I work in largely technical fields with largely technical people. I started my career in the Air Force working on aircraft navigation systems. I went on to a civilian company working on recorders for spacecraft. Then I worked on extremely specialized, highly accurate timing and frequency systems. I left California and went to work for Arizona State University. Now I'm working with scientists who are developing nanotechnology for forensics. I can tell you the name of the group I work for, but I'm not entirely sure I understand what it means. I can even tell you the title I have here, but I'm not sure I know what that means either. It's all very specialized, very technical.
In working in these fields, I've noted two types of people. One type is the most common. It's the task person. These are very competent, very focused people. You tell them, "Build me a gonculator" and they'll set about designing the thing. They'll likely do a good job with it, too. The other type of person is the system person. This kind of person isn't nearly as common. You tell them, "Build me a gonculator" and they'll ask, "What for? What is it going into? How does it interface? Will it work with the other parts that you'll need?" and questions like that. They are not as focused, but they are certainly more well-rounded. When they finish their job, it will likely work -- maybe not as intricately as the task-oriented person's version -- and it will work within the system for which it was designed. The task-oriented person's version will be genius, a wonder to behold, really, really clever ... but doesn't quite communicate properly with all the other functions it is required to work with because the task-oriented person didn't take those into account. It wasn't the assigned task.
Working as a systems person is quite a bit more complex than working as a tasks person. A systems person has to go a lot farther and put in a lot more effort. There are more questions, more interactions. They need to find out the end product, the final goal, what tasks other people are assigned, how all of these tasks relate, and so on and so on and so on. They will likely be coming up with solutions to all the other tasks as well as they correlate requirements on interactions. They will suggest that, while X is perhaps a good idea within a task to do Y, it won't work in the greater scheme of things because of Z over in this other part.
We need more systems-oriented people. We are, on the other hand, producing more task-oriented people. The systems people see the big picture and work to solve the big picture. The task person might say, "This will fix that problem" and the system person will say, "Ok, but when it does, there will be ramifications out here that will kill us all."
Unfortunately, our entire society is aiming itself at task-oriented people. At the end of high school you have two possible choices. You can start a career ... or you can go to college. Starting a career will put you into a specialized field. Going to college will ... put you into a specialized field. You can become an auto mechanic right out of high school or you can go college and design robotic hands. In either case you make choices that will eliminate all other possibilities. In our highly technical, highly specialized world there is little room for "generalists", people who can see how a car's engine could be improved or a robotic hand can connect with biology.
In the university we call it "cross discipline". A microbiologist might work with a electrical engineer to design a prosthetic hand that connects to the patient's nerve endings. What a grand idea! Unfortunately, while it's much vaunted, it doesn't happen nearly as much as one might think. You see, while "cross discipline" is a fine theoretical idea, it involves people. What happens when a genius at microbiology is told by a genius at electrical engineering, "Your idea won't work here"? It's not a coalition; it's a collision -- a clash of egos. You see, she has had many years of special training and work in microbiology and how dare he tell her that it won't work??!! Task versus system.
From our youngest days we are classified, divided up, specialized. We are part of the "in crowd" or we are not. We are on the spelling team or we are not. We are athletes or we are not. We are cool or we are geeks. Some of the divisions are real and unavoidable, but most, quite frankly, are artificial and even lies. We are given sharp boundaries that we are not to cross, boundaries that only become sharper with education. Traversing them is hard, sometimes impossible. And by the time we come out the other end of the educational tubing, we are set in stone. East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet. Unfortunately, that is task-oriented. Without systems-oriented thinking, we will be forever playing catch up with our tasks that work fine in this single application but don't seem to work together in the entire system. We will find ourselves asking for all of the fine solutions we are given, "Can't we all just get along?"
2 comments:
What you describe is program management combined with multiple core technical competencies. This person likely has a core expertise, too. However, as you know from personal experience, these types of well-rounded people tend to be viewed in a less-than-positive way by their task-oriented colleagues...particularly in an academic environment that encourages individual achievement (via the publication record). Yes, it's all well and good to be on a "multidisciplinary" team, but don't ask me to take into account someone else's work! Pfff! Which, of course, is why most of these multidisciplinary efforts are such spectacular failures.
Would that it was only in the academic environment. The perspective in the commercial world is largely the same. Indeed, in our culture don't we have the view that a foot specialist, for instance, is better than a general practitioner when it comes to feet? Pfff! What does that general doctor know? I want a specialist!! (Apply the same thinking to just about any field you wish.)
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