Glen -
On 3/16/17 10:18 AM, glen ☣ wrote:
But I'd like to toss some words at your idea of coherence. First Marcus'
distinction would play a role. Polymaths, as long as they're on board with a
specific context, look exactly like specialists. Generalists would have fewer
specific domains into which they could do a deep dive. So, yes, too many
generalists presents a problem for coherence. But too many polymaths may not.
I think this is a reasonable model, however, I think I attribute another
quality to polymaths than has been alluded to here. I've rarely found
someone I consider a true polymath to be tractable to the organizations
goals... they tend to use their high-bandwidth broad-spectrum abilities
to keep their organizations happy (enough) with them, but in my
experience, they rarely harness their full skills to the organization
they work for. I don't judge that as bad, but it makes me suspect that
the discussion here assumes that a polymath will actually be
contributing to their full ability to the organization they work for.
That discussion probably conflates the organization vs. sub-organization,
though. It seems reasonable to think that a conglomerate (Red Cross or Intel)
could have variable coherence depending on the domain of the measure. I used
such an argument recently when trying to think about the disaster response of
the Feds vs. the local CERT group (in which Renee' participates). The
coherence of the Feds is fundamentally different from the coherence of the
local CERT group. Either or both could cohere more or less, but even if they
both do, the coherence of the super-org is of a higher order than that of the
sub-org ... it's like a coherence of coherences of coherences, etc.
I do think that coherence distributes across scale... but I'm not sure
of the appropriate language for that concept.
The "serial entrepreneur" becomes an interesting case, I suppose. These are people of
high variance, but who don't look for a home. They're like spittle bugs, they abandon their
artifacts, move to a new location, and build new artifacts. But the distinction between a
"serial entrepreneur" and a nomadic hippie seems like a very thin distinction to me.
Only people who fetishize power or money would see a difference. Neither seems employable. Yet
they both cohere by some measure. And both (probably) contribute to higher order coherence of
various super-orgs.
I suspect that we could look to ecosystems for some analogies to help
think about this... just as you reference with spittle bugs?
- Steve
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