Improved ‘intelligence’ = strategy added
/By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.
Reading time: 10 mins
Summary: Creating strategies is the ultimate metaskill to know for the unknowable future.
IMO ‘intelligence’ is not fixed. IMO in almost any area ‘intelligence’ can be levelled up.
IMO one can systematically level up in almost all pursuits in life. Be it music, poker, art, sport, maths, communication, collaboration, emotional intelligence etc.
One key way I have to level up in a field is to acquire strategies from others and / or build strategies myself (AKA build if/then statements myself).
I didn’t use to know this! 20 years ago Duncan thought that people were naturally inclined to be good or bad at things, not that one could get better in almost any field through systematically adding strategies.
For example: someone playing poker with no strategies vs someone with 5