Building humans, not robots: how to systematically grow people’s ability to take responsibility.

By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.

Reading time: 11 mins

Summary: Robots follow rules. Humans create and implement principles (theorems). Build humans, not robots.

I believe you can systematically build conceptual understanding of theorems in others - see strategies below. 

I believe that everyone has the ability to innovate (eg see ‘building earned secrets’). 

Innovation = building little theorems that help you more than they hinder you. 

I believe that you can systematically upgrade your ability to innovate and also do the same in others - see strategies below. 

Jingle

  • Creating innovation that is good for the world => rewarding fun. 

  • Upgrading yourself into someone who can innovate => IMO one path to a good life 

  • Upgrading others who into people who can innovate => IMO one path to a good world

+++++++++++++++

Details

A new hire should increase the decision making ability of a business

  • In some respects, a business is the amount of decisions it can make

  • Hopefully, each hire should :

    • 1. increase the overall number of decisions a business can make, and 

    • 2. increase the amount of people that can make decisions. 

  • Another way of saying this is “a business is the amount of responsibility it can shoulder.”

  • Decisions = Responsibility = Conceptual Understanding (definitions below).

  • So if you grow the amount of Conceptual Understanding in your business, you grow the capacity of your business. 

  • IMO try to get good at systematically growing Conceptual Understanding in yourself and others!

Reportability ⇔ Responsibility

  • Rule = Reportability = Doesn’t require understanding

    • Is black and white. 

    • There is no interpretation. 

    • Requires zero understanding to implement. 

    • Eg you are a factory worker in a production line doing the same repetitive task. You need to put the piece in place with a certain tolerance in a certain time. 

  • Principle = Theorem = Responsibility = Requires understanding

    • Is grey.

    • Requires interpretation. 

    • Requires understanding and judgement to implement. 

    • Eg a teacher. How do I best help this student understand the concept? 

    • Eg a sales person. How do I explain how this textbook best helps this teacher and their students?

    • Eg an author. How do I best write this theory, questions and answers for conceptual understanding of the curriculum? 

    • Each situation is different so you need to ‘understand’ the principle and then custom apply it for each situation. 

  • IMO the vast majority of jobs require ‘Responsibility’. How do you build understanding? 

Procedural understanding ⇔ Conceptual understanding

  • Procedural learning

    • Only follows the rules

    • Is limited to the particular situation

  • Conceptual learning

    • Understands the principles (theorems)

    • Can take the principles (theorems) and apply them in alternate new situations

  • IMO the vast majority of jobs require ‘Conceptual understanding’. How do you build understanding?

Learning levels: 

  • L1: can execute rules. AKA Procedural Understanding. AKA building a robot. 

  • L2: can understand and implement principles (theorems) others created. AKA Conceptual Understanding. AKA a human. 

  • L3: can deduce new principles (theorems) for yourself. You have become a self improving human at this point. AKA becoming a self authoring human. AKA can create ‘earned secrets’ (ie you can innovate, make new knowledge (theorems), not just learn knowledge others have created). 

  • L4: can build understanding of principles (theorems) in others. You can upgrade others to Conceptual Understanding. AKA quality teacher / coach. 

  • L5: you can build others who can deduce new principles (theorems) for themselves. You can build others who can upgrade themselves. AKA build self authoring humans. 

  • L6: can build others who can build understanding of principles in others. You can build others who can not only upgrade themselves but upgrade you too. 

    • At this point you have built a company that can exponentially increase the amount of responsibility it can take.  

    • Aka building humans who can make other humans. 

    • At this point you have built a company that can make new theorems anywhere and implement them everywhere. You have created a new knowledge (theorem) factory… haha. Yes I love the melding of the metaphor of a factory (makes standardised widgets at mass scale) with new knowledge / theorems (ie 100% custom never seen before output). 

How does this map onto Kegan’s Theory Of Adult Development (one of my fav development frameworks - see more here)

  • Kegan - Harvard developmental psychologist.

kegan levels.png
  • Mapping

    • 3rd Order Socialised Mind => L2: can understand and implement principles (theorems) others created. AKA conceptual understanding.

