E = mc^2, where m = idea, c = flow, and E = emergence...
This weekâs book, Social Physics: How Good Ideas SpreadâThe Lessons From A New Science by Alex Pentland, was very interesting. I may be way off but, I feel like this book, in a way, took a more focused look at the things that lead to emergence in a system of people (organizations, communities, cities, and nations). More specifically, he honed in on how idea flow or social interaction is the catalyst for innovation and change. Although not directly speaking on emergence, his research did conclude that the cumulative intellect of a group of people in a community, city, organization, extâŚhad less to do with the individual intellect of its members, and more to do with the way the members of said group interact. This was very resemblant to the concepts in the emergence reading we had several weeks ago.
It is funny because there were several instances where Dr. Pentland would, very eloquently, build up the research he did for many of the conclusions he drew in this book. My expectations were always that his research would result in some astronomically incredible conclusion that I would never have thought of, but it seemed as though much of the conclusions he drew up were common sense. I do not want to diminish his work in any way. I think this book was very revealing and interesting, but a lot of the conclusions drawn were what I expected them to be. For example, one of his major points in the book was that the people with a diverse social group were always the most innovative people. He mentioned that this was due to the fact that people with diverse social groups could look at a problem in a more holistic view and be open to many more ideas. Â This makes sense to me and would not strike me as a conclusion that shocks me.
That said, what was intriguing was type of person Dr. Pentland chose to contrast against the person with a diverse social network to prove his point: the âexpertâ. This point hit home for me because I have worked in an organization where new ideas were like the plague and people in said organization would put all their efforts in finding a way to make  known solutions to old problems fix new problems. I am blessed to have a very diverse work experience, and as an U.S. Army Officer, I also have to change jobs quite frequently. In my 12 years of service, I have had the honor of holding 7 different positions. My last job was one that brought me to a predominantly civilian organization. What this means is that, unlike my past jobs where personnel come and go frequently, my last job had people working for me that had been there for over 20 years doing the same thing. Kudos to my boss who understood my diverse background and saw putting me in the leadership position he did as an opportunity to bring innovative new ideas to the group and move them forward. That said, that job was easily the most difficult leadership challenge I had faced in my career. I have led a platoon of over 30 men into combat, I have commanded a company of over 200 men in combat, I have been the CIO-J6 of an organization of over 3000 personnel spread out all over the nation of Afghanistan, and none of these jobs were nearly as challenging to me as working to lead this group of nearly 20 civilian personnel and getting them to adopt new ideas. The biggest challenge was getting a group of entrenched personnel, who had done their jobs the same way for decades, to understand that they had to get with the times. As Dr. Pentland showed throughout his research, a groupâs ability to produce innovative ideas were based on the cumulative intellect of the group. His research showed that the groups whose leaders were âexpertsâ suffered from the fact that the leader is good at what he is good at and wants to fit solutions to what he/she knows. In my case, although I was assigned the leader of the group, the true leaders were the personnel who had been there for several years and had the influence over their peers. Every collaborative effort I made to have the group begin looking to new innovative ways to achieve our goals, were railroaded by the naysayers who did not want to learn new ways of doing things. I wish I could say that I found a way to motivate these naysayers to get on board, but I actually ended up having to remove them from our group. It was not until this happened that our organization began to flourish. Without the constant contradiction to what needed to be done, people in the group were open to the innovative ideas brought up in our collaborative sessions. This compounded by the tangible, positive results our organization was producing due to the adoption of several of these innovative ideas, help foster a cultural change in our organization. As a Soldier, it was hard for me to have to let go my team mates instead of making the effort to bring them into the fold, but I realized that with the time I had, something had to give.
Iâm going a bit long here, but the point of my story was to show how Dr. Pentlandâs concept of a having a diverse social network leads to great idea flow, and to show an example of how experts that tend to live in their comfort zones can suppress innovation. Great read!
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