Collaboration and "ego": A follow-up to my previous post
I was really struck by what Tom, the director of the choir I'm in, said yesterday.
He gave a lecture at the University of MN this week on his research and dissertation regarding Bach, theology, and Bach's bible, and remarked how the musicologists would come in literally with their noses in the air, with an "impress me" attitude. As if they knew everything, or expected to know everything. Tom said he kind of had to portray a "hey guys, I know a little more than you do in this area" sort of style.
Why would musicologists presume to know everything, if Tom was the one who wrote his dissertation with Bach's bible in hand, if Tom was the one who spent hours and hours pouring over a 17th-century book in German, if Tom was the one who actually helped recover and publicize it? Tom was the specialist in this area.
Why do people try to specialize in everything, or, more importantly, why do people think that they specialize in everything?
I don't like the way I worded my previous post. It might sound like I was over-valuing a sort of path to become "smarter." That's not it.
I work in an environment where the business need for knowledge is astounding. At first, my job was an "internship" so my bosses were kind enough to share much of their vast knowledge in many domains. However, my job turned into something requiring knowledge that I had to acquire for myself. I had to "specialize" in something so that the business needs (the larger-scoped goals of the project) could be met. I think I stepped on my bosses egos a little bit at times, because they somehow thought that they were supposed to know absolutely everything, and I flat-out told them that, for a project like this, that is impossible. We all have to specialize so that we can produce something that is "smarter" than ourselves. We have to lay down our egos in the name of something greater.
Arguments over who created the Linux operating system are another thing that astound me. It's open-source, everyone created it. Why argue over whether it's called "GNU/Linux" or just "Linux"? Linus Torvalds *initiated* the development of the kernel, and GNU came before it, but neither party is "God" and neither "created" it.
Ego-based intelligence isn't as intelligent as one could be, whether "one" is a person or an entity of many people. I think that's what I was trying to say in my previous post. And, no one is "more intelligent" than the other because of a hierarchical escalation on the "specialization" ladder---they're just different. All roles and specializations are important in making something greater than a single person, a single ego.
He gave a lecture at the University of MN this week on his research and dissertation regarding Bach, theology, and Bach's bible, and remarked how the musicologists would come in literally with their noses in the air, with an "impress me" attitude. As if they knew everything, or expected to know everything. Tom said he kind of had to portray a "hey guys, I know a little more than you do in this area" sort of style.
Why would musicologists presume to know everything, if Tom was the one who wrote his dissertation with Bach's bible in hand, if Tom was the one who spent hours and hours pouring over a 17th-century book in German, if Tom was the one who actually helped recover and publicize it? Tom was the specialist in this area.
Why do people try to specialize in everything, or, more importantly, why do people think that they specialize in everything?
I don't like the way I worded my previous post. It might sound like I was over-valuing a sort of path to become "smarter." That's not it.
I work in an environment where the business need for knowledge is astounding. At first, my job was an "internship" so my bosses were kind enough to share much of their vast knowledge in many domains. However, my job turned into something requiring knowledge that I had to acquire for myself. I had to "specialize" in something so that the business needs (the larger-scoped goals of the project) could be met. I think I stepped on my bosses egos a little bit at times, because they somehow thought that they were supposed to know absolutely everything, and I flat-out told them that, for a project like this, that is impossible. We all have to specialize so that we can produce something that is "smarter" than ourselves. We have to lay down our egos in the name of something greater.
Arguments over who created the Linux operating system are another thing that astound me. It's open-source, everyone created it. Why argue over whether it's called "GNU/Linux" or just "Linux"? Linus Torvalds *initiated* the development of the kernel, and GNU came before it, but neither party is "God" and neither "created" it.
Ego-based intelligence isn't as intelligent as one could be, whether "one" is a person or an entity of many people. I think that's what I was trying to say in my previous post. And, no one is "more intelligent" than the other because of a hierarchical escalation on the "specialization" ladder---they're just different. All roles and specializations are important in making something greater than a single person, a single ego.