Diverse Teams vs Diverse People
/By Duncan Anderson and Katherine Roan. To see all blogs click here.
Summary: the broader your ability to empathise with humanity the better your ability to help humanity. Just like you can get better at playing a video game, you can systematically improve your ability to understand others.
Only your 1st hand experience VS Importing the experience of others VS Building profiles that represent different segments of people allowing you to ‘masquerade’ as someone else:
L1: non diverse human = only has their first hand personal experience to draw upon
L2: diverse human = systematically imports the experience of others (eg walks a mile in others shoes through reading, speaking to them, podcasts, documentaries, etc) and thereby broadens their ability to empathise.
L3: ‘L2’ + ability to masquerade as other types of people = builds experience sets into defined profiles one can inhabit = one creates profiles from the imported others experience that she / he can draw upon to see how a type of person would view the world
Eg create the following teacher profiles: P1: Traditional vs P2: Hard Worker Traditional vs P3: Innovator Teacher.
This means that if you are making a textbook you ‘pretend’ to be each of the profiles (ie if I was this type of teacher what would I see)
I find this extraordinary fun.
One of the best parts is figuring out the areas of similarity and difference for the profiles!
L4: is able to use the experiences of others to adapt their communication to each individual type
Eg. speak the language of the traditional teacher to help them see why this idea is an upgrade to their current practice/ thinking
Eg. help the traditional self identify areas for improvement
Sometimes you can empathise with their experiences, but this has not made you change your practice/ execution in any way
If that’s the case, it won’t seem like you actually ‘understand’ and therefore you won’t be able to help
1. Problem space * 2. Skills => 3. Solution set
I used to try and acquire knowledge by reading a book on eg ‘problem solving’ or eg ‘direct instruction vs enquiry based learning’. I still do this, but I also try and acquire the ‘experience sets’ of others and systematically build them into profiles I can inhabit.
2. Skills = knowledge
1. Problem space = ability to understand others and see the world as they see it.
It doesn’t matter how good your skills are if you have a limited problem space you will be able to get limited solutions!
This requires you to understand their lens, but also have the capacity to observe their patterns of behaviour and match it up with their articulation of their experiences
People will tell you that they see things a certain way/think a certain way but sometimes their actions may not align
The beauty then comes into being able to see where the disconnect is and why
This also gives you an idea about their baseline
If I’m now trying to help others, first I try to understand them. 10 years ago Duncan wasn’t really trying to do this. My goal is to understand others better than they understand themselves. I’ve found that many of the decisions I made in the past were for part conscious and part unconscious reasons. Slowly through self examination I’ve been able to lower the unconscious part. I find that you can help others discover about themselves too!
Jingle: I’m not trying to figure out who I am, I’m trying to understand as many different types of people as possible!
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Details
They say that diverse teams get better outcomes than monolithic teams.
Basically, the more diverse the life experience set of a team the better it's ability to understand humanity and therefore come up with quality solutions.
Your own personal experience is a valid part of the picture. Your own personal experience is not the entire picture.
…but what if an individual can systematically increase their ‘diversity’ AKA ability to understand humanity?
Everyone has their own unique experience… and so does everyone else! I believe one can systematically try to understand others and important the experience of others, thereby broadening one’s understanding of humanity.
Each week I try to look at ther world through at least one other person’s eyes. It’s so much fun! Below are different strategies I use to do this.
L1: Non diverse human = only had their personal experience to draw upon
L2: Diverse human = 1. Has their own experience to draw upon + 2. Systemically imports the experience of others
1. Problem space * 2. Skills => 3. Solution set - it doesn’t matter how good your skills are if you have a limited problem space you will be able to get limited solutions!
For myself, school and university were mainly about learning skills like maths, science, history, articulation / writing, engineering, economics etc.
To me a crucial part up a good life is learning about people! If you want to help yourself IMO learn about yourself. If you want to help others, IMO spend significant time trying to understand them!
A model for problem solving:
1. Problem space * 2. Skills => 3. Solution set
Comments:
2. Skills = maths, science, history, articulation / writing, engineering, economics etc
1. Problem space = how much you can understand humanity (ie yourself and the context and experiences of others)
If you have only your own ‘problem space’ / ‘experience set’ as an understanding then you will be at a massive disadvantage when trying to help others.
If your problem space is small (or part of what you need to understand) it will severely limit the solutions you can come up with.
IMO the bigger your problem space (ie ability to understand humanity) the more diverse the solution sets you can come up with.
