Lensing systems

Many people may be familiar with the concept of lensing from gravitational lenses, where light is bent around a massive gravity well and it allows us to see objects on the other side of the thing sitting at the bottom of that gravity well. Lensing, as I'm using the concept, should be understood as the process by which information or matter is transformed due to contact with a substance, surface, or process without significantly reducing the essential characteristic of the original information or matter. By definition, this also means that all lenses are filters. They impact only select information or matter and discard the rest. Your glasses, for example, do not bend metal, only light.

So lensing, transformation catalyst, system, intentional arrangement of elements.

Why this matters

Lenses are one of a wide variety of tools that we use to achieve the things we want in the world. Whether you understand how lenses work or not, you are using them everyday, all day. It is more effective to use them consciously than unconsciously and to be able to recognize a lens when you're looking at one so that you know how best to use it.

Type of lenses

Given the incredibly general definition I've provided, it may be prudent to explore some examples here.

Physical - These lenses include optical lenses used to create microscopes, eyeglasses, lasers, commercial telescopes, and cameras. However, they also include satellite dishes, amphitheaters, blenders, refrigerators, and capacitors. Each of these objects interacts with matter and, while keeping the essential aspect of the matter intact, transforms it in a fundamental way (amplification, reflection, liquefaction, radiation, deceleration, etc).

Conceptual - Analytical frameworks, mental models, particular professional "hats", disciplinary perspectives. These lenses are constituted of ways of thinking about things in the world in such a way that an intentional outcome is created, one which may be predictable in scope and vector but not depth and complexity. For example, I can analyze a situation at work with a Budget hat (what are the monetary implications here?), an HR hat (what are the policy and practice impacts here?), or a systems thinker hat (what systems-level inputs or constraints are inspiring this situation to occur?). In life, I can look at things with a sociologist lens (which cultural elements and from what ethnic group does that behavior appear to originate from?), a data analytics lens (what is the best way to represent this information in a data format and what are the salient variables for analysis?), an empathic lens (how will this make people feel and why?), etc.

Perceptual - Chess master's vision of board positions, an expert musician's ear, a parent's eye for childish mischief, levels of complexity, biases, priming effects, process distortions, positioning, assistive devices, artificial sensory apparatuses (infrared goggles, barometric pressure sensors, etc).

Anything that belongs in this category impacts a very simple process where information arrives at our brain (through sensory organs) and is processed to create a model (through cognitive processing). You'll notice some overlap between this and the prior example due to the second part of that process.

Familiar systems using lenses

I've just stuffed a lot of things into a very tight conceptual space so I'm going to give you some real world assemblages of these different types and call out their component parts.

Spotter and Shooter

Spotter and shooter pairs function as a machine (as most teams should/ do). For this example, we're highlighting only the spotter. The spotter's job in this system is to take the raw input of sensory impressions from the world, filter it down to essential data for the shooter to know (using the conceptual lens of their objective and the perceptual lens of their experience sniping), then condense that information for transmission. The shooter does something different than lensing in that he converts information into action, which is different in ways that are as essential as they are obvious.

Speaking of teams...

Teams at work

The DISC system of defining personality type, which seems to have replaced Tracom's social style system, breaks people down into roughly 4 regularly occurring categories based on central concern. Driving, Influence, Clarity, and Support. Driving type cares about getting things done. Influence type cares primarily about emotional engagement with others for purpose, clarity types are looking for full understanding of the data and support types are most concerned with relationships and emotional states of others.

A typical system involving all of these types might be a team in an office setting. In a staff meeting, the driving type cares about what needs to get done, the influence type cares about addressing issues they feel need to be discussed, the clarity type is interesting in giving or receiving data or discussing plans to obtain additional data and the support type is mindful of how the things people are saying in the meeting are impacting their relationships (they want to avoid confrontation at all costs). Their functions are all necessary for the machine they comprise components of to work but the reason why this is a good example of lensing is because each type has a natural lens that they evaluate a situation with. Driving type -> action. Influence type -> communication. Clarity type -> information. Support type -> relationships. Each can receive the same information but will have wildly distinct takeaways because they are leveraging distinct conceptual lenses by default.

A typical office might have a clarity role in information systems, data processing or audit. The support type will typically be customer service. Driver type is probably management or project focused. Influence type is probably management or communications and branding focused. The benefit in this configuration of having the 4 types work together is that it reduces the probability of blind spots taking the team out versus a configuration missing 1 or more of those types.

Lensing systems - the difference

The difference between a system that leverages lenses and a lensing system is that a lensing system's primary way of achieving action is through lenses (as opposed to switches/ triggers, which accept information or matter and produce substantively different states of information or matter). An easy example of a lensing system is a data analytics pipeline. An analytics pipeline is the equivalent of a laser. Successive operations take data and create operational insights that others can then take action on. The analytics pipeline itself is the lensing system though and can be retrofit to any other system that may need those insights. It's not just a component of other systems.

Conversations

Communication is one of the most omnipresent forms of lensing systems that we have available. Communication involves at least 3 people and/or points of time with a minimum of 1 for each category (2 people, 1 point in time or 1 person, 2 points in time) and involves information transmission. Due to people bringing different set of cognitive and perceptual lenses to a communication event, the information that is circulating in that space is changed substantively but not essentially.

One of the reasons that communication can be so productive deals with some of the natural lenses that people operate at. I've written before about Temple Grandin's work differentiating linear verbal thinkers, object visualizers and spatial abstract thinkers. Linear verbal thinkers deal well with linear systems (I push the ball and the ball rolls) and with linear notation (words, writing, sequential symbols, etc). Object visualizes do well with remembering specific things that they have directly observed. Spatial abstract thinkers are good at understanding complex systems and non-linearity.

Alone, no single thinking type is sufficient to perceive and effectively interact with our world. Linear verbals know stories and equations but not specific anomalous facts or unverified possibilities. Spatial abstracts know theories, grounded or not, but not specific facts. Object visualizers know facts but not abstract arrangements of those facts or systematic linear representations of them. These are default positions and not meant to be interpreted as inherent permanent limitations for these types of thinker.

When taken together, as components of a system, the three identified thinker types form a lensing system for accurately interpreting and interacting not only with current reality but historical and potential future reality. When you combine these elements, you get storytellers (recording history and making linear sense of current reality to deliver information efficiently), scientists (observing and documenting current reality), and philosophers (speculating on the meaning of it all). There are other names for these roles and these roles appear in our society just as frequently as the thinking types themselves do.

In my next article, I'll cover how to consider and build a lensing system with an example from data analytics and another from social systems.