Mental Mono-Culture
Published on 2 Aug 2005 at 12:19 am |
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Filed under The Cargo Cults of Business, Principal Acronyms Only, Business and Corporation Related, Information Technology.
Michael Hawley writes about the paucity of modern renaissance men — and women — in Technology Review. He especially points out the extreme specialization of modern careers.
In agriculture the term “monocrop" is used to describe large plantings of the same, usually genetically similar, and in some cases genetically identical crops. Such plantings are very susceptible to disease and pests. Economically speaking, it is also madness to depend upon them because a failure of one crop can wipe out the farmer financially. Diversification is, of course, the solution, as any financial planner will tell you.
Modern American business practices nearly ensure a mental monocrop. A business which has hired and developed a staff consisting of people from one particular discipline has embraced this practice, but so has one which preferentially — or lazily — hires individuals with a very narrow skill set. Since neither the staff as a whole, nor individual employees themselves are sufficiently diversified the organization cannot adequately respond to changing market conditions, recognize opportunities outside its usual core business, or develop the unique synergies which arise when ideas and viewpoints are allowed to cross from one discipline into another.
Hiring smart, flexible people with broad education and experience can solve this problem, but is rarely practiced. I suppose it’s more difficult to identify smart, capable, flexible people than it is to check off buzzwords on a resume. Still, this is what’s needed.
I will use IT as an example since it is the area with which I’m most familiar. Most software developers will tell you that a solid understanding of how computer systems work is the keystone of their art. Once a developer really understands computers and programming them, the rest is mostly syntax and slogging. While there is an advantage in recent experience with a particular syntax it is not an overwhelming one, and a good developer can pick up a new syntax in a matter of a few days to a few weeks.
Furthermore, IT issues in general are largely the same across industries. The British government has actually constructed a management standard called ITIL which pays little or no attention to industry or market sector, and is quickly becoming the global standard for certifying IT managers and organizing IT departments and infrastructure.
In spite of all of this, a quick look at Monster or Dice will show you thousands of employers requiring experience in a particular industry, and thousands more requiring experience with a particular software package. Similarly certifications are taken in lieu of actual ability, the ads are filled with requirements for MCSE, ITIL, PMI, 6 Sigma, CCNA, and many others. It’s not that I don’t recognize the need for expertise, or even for a certain degree of specialization. Rather the problem comes in mis-defining the level of specialization (experience with QuickBasic vs. VisualBasic for an extreme example) and in failing to set the proper value on a broad background of experience and education. Perhaps the IT world is a little faster changing than some, but across the modern business spectrum we live in an environment of fast and accelerating change.
Overspecialization and monoculture both individually and organizationally leave us poorly prepared to meet, or profit from, change.
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