IMO one learns about economics, about extraordinary people. One should also learn about humanity as broadly as possible. It helps you understand and grow yourself. It helps you help others… and it’s just super amounts of fun!
Jingle: I’m not trying to figure out who I am, I’m trying to understand as many different types of people as possible!
Building profiles from the imported experience sets you gather
I do two types of learning:
1. Just broad learning about different people (eg what it has been like to live through the Syrian civil war, being in jail and seeing how education can help, living in indian slums, what it’s like to be Taylor Swift)
2. Learning about people + building profiles from the learnings that I can inhabit and masquerade around in (eg for different teacher and student segments in Australia).
Comment:
In some places I’m trying to be ‘an inch deep but a mile wide’.
In other places I’m trying to be ‘an inch wide but a foot deep’.
L1: Non diverse human = only had their personal experience to draw upon
L2: Diverse human = 1. Has their own experience to draw upon + 2. Systemically imports the experience of others
L3: A human who can masquerade as others = 1. Has their own experience to draw upon + 2. Systemically imports the experience of others + 3. Creates profiles from the importing of others experience that she / he can draw upon to see how someone
Strategies for learning about yourself and others (full details below):
Learning from yourself - passively experiencing things, but also reviewing your experiences to deepen understanding. “You don’t learn from your experiences, you learn from reflecting on your experiences.” Basically a lot of why one does something is ‘subconscious’. By systematically examining oneself I believe you are able to slowly make the subconscious conscious.
Learning about yourself through others - how do other people see you and how well does that match with that you think about who you are
I think this is fun because they usually pick up things that you wouldn’t otherwise see about yourself - even if you are reflecting on your own experiences
Learning from others you interact with - don’t just talk to others, talk about how they are feeling and why they have responded in different ways :)
Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes - you can import the experience of others through books, documentaries, movies, podcasts etc. Some media is pure escapism, some is allowing you to view the world through others eyes. I love both, I didn’t understand about the later when I was 20 :(. Each week I try to look at the world through multiple new people’s eyes! Some people want to visit a new city or cafe, I want to look at the world through 3x new perspectives (ie people’s eyes who I haven’t done so before) each week. THE. BEST. FUN!
Building models in your head for the different types (segments) of people you are trying to help -
Different types of people will respond differently to the same stimuli. Trying to understand how to group people and how they are different is EPIC fun and also IMO epically valuable for your ability to help people.
I’ll give you a quick example of types / segments of people I think about at Edrolo:
Teachers:
Traditional
Traditional - hard worker (does lots of extra work but in ‘traditional’ ways)
Innovator (is trying new things)
Year 7 Maths Students:
I don’t like maths, I think I’m really bad at maths.
I don’t care about school.
I try and maths but struggle.
I try and maths and succeed.
Comment:
Overtime I’ve slowly teased out these segments and trying to understand what makes each different from a ‘problem space’ point of view. When I’m speaking to people one of the first things I’m trying to do is figure out what segment they fall into and / or if my segments need to be updated.
Every question I ask is me trying to figure out which segment someone is in and / or updating the segment profile.
I try to ‘know the people we are trying to help better than they know themselves’. Ie you might have a better understanding of of why they make decisions than they do because they have non-trivial portions of their decision making done subconsciously.
This is SUPER AWESOME FUN!
Visualisation:
Comment:
I’ve found that to help more doesn’t necessarily take more effort. To help more you need to know how to help! If you can find the commonality then you can normally hit ‘three birds with one stone’.
People normally have some commonality and some differences, trying to understand what is hard but so rewarding.
I find that normally 2-5x profiles of people will cover 80-90% of the problems space. Having one monolithic view for everyone is likely too much of an oversimplification, having 10x I find way too difficult to actually use.
For instance if I’m thinking about making a textbook I ask:
“How would a Traditional Teacher see this?”
“How would a Traditional Hard Worker Teacher see this?”
“How would an Innovator Teacher see this?”
Asking this for 10x profiles times can actually make things unwieldy for my poor little brain!
Harvard Professor Kegan’s model of Adult Development:
This is a bit dense, but stay with me :)!
According to Kegan only 1% of people get to ‘5th Order: Self Transforming’.
Comment:
One articulation I have of ‘Self Transforming’ is someone is able to understand multiple different types of people’s approaches to eg learning or economics or relationships etc.
“The opposite of a profound through is not a falsehood, it is another profound truth.”
While people will likely have some commonality, there are also likely some areas where they have completely different approaches to the same stimulus (plurality).
“One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.”
So basically a ‘self transforming’ human has built multiple segments of people and can understand how each segment might approach the same problem differently. Ie ‘they can hold many identities and embrace the paradoxes.’
