Get curious

I was lucky enough to hear Bill Buxton talk some weeks ago. He’s a legend in the tech industry and I was pleased to discover that not only is he a Canadian who hails from Edmonton, but he’s also a great speaker who talks frankly about how industry innovation happens with genuine insight and experience.

One of the points he raised that resonated strongly with me was his emphasis on the importance of T-shaped people – those with some depth in one specific field, but also a breadth of relatively shallow experience across many fields. Many of us have heard this idea before – the value of having expertise in one domain but literacy in many. His follow on though was that high performing teams are themselves sets of T-shaped people.

Broadening my own experience is something I’ve always valued, because I firmly believe that breadth of experience, of background, of approach and of attitude makes me a better leader and team member. Everyone has to go deep in something and most people have some natural aptitude or interest in at least one area. But what I think is really important and interesting is when people embrace things outside their comfort zone and explore different fields. 

Every top performer I’ve ever met has been multi-dimensional. The very best leaders are generalists; the people who are the most effective in driving change in financial services are both technology and business savvy; the pure technologist knows many technologies, not just one; the expert mobile strategist uses every device they can get their hands on. The very best people with whom I’ve worked have a curiosity that drives them to ask what, how and most importantly why.

Most of us are unlikely to become true experts in multiple fields – and we probably shouldn’t try. But we should never stop being curious and exploring everything outside our comfort zone. It breaks down barriers if you are genuinely interested in, for instance, how different facets of your company really work - how a marketing team functions; how the HR business works; how customer facing teams work day in and out making customers’ lives better. Every domain is challenging, and thus interesting, and thus worth learning.

This is perhaps obvious and intuitive. But there are a couple of ramifications that aren’t always obvious. Great teams are themselves combinations of people with a common literacy and contrasting expertise. And we know this: no-one sends an army to war with all soldiers carrying the same weapon. No-one staffs a football team with all the same physical characteristics. No-one (these days) sets up a management structure with ten people with exactly the same background. 

We have a word for this: diversity. We talk a lot about diversity in the workforce, the importance of ensuring our teams are staffed with people with a variety of backgrounds. Some grumble this is for reasons of PR or social justice - and imply that it weakens teams. I see it completely differently.

A team with a variety of perspectives is a team that makes better decisions. A team that can embrace differences and productively debate and contrast approaches is a team that outperforms the clones. And most importantly, a team with different experiences is the best way for everyone to broaden their knowledge. I believe these types of teams foster curiosity and develop more innovative and relevant solutions that create impactful customer experiences.

Expertise should never take a back seat. You need deep expertise, that’s absolute. But if you do so at the expense of broader literacy – well, chances are you’ll be a flash in a pan, a one trick pony.

The need for diversity isn’t just true for the culture of teams. It’s true for complex software systems, for business models, for ecosystems – basically, for anything that needs to be able to adapt and flex. Standards, consistent processes and monoculture work very well when a problem domain is static; when there’s no urgency to grow, adapt or learn. But for those of us operating in a world of change, for those of us that value curiosity, we can’t just have a sideline interest in embracing diversity – we need it at the core of how we build our teams.