    • 4th Order: Self-Authoring Mind => L3: can deduce new principles (theorems) for yourself. You have become a self improving human at this point. AKA becoming a self authoring human.

    • The other levels I have put are about upgrading others. AKA being a teacher / coach. While one can upgrade oneself, hopefully one can also help others become eg ‘self authoring’. “We are all players, we are all coaches.”

The capacity of a human body is limited. The capacity of a human mind is limitless.

  • The only way to do anything used to be with humans; eg farming, eg making widgets, etc. 

    • It would take a farmer a day to plant 10x crops (physical only)

  • Now we can scale repetitive tasks with machines.

    • Together with machinery, it takes a farmer 15x minutes to plant 10x crops (physical + mental)

      • I know nothing about crops so am making this up!

  • This means that now basically any human can have unlimited leverage. Figure out something new the world needs then scale with machines! 

    • Eventually as machines improve there will be no repetitive jobs left. IMO this is a good thing as then humans are liberated from repetitive tasks. I don’t know about you but I’m pretty happy I don’t have to till the soil with my bare hands to have food! 

    • Soon enough all “L1: can execute rules. AKA procedural understanding. AKA building a robot” jobs will be replaced by machines. 

  • IMO most people only have upgrades done to them by others. They can't do upgrades to themselves or to others. 

  • Often school is a place of getting schooled (aka upgrades done to you or procedural understanding), not a place of learning (conceptual understanding) or learning to upgrade yourself (self authoring or innovating). 

  • We need to be able to build ourselves and others to minimum L2+ (L2: can understand and implement principles others created. AKA conceptual understanding). 

  • Some thoughts on how to do this...

IMO what matters is not what is being taught but how it is being taught. 

  • If you are a manager at work are you teaching L1 procedural understanding or are you building L2+ conceptual self upgraders?

  • IMO it doesn't matter if you are teaching Year 7 maths, Year 12 English, factory work (eg Toyota pull the line is IMO conceptual understanding)... OR how to build a textbook. IMO try to teach L2+. 

  • Some things can be made well through Procedural Understanding - eg a croissant. You can get to 10/10. 

  • Some things you can get to 7/10 with Procedural Understanding (rules). Eg making a textbook. But to get to 10/10 everyone authoring needs conceptual understanding (principles). 

  • IMO a teacher / manager / peer can guide towards Procedural or Conceptual Understanding. It doesn't matter the subject, year level, or job. 

  • IMO a textbook can scaffold towards Procedural or Conceptual Understanding. It doesn't matter the subject, year level, or job. 

  • IMO direct instruction, enquiry based learning, problem based learning or socratic discussion can either scaffold towards Procedural or Conceptual Understanding. 

  • IMO most people think having a student or direct report or peer get 100% is the goal. Often the path of least resistance to do this is through Procedural Understating. This is only ok if you are doing a job that is ‘robotic’ AKA “L1: can execute rules”. IMO for all other jobs this isn’t enough. You need to know more than how to repeat the exact same task in the exact same context. 

  • I believe the goal is to build students or directs or peers or managers who can level themselves up. 

    • Ie get people to L2, then L3, etc etc. 

Some thoughts on how to increase Conceptual Understanding (L3) and hence increase the amount of decisions / responsibility someone can take at work. 

  • Strategy 1: Double Blinding

    • ‘You’ know what to do, ‘Person 1’ doesn’t. 

    • Both ‘You’ and ‘Person 1’ do the task independently and then compare what you have done after. 

    • How to build Conceptual Understanding:

      • For any point of difference ‘You’ ask ‘Person 1’ why they did what they did and get ‘Person 1’ to compare and contrast with what ‘You’ did. 

      • Then ‘You’ ask ‘Person 1’ to put forward which proposal they like better and why.

      • Explanation: 

        • This is helping ‘Person 1’ deduce principles (little theorems) and allows you to ask stress testing questions to see if the principles add value. 

        • ‘You’: “L4: can build understanding of principles in others. You can upgrade others to conceptual understanding.”

