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Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking
Matthew Syed
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2 types of Dominance - punitive and prestige.
Punitive leader rules by power, doesn't explain, doesn't care how it makes others feel. This fosters obedience. The 'prestige' leader is highly tuned to what others are thinking and saying. This fosters trust.
Google sought to figure why some teams worked better than others. In a study which has been widely replicated, they found that by far the most impt factor was psychological safety. People on high p.s. teams more likely to harness the power of diverse ideas, they bring in more revenue, and they're rated as effective twice as often.
Leaders often worry that inviting other views, particularly disagreements, would undermine their authority. In fact the opposite happens. People become more committed when given a chance to contribute.
You need prestige when trying to come up with a plan, but then need dominance when put plan into effect. So a good leader needs to know how, and when, to pivot between the two.
Amazon's 'golden silence' meetings. Instead of Powerpoint bullet points, start every meeting with total silence as team reads a 6 page memo that summarises, in narrative form, the agenda. This forces writer to think a lot more deeply about proposal, and to organize thoughts into a narrative. Very powerful, because forces people to think about their position, before they hear what anyone else thinks. And the most senior person speaks last.
Brainwriting instead of brainstorming. Instead of verbalizing, everyone writes ideas on cards, which are then pinned to wall, and everyone votes for the ones like best. Crucial that these are anonymous - don't put anything that 'tells' who wrote it.
Extreme example - study of Everest climbers found that teams that came from societies with hierarchical traditions were more likely to die on mt. Everest is extreme example of dynamic and rapidly changing situation, and in those, you need to be able to adapt and change plans. Hierarchy is impt, bc leader is supposed to have big picture, and divides tasks among subs, who follow without argument.
One emphatic finding from psych research is that humans dislike uncertainty, and the feeling that they lack control over their lives. When faced with uncertainty, we often attempt to regain control by putting our faith in a dominant figurehead who can regain control. Religious implication. There are 2 types of church - very hierarchical ones like RC and Mormons, low hierarchy ones like Protestants. When times are good, people join the low hier. churches. When jobs threatened, they go Catholic.
This is a dangerous paradox. When the environment is complex and uncertain, no one leader can solve every problem. You need diverse voices to maximise collective intelligence.
Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Peter Thiel, Jerry Yang - all immigrants or children of immigrants. Study 2017 found that 57% of top 35 Fortune 500 companies were founded or co-founded by immigrants or children of immigrants. Immigrants make disproportionate contributions to technology, to patent production and to academic science.
When guy came up with idea of wheeled suitcases, est cos laughed: big strong men wouldn't like to look weak, they reasoned. But shd have asked customers, who loved it.
Played card game. Pitted experts and novices at bridge. Obviously experts better. But then reversed rules so that low card wins trick. Experts flummoxed - couldn't cope with change - whereas novices just kept going, and quickly outperformed 'experts' who were stuck and couldn't adjust.
Immigrants have experienced diff culture, diff way of doing things. Don't see est way as immutable. Outsider experience gives them power to question status quo; and can draw on experience of diff ways of doing things. "Why does it have to be this way?" and "What ideas can we pull from other situations?"
Study found that on large campuses, students fell into homogenous groups, because the larger popn made easy to find similar people. But on small campuses, far fewer potential friends, so people came into contact with much more diverse groups. Same thing has happened with Internet - now easy to find people with your niche interests, so no reason to explore outside your echo chamber.
Easy check: does a community's belief system actively undermine the trustworthiness of any outsiders who don't subscribe to the central dogma? Then it's prob an echo chamber.
It's not that people aren't exposed to contradictory ideas. What has happened is that they've been convinced that the outside ideas can't be trusted. Everything outside their beliefs is fake news. If they've taken that medicine, anything the other side just reinforces the belief that the other side is conspiring to mislead you.
People are capable of change, if you gain their trust first.
US Air Force post WW2 had very reliable planes, but kept having hundreds of safety issues. Problem was that 'experts' had come up with an 'average airman' and designed all the cockpits on that basis. It wasn't until made everything adjustable for each individual that safety problems ended.
This is a metaphor, a microcosm of the larger world - everything is standardised for a mythical 'average citizen'. Standardised education, standardised policies, standardis0ed health treatments etc.
Test human and chimp 2 yos and they have almost identical abilities at many tasks, except one. If they watch an adult an adult perform a complex task, all the humans can copy it, but none of the chimps can. Social learning is what sets us apart from rest of primates.
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