Great post. I especially like the note that networked groups of experts can outperform a similar-sized group of generalists. There is an implicit assumption in your comment that the problem at hand lends itself to the superior chunking ability of one or more of the experts. Chunking creates experts of narrow width and great depth, but it's not intuitively obvious to me that expertise in one field leads to expertise in another. In fact, one of Charlie Munger's criticisms of Economics professors (and many other academics) is the “man with a hammer” syndrome, in which one views every problem through a context constructed to lend itself to their hammer solution. The generalists' proficiency in a number of fields might allow them to cooperatively come up with a better solution than the experts who had mastery of a number of fields but proficiency in many less.

That said, your statement about networked experts does explain a lot of the progress of civilization.

Cheers,

Mike

I agree that this description of expertise assumes chunking ability. Most “human” activities are amenable to chunking, because humans think analogically. Straight-forward logical thinking is best done by logical tools, that is, computers.

I also agree with “expertise in one field leads to expertise in another.” Outside of a high “general intelligence,” which might make it easier to learn things in general, one shouldn't assume that an expert (or for that matter, someone who is rational) in one domain is expert/creative/talented/rational in another. Indeed, the gift of learned helplessness can imply that an expert in one domain is a blithering idiot in others.

Excellent comment!

The class's focus on intersubjective creativity, focusing on what is done in a domain, as opposed to subjective theory, what happens in the mind, was an adjustment. Not all students made it. It smashes icons and forces a rational consideration of creativity in other people. Too often, a bad temperament and a basic understanding of the tools of a craft are mistaken for creativity, talent, and expertise (whether art, or scholarship, or any other domain)

Well, speaking as a once-full time creative director charged with with wrangling some pretty terrible enfants in, say, the commercial direction side of the biz I can say without fear that there's a crapload of unresolved issues bigfooting around in black jeans.

There is a paradox tho–people tasked with tapping the emotions and affinities of others are very clumsy or reticent when it comes to discussing or understading human nature. For a business built on “breakthrough,” it's really disappointing how narrowband and surface many are, and at a surprisingly young age. Of course, many of the leaders I know and work with have the same problem.

“Creativity is the appropriate, efficient application of horizontal thinking in a vertical domain.” Stern, but I like it! In the course of working with arts and business groups, and in particular one group that included both, I've found that conventional wisdom can really be a dog.

Example: A workgroup with an arts foundation board consisting of financial services poobahs, artists, art teachers and philanthropic gadflies found the Bankers most willing (almost giddily so), to stretch their perceptions of what was possible. When asked to rub two seemingly disparate facts or theories together, the artists crossed their arms and refused to play.

Youth is wasted on the young, they say. Add opportunity is often wasted on the “creative.”

Props for the kind words.

The professor for the seminar I took in Creativity, Talent, and Expertise [1] has done a lot of research in this area, because his son is a chess prodigy, and I have contacted him to see if I can put his work online.

I like “bricolage” a lot. One text described creativity as carrying a sure toolbox of analogies across projects. “Viable linkages” are discovered and exploited, often again and again and again. If one is labeled “creative” that means one is a bricoler who also looks for gaps. If one is labeled “expert,” that is the same thing but without second-guessing the field's choice of specializations. Creativity is the appropriate, efficient application of horizontal thinking in a vertical domain.

Tying Boyd in means somehow translating his OODA loop [3], which is mostly subjective, to the Creativity/Talent domain, which is intersubjective. [4] It'd be an interesting project… (I admire the effect, but I think Curtis' 'social OODA loop' [5] goes in the wrong direction, focusing too much on abstract concepts and not measurable works…)

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/unl_creativity_and_expertise/
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/06/14/coming-anarchy-10-the-gap.html
[3] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/05/30/variations-of-the-ooda-loop-1-introduction.html
[4] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/05/23/zen_and_the_art_of_semantic_eurovision_networks.html
[5] http://www.phaticcommunion.com/archives/2006/08/some_words_on_d.php

Do you think chunking could also be viewed as an object-oriented mindset allowing one to quickly cross-reference models, testing viable linkages for things like innovation or infiltration? In other words, expert-thinking isn't expertise, it's bricolage? Seems that's Charlie Munger's implicit approach and Boyd's core insistence for oreientation.

best

mark

(The clipping is done by a blogspirit bug — the link should include that last “/”. I will contact them about it. The link should direct to the same place as the “UNL / Creativity and Expertise” link on the left, under “categories”)

The class criticized the nature of “breakthrough” as such, emphasizing that for any artist, the number of great successes is minuscule compared to the number of misses or so-so work. In other words, “breakthroughs” are the remainder of failures. Creative people show up, try try try again, and occasionally succeed. As Tom Barnett said

“Dealing with failure effectively is mostly about diagnosing it quickly, accepting your portion of the blame, and then chilling on it and putting it behind you quickly. So you seek “getting back up on the horse” moments ASAP.” [1]

Also note that because the mind is “massively modular,” skill in one ability doesn't translate to that in another. Language especially is kept away from other components, so being able to /do/ doesn't mean one is able to /say/ (and vice versa).

Excellent comment again.

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/02/19/the-tdaxp-interview-of-thomas-pm-barnett.html
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/06/16/the-evolution-away-from-modularity.html

There's definitely a universal thread in barnett's point. I beleive Edison had a “cul de sac” threshold for the boys in his lab where, at some point, he would pull them off a project that wasn't turning over and have them redirect to a higher percentage effort on something, probably what Larry Keeley calls “sustaining innovations” (Post-it's in pink, or grease resistant for kitchen uses) rather than low-%”breakthrough.”

Do agree on the skill point–if we're talking about particular facility with certain *complicated* nuances. But in my experience, especially with complex/people problems, I've been quite pleasantly surprised in the realm of systems problem solving by plucking someone from outside res. Similar I suppose to the way that some CEOs are good at turn-around regardless of widget or SIC code. Probly that bricolage thing again.

I like the point about Edison. Great inventors and problem solvers find a way to transform domain-general problems into domain-specific ones. Typically, they view a new problem as a variation of a general one they have been solving for quite a while, and then apply analogs to the solutions they have been using.

Robert Weisberg describes it as follows: [1]

“In the examples just discussed, solutions were brought to mind as the result of what is called “analogical transfer” in problem solving. Attaching a candle to a vertical surface and attaching one to a horizontal surface are analogous situations, since they have the same structure (attaching a candle to a surface), which means that information from the already familiar situation can be retrieved when the problem is represented, and can then be transferred to the problem, to serve as a basis for behavior…”

Thus what Edison is doing is maintaining a high level of self-efficacy [2], but letting his inventors' analogical thinking work. If a problem was too big to be solved by their established methods, their self-efficacy would gradually reduce to zero as would their results.

CEOs are a good example, too. Al Dunlap [3] is a genius at turning around struggling companies, regardless of industry. His results were sub-optimal, though, when given the task of managing an already successful company. Even CEO knowledge is domain-specific — but the trick is in properly identifying the domain.

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/02/02/creativity-beyond-the-myth-of-coherence.html
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/09/05/on-teaching-and-learning.html
[3] http://www.amazon.com/Chainsaw-Notorious-Career-Dunlap-Profit-At-Any-Price/dp/0066619815