Creativity of eminent engineers and achievers
Not long ago, I was talking with a brilliant engineer about the challenges engineers face in coming up with creative ideas. No, not all, and this is certainly not intended to offend, in fact, we have many engineers in our think tank who are the absolute exception to that rule. Now my acquaintance engineer noted that he believed that;
“Creative thinking people need to continue to move into different positions and areas because in the early years (more or less depending on how difficult the areas are) a person will bring all the fresh new perspective and mind and on their previous experience for one area and then basically that person ends up putting themselves in a box of their own creation. This reduces a person’s effectiveness the longer they’re in the same field.”
Wow, that was a bold statement, but think about it, he’s absolutely right, and yes, another way of visualizing the same problem posed and a viable solution. Sometimes I wish Google X would try to reorganize its search engine, a secondary system for cross-pollination. Twitter should be used for people with ideas to post to the world, fully searchable, not stupid messages or BS party line gimmicks. The Internet needs an update for human progress.
“Does this lead us once again to stagnation versus growth?” he asks rhetorically, adding that “Maybe all the thinkers should constantly move to different areas, while the non-thinking doers should be in the same area doing the ideas put forward by the thinkers. I’m sure you could create a graph that plot the bell curve of time against the efficacy of a creative mind in any given field”.
Ah now we’re getting somewhere, do you see where he’s going with this, have you considered this, he’s right isn’t he? Sure it is, but I think the graph is not static either, the chartered line moves with culture, dominance, money flows, nations, etc. An article I read said that more than 2 years at a top university was detrimental to the “eminently successful creative genius” as Professor Dean Simonton and an expert on the subject calls them. And there are many examples; Dell, Gates, Jobs, etc., and another problem is boredom, people stop thinking once they learn something, they stop asking questions.
An interesting book to read is; “The First 20 Hours” by Josh Kaufman (highly recommend this book; CYA the publisher sent me an advanced copy to read), where he shows empirically that rapid engagement, interest, and questions happen at a super-fast rate in the beginning. Once someone masters something and becomes the top 1%, that could take 10,000 hours, then they often find a breakthrough as well. So maybe there’s a gap in the middle, and maybe someone with a fluid mind can keep the thought process innovative all the time; passion for mastery or effort.
What I mean is that we might need to go around Bell Curve and look for the trap in the ravine! That’s why you need a group of experts, to bridge the gap. Now, consider the “tipping points” of a bell curve to sustain innovation? What happens if you close the gap with additional “channels” or frequencies, then get all kinds of humps on your inverse Bell Curve inverse, and play that out, just as you would invest in inverse ETFs using a derivative algorithm? Please consider all this and think about it.