Basically, I’m not trying to figure out what is right or what I want. I’m trying to figure out the different types / segments of people and what works and doesn’t for each segment and why.
Detailed strategies for increasing your ability to understand others (ie becoming a ‘diverse human’): (FYI I try to do each of the following every week)
Learning from yourself:
A: Passive learning from myself: I experience things.
B: Active learning from yourself: I replay 1x+ event per week where I felt strong good emotions and 1x+ I felt strong negative emotions and understand why. See Post Game Analysis :). I will normally do this by running chronologically through the event and trying to explain exactly what drove each part. I find that many many things occur in my subconscious (ie that I wasn’t aware of at the time) and I’m able to better understand when I slowly replay.
C: Actively learning from yourself with others: I replay an event (Post Game Analysis) with someone else and work with them for their view of what happened. This is ‘B’ + talking with someone else. I find that for some reason it’s normally much easier to see things in others than in yourself!
Learning from others you interact with:
D: Active learning from others you interact with: I replay 1x+ event per week where I interacted with someone else who felt strong good emotions and 1x+ you interacted with someone else felt strong negative emotions and explain why. This is Post Game Analysis where someone else is the focus.
E: Actively learning from yourself with others: This is ‘D’ + talking with others (ie not by yourself).
Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes:
F: Consume media: read books, watch documentaries, listen to podcasts, watch movies and TV shows specifically designed to broaden your empathy with humans.
For example there many many podcasts and documentaries on being a teacher. You can understand the experience of Math to English, from rural to city, from Australia to Japan. It’s just epic!
Example 1: The teaching gap - goes through how Germany vs Japan vs The USA approach teaching Maths at a country level. It’s extraordinarily interesting.
Example 2: Revolution school - is a series on turning around an Australian schools
Example 3: This documentary series is on people in Indian slums is seriesly interesting.
Example 4: College behind bars - is about inmates in New York getting college educations. It’s extraordinarily fascinating.
10 years ago Duncan used to only ‘import’ the experience of extraordinary people (eg successful entrepreneurs, politicians, business people, musicians, etc). While this is useful in learning what to do… I’ve found that it’s not necessarily that useful in learning how to help others.
Example 5: White Right - this is about disaffected people joining the white supremist movement in the US. It’s really interesting to see how people are preyed on to join movements like this.
Example 6: Therapy podcasts such as ‘Dear HBR’ or ‘Where Should I begin’.
Building models in your head for the different segments of people you are trying to help.
Background: IMO the goal is to ultimately understand others better than they understand themselves. Many people only know part of the reason why they make decisions, I believe that one can systematically try to understand others and thereby help them wildly more!
G: For example at Edrolo I might have the following segments for a teacher:
Traditional
Traditional - hard worker (does lots of extra work but in ‘traditional’ ways)
Innovator (is trying new things)
Comment:
When I’m speaking to a teacher I’ll be trying to figure out what segment of teacher they fit into and updating my model of each segment.
I try to then be able to ‘look at the world through each segments eyes’. That is I’m constantly building and updating models for each segment, then if I’m trying to make textbooks I’ll think “ok, let’s pretend to be a ‘Traditional Teacher’, how would they view this? Ok, how is this different to a ‘Traditional - Hard Worker Teacher’ and an ‘Innovator Teacher’?”
This way every time I speak to a teacher I’m able hopefully to improve my understanding of the different types of teachers (ie empathyise better) and as such help more.
For example at Edrolo I might have the following segments for a Year 7 Maths student:
I don’t like maths, I think I’m really bad at maths.
I don’t care about school.
I try and maths but struggle.
I try and maths and succeed.
Comment:
How you make a product for each of these segments could be really different.
Classrooms typically have 25 students, and typically some kind of student interaction is good.
I believe that if you think carefully you can actually build products that help each one of these segments significantly better than existing outcomes.
If you only take away one thing:
IMO trying to better understand yourself and others is crucial for trying to help yourself and others.
1. Problem Space * 2. Skills => 3. Solution Set
I used to only proactively spend time improving my ‘2. Skills’ (eg data analysis, writing, business frameworks, etc), now I try to proactively increase my ‘1. Problem Space’ understanding each week through the following:
L1: actively trying to examine and increase understanding in my own experience
L2: actively trying to examine others experiences
L3: building the learning you have of other others into separate segments and creating models for how different segments of people operate so that you can systematically broaden your ability to empathise and help
L4: picking the right tool to help depending on the segment you’re interacting with