In the New York Times a while back there was an interesting commentary entitled ”Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike.” It is hardly a revolutionary idea but the author makes a good case that any number of businesses can benefit from an outsider’s perspective.
I would take this argument a step further and argue that businesses should also actively seek out cross-disciplinary thinkers—generalists who are well-versed in a variety of different fields. I say this because history has proven that innovation only rarely comes from those experts who know “more and more about less and less.”
More often, the really big breakthroughs come from those thinkers who are able to make connections between different discoveries. As James Burke reminds us in his excellent book, Connections, Alexander Graham Bell was not an expert in either electricity or magnetism, but he knew enough to combine the work of Leon Scott, Michael Faraday and H.C. Oersted to invent the telephone.
In this same way, I don’t believe that the next great breakthroughs will result from straight scientific discoveries in nanotechnology, material science, computers, robotics or brain-scanning technology. Instead, they will come from the convergence of these different forces by individuals who are able to make unique connections. Therefore, in order to “jump the curve” and stay ahead of these breakthroughs (or, better yet, have your company make the breakthroughs) it will help to bring in not just “zero-gravity” thinkers but some cross-disciplinary thinkers as well.
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