Specialisation or In-breeding?

We live in an age of specialisation.

Managers learn from management consultants, or are trained be management-teachers.

Executives are mentored by retired executives, or by academics hawking over-priced MBAs.

HR people have conferences with HR people.

Accountants get the necessary letters after their name by studying for a certificate that proves they can account.

Specialisation.

Narrowing.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with it of course. Working with other specialists allows deeper, quicker connection through shared languages and understandings.

But...

In biology there’s a danger in a population reproducing only from within itself.

It’s called in-breeding.

Unhealthy mutations.

A lack of vigour.

Terrible abnormalities and abhorrations suddenly erupt.

The viability of the population decreases.

In-breeding occurs in the realm of ideas.

And in the realm of business.

‘insiders’ neither notice the decay of their practices nor - if they do - are willing to do anything about it. To do so would be to give up their power and potentially threaten their income. The failing systems and practices appear ’normal'

So we see economists making the same absurd assumptions, cheered on by other economists.

Managers pursuing policies that patently do not work.

Organisation after organisation fails to achieve what they claim they intend to achieve.

We become less human, and our practices less sustainable.

The antidote to in-breeding is cross-fertilisation.

It’s getting an input of vigour, difference and alternative-perspective from outside of the safety of the familiar.

My own background is theatre/dance. For 30 years I pursued deep levels of practical research in communities and organisations across four continents.

It shocks me, how little the lessons of performance are valued outside the performance world.

I don’t mean businesses ‘bringing in an actor’ for a bit of fun.

I mean organisations accessing the deep-level knowledge performers have about how to deliver excellent, original product, on-time and on-budget.

I mean organisations genuinely seeking to discover radically different ways of doing things.

I mean leaders digging into words like: ‘improvisation’, ‘ensemble’, ‘curiosity’, ‘innovation’, ‘creativity’, ‘agency’, ‘interconnection’, ‘interdisciplinary’, ‘intercultural’.

These are the life-blood of making and delivering performance, yet are too much ignored outside the performance world - marginalised by specialists intent on keeping their jobs, or too lazy to think latterly.

So organisations continue to atrophy into a state of inbred incompetence, distracted by shiny new technologies and self-styled ‘innovations', ignoring fundamental incompetencies, too timid to look outside their silos of habit.

We could all do better.

If you ready to break that cycle, drop me a message