Depth or Breadth

In Range, David Epstein argues that the “ability to integrate broadly” is our greatest strength. Which is the “exact opposite of narrow specialization”. If we narrowly know only one area very well, we tend to look and find only the “same old patterns”. But:

“In the wicked world, with ill-defined challenges and few rigid rules, range can be a life hack.”

 

Most problems in a field can be solved by specialists in that field. That’s to be expected. But when experts in a field get stuck, quite often we see outsiders with a broad range of knowledge of multiple fields (even if they’re not specialists in most of those fields) finding solutions. Why/how?

“The outside view probes for deep structural similarities to the current problem in different ones. The outside view is deeply counterintuitive because it requires a decision maker to ignore unique surface features of the current project, on which they are the expert, and instead look outside for structurally similar analogies.”

 

Dedre Gentner created what is called the “ambiguous sorting task”. It consists of 25 cards, each describing a real-world phenomenon, like how a router works or how an economic bubble works. Participants are asked to group the cards based on whatever commonalities they can find. (This means the same card can go into multiple groups). Most people group topics based on domain (physics, economics, literature). Finding a deeper structure/commonality is harder e.g. noticing that some cards involve positive feedback loops, and they cut across domains. In general, Gentner found that students who had taken classes in a broad range of domains found deeper structures far more often.

 

Epstein points out that we have specialists in different fields frame policies and regulations in their respective areas – banking, insurance, stock markets etc. But the real world is “wicked” – some aspects cut across all these fields e.g. loans, and individuals involved in the activity. Far too often, we find at great cost that “systemic issues” got missed altogether because, hey, we don’t let multi-field folks frame policies (after all, they’re not experts at anything!)…

 

Epstein says the way a popular and well-known phrase has been truncated reflects society’s attitude. The phrase in question?

“A jack of all trades, master of none.”

But that’s the truncated version. The full version is:

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but sometimes better than a master of one.”

Touché.