangibly and accountably.
The dark side of continually evolving technology is no doubt the collective shrinkage of the attention-span of Generations Y and Z. Attempting to explain this phenomena in itself will distract readers to another tweet. These very decision makers of tomorrow will have less patience for six specialised consulting firms, but would love six holistic opinions about everything from each of them. Just as social media highlights the innate human need to accept the opinions of those in one’s ‘circle of trust’, the managers of tomorrow will increasingly depend on these opinions, across the board. If your friend on Twitter tells you a certain restaurant serves the best breakfast in town, you’re likely to trust his/her judgement just as much as their condemnation of a certain government policy. Are they dimissed for having diverse-yet-significant opinions about equally diverse subjects? Not at all. Trust begets trust.
To add to Al Gergawi’s well-titled World Collaboration Manifesto, this is my first exploration of the internal challenges that face every individual well before a ‘greater no-holds-barred collaboration’ will come into effect.
The sooner one realizes this, the greater the chances of discovering light as we exit this tunnel of recession-hit, blame-cultured, super-centralized and uber-specialised disarray of economic darkness.
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[...] This post was Twitted by danishfarhan [...]
[...] These consultants will carry the credentials to evaluate data using measurement metrics their client needs in place. They, unlike the analysts, however will focus on the big picture ideas. Bottom lines. How you might ask? By virtue of being multi-disciplinary in expertise — a concept I have written about in my piece The Extinction of Specialisation. [...]
I totally agree on the problem in the education’s emphasis on focusing on one field very early on in life, moreover, it always recommends that field to be a currently established field, or at least proven to be established over past experiences (mostly ends up to be in science fields), forgetting that by the time a person is out of the education system into the world, many new fields are in action and many other fields are no longer required. Aside of all that, there is the perception that life doesn’t start for someone till after graduation, it shouldn’t even be the case, life can start well before the graduation were they allowed to practice what they want, but society over-emphasizes on the urgency of completing a degree first!
So we learn to focus on one field, and when we try to multi-task between more, we are taught to narrow down and commit to one thing! Because commitment tells how professional u r! Is it? If we really should commit to one thing, why do you promote us? Why do u expect us to grow? Aren’t I not committing then as well!
So they try to unlearn us from all other fields to be FOCUSED on one field, and if we try to be generic and capture more, they tell us we’re immature and don’t know what we want in life! And that they know better.
The big problem, is that ALOT of people fall in that trap, and believe what they r told, they become merely followers, consequently gets hypnotized to fit into the society’s norm,, it is those like us who refuse to believe them, who acknowledge our differences, believe in our abilities, and refuse to be followers, instead we are the leaders of a new tribe that soon by our influence will allow more people to recognize their true potentials inshAllah.
And that is just my humble opinion :)
Great Insight! Thanx!
Iman, thanks for the passionate insight.
Our education system is only the beginning of pigeon-holing impressionable minds into believing less in their own abilities and instead, in other people’s opinions. Parents have a huge role to play in harnessing interests and talent, however varied it may be. As Yann Marcel mentioned at the Literature Festival, apparently at an average, every child is born with a dozen talents, which are systematically ‘washed-off’ with each passing year. All this because we have not allowed ourselves to believe in, and act on, the possibility of multiple areas of focus.
I loved your analogy of growth: if one narrows their focus, why is that considered growth? Excellent point as it really is a step backwards. Imagine the collective knowledge and experience of several authorities on diverse subjects coming together. There will immediately be an incredible insight into specific notions (like finance, culture, education and something as random as irrigation) otherwise never openly compared or debated. Why should it be the responsibility of a CEO to make sense of all the separate compartments that constitute a business. Empowering executives across the organisation to influence decisions that impact things beyond their own remit would be a good starting point. This helps not only the organisations holistically, but catalyses personal development unlike much else.
A few signs this natural process of extinction has already begun: 1) Social media like Twitter and Facebook collectively broadens each individual’s scope of thought, 2) The advent of blogging (yes Twitter included) has given the masses power to think, and share opinions…about anything and everything
I truly believe anybody who acknowledges this as a concept automatically gets elected an ‘Advocate For Change.’ Every discussion is one step closer to unlocking potential hiding within each one of us.
Some great thoughts; thanks again for sharing!
Good read, Danish. Well put.
I have issue with a couple of premises though. However, first, I will agree that
1) The distributive nature of technology is leading to a process of decentralization (democratization) and therefore information is widely available
2) Macro problems require the combination of more than one stream of expertise, and here multi-disciplined consultants have a role to play.
However:
1) The breadth and depth of knowledge has changed considerably since Leonardo and Michelangelo, those eponymous “Renaissance Men”
2) Specialist fields now require knowledge that can take a lifetime to master. E.g. a generalist will not design the next breed of microchip, or mark the next iteration of neural network computing. Similarly, the multi-disciplinarian is not the right person to work in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Law, accounting, health are all fields that require specialization for advancement.
3) The multi-disciplinarian is good at leveraging knowledge and thought, but will not be capable of advancing that knowledge. The bleeding edge of ideas will still be generated by the specialists. However, the capable generalists (such as you, Mishaal and I) will find ways to play with these ideas once they exist.
4) Therefore, this model of Hybrid Thought needs to find room for both the generalists and specialists.
We must have a coffee and discuss this soon!
Cheers,
Hisham.