        • ‘Person 1’: building “L3: can deduce new principles for yourself”

    • How not to build Conceptual Understanding

      • ‘You’ tell ‘Person 1’ what ‘You’ think is better and why. 

      • Explanation: 

        • This is telling someone your principle without seeing if they understand. 

        • IMO this isn’t even helping ‘Person 1’ to “L1: can execute rules. AKA procedural understanding. AKA building a robot.”

  • Strategy 2: Compare ‘Person 1’s work to work ‘YOu’ did in the past

    • This is Double Blinding but you have a set of ‘training’ pieces of work where you and others have previously done a task that you can compare the new person to. 

    • After doing the task you need to ask questions in a way that builds their ‘1. Understanding of your principles’ and / or ‘2. Allows them to build their own principles that you can then validate / invalidate’. 

  • Strategy 3: Asking someone to rearticulate

    • A problem solving session has been occurring and you have put forward your synthesis. 

    • What not to do: 

      • Does that make sense? (getting a yes / no). 

    • What to do: 

      • 1. Can you please rearticulate the job to be done for the problem space we are discussing?

        • Rearticulate = explain in words and logic that are not a derivation of what you have said. 

      • 2. Can you please rearticulate my synthesis? 

        • Rearticulate = use words and logic that provide a different path to the conclusion. 

  • Strategy 4: Put forward 3x options and a recommendation for which one to go with

    • A group discussion has just finished. We need to figure out what to do next. 

    • What to do: 

      • Everyone please have 5 minutes to come up with 3x different options of what we could do and then your recommendation of which one we should go ahead with and why.

      • Then we’ll discuss each person’s options and recommendation as a group in turn. 

      • After this we then put forward which recommendation we like the most from all put forward. 

      • *aside: a decision ultimately has to be made, companies are not democracies, you typically are not going with a vote at the end for the next course of action. “A camel is a horse designed by committee.” 

    • What not to do: 

      • Meeting owner: Ok I think we should do the following. Are you cool with this? 

      • Comment: it doesn’t allow the space for principle (theorem) creation and comparison. 

  • Strategy 5: ask ‘Person 1’ 3+ orthogonal questions which aim to explain why or why not they think the new proposal is better

    • This can be mid discussion or at the end of a discussion.

    • Example 1: New proposal vs Prior proposal 

      • What to do: 

        • How is the updated proposal better and why? 

        • How could the updated proposal be worse and why? 

        • What is the key thing that worries you about the proposal? 

        • Overall do you think the updated proposal is above the line of sufficiency to proceed or do you think more work to de-risk should be done and why? 

      • What not to do: 

        • So do you like New proposal more than Prior proposal? 

    • Example 2: Option 1 vs Option 2

      • Same questions as above but on totally different options. 

      • If you are considering two different investment options, some possible questions that help promote conceptual understanding

        • Alright, how can Company A deliver a better outcome than Company B? 

        • How could Company A be worse than Company B? 

        • What are the key variables that you are considering for Company A? 

        • What are the key variables that you are considering for Company B? 

        • Why are you not considering some of the variables for Company B that you are for Company A? 

        • How do you propose to balance the variables for each company together? 

        • Ultimately which company do you prefer and why? 

      • What DA thinks doesn’t make sense: 

        • So should we invest in Company A? 

  • Strategy 6: ask someone to define the line of sufficiency for going ahead

    • Sufficiency = the line above which you are comfortable. 

      • Eg quality is above sufficiency - eg the tolerance of a part in production

      • Eg what level of confidence we need to make this decision? Eg as we can reverse this decision easily we need 50% confidence to go ahead vs eg as we can’t reverse this decision easily we need 90% confidence to go ahead. 

    • What to do: 

      • Please define sufficiency for me

      • Please provide an example of just above sufficiency

      • Please provide an example of just below sufficiency

    • What not to do: 

      • I think we should do this, do you agree? 

What is “L4: can build understanding of principles in others. You can upgrade others to conceptual understanding”?

  • On the fly you should be able to make up questions that build in yourself and the other person principles (theorems). And then to see where a principle helps vs hinders and where it works and doesn’t!

  • This blog is an attempt to try and build “L6: can build others who can build understanding of principles in others.”