Rebel Ideas
Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking by Matthew Syed
🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences
Rebel Ideas brings a whole new dimension to the word diversity and reinforces its importance in the fast paced complex world of today.
This book informs of the necessary shift in perspective from diversity being a politically correct distraction, an issue of morality and social justice to one of performance and innovation.
However, many challenges are in the way: hierarchies, dominance dynamics, knowledge clustering, information cascades.
🎨 Impressions
I was really impressed with this book. The examples used were adventurous, original and engaging. Syed covers the CIA’s decision-making around 9/11, information-sharing during the 1995 Everest disaster. The book is very well structured, going through the ways our thinking has become 'clone like'. It is very easy to read and a real page turner.
How I Discovered It
I was keen to read a Matthew Syed book, this was his most recent one. I intend to read some more of his in the future. I liked the idea that he was part of the 2016 Euro team for England - and how everyone thought it was unusual as he knew nothing about football. But this is where the begin originates from - it is all about diversity.
Who Should Read It?
Anyone who wants to think about diversity in a broader, applicable way. If you often lead or work in teams, then this book contains useful ideas on how to be more effective.
✍️ My Top 3 Quotes
Harnessing the power of diversity is set to become a key source of competitive advantage, and the surest route to reinvention and growth. You may say that we are entering the age of diversity.
Diversity seems to be a buzz topic. People often meant different things by the same term. Some talked about gender diversity, others about neurodiversity, others about racial diversity. Often, people didn't define what they mean or specify why it mattered. There seemed to be fuzziness in the debate.
When faced with uncertainty, we often attempt to regain control by putting our faith in a dominant figurehead who can restore order. But when the environment is complex and uncertain, this is precisely when one brain - even a dominant brain - is insufficient to solve the problem.
📒 Summary + Notes
Rebel Ideas emphasises and encourages stepping back and viewing performance from a fundamentally different vantage point. A holistic perspective. Diversity is a critical ingredient driving collective intelligence leading to a whole which is greater than the sum of the parts.
Rebels vs Clones
Teams need to be diversified, everyone will bring something to a team so it should be about minds thinking differently. This will create new ideas which should be considered, even if not accepted.
Often, people are not challenged on their blind spots so don’t get a chance to see them. They are not exposed to other perspectives so became more certain of their own. By reducing perspective blindness and exposing individuals and groups to new ideas and ways of thinking should result in increased performance, radical innovation and greater motivation.
However, many challenges are in the way: hierarchies, dominance dynamics, knowledge clustering, information cascades. A team of rebels through the process of dominance dynamic can become the equivalent of a team of clones. Compounding others errors rather than correcting them, teams becoming increasingly confident about objectively terrible judgements.
Innovation
There is marginal innovation where you continuously improve and where recombinant innovation where you take two different ideas, form different fields and merge them.
Having a diverse opinion and disciplines of different natures involved, it means you can view the idea and topic from the outside and in a clearer view compared to being immersed in the intricacies.
The connective and multiplying effect of new ideas which in turn inspires news ones enables higher productivity and innovation. Making sure people are connected in networks helps the cross-pollination of ideas.
Echo Chambers
We interact with people with similar interests and values, which is of course normal. But we are at risk of an echo chamber - having our beliefs regularly repeated by the people around us in person and online. Echo chambers undermine trust in alternative views. Therefore gaining trust with people with opposing views allows us to be more receptive of the idea instead of rejecting or finding an excuse for its credibility.
Beyond Averages
Syed also explains how averages and standardisation causes issues and the need to move towards personalisation and value uniqueness. When complex systems are involved, there is no such thing as a perfect average. Standardisation and 'fitting in' is where we focus our efforts, but this should in fact be the opposite. Averages need to be used well – where it harnesses the insights from multiple people, not when it imposes a solution for multiple people.
Summary
Final summary advice: When facing the world, aim to involve yourself in a culture which encourages new ideas, fosters dissent and has strong accepting networks which allow ‘rebel ideas’ to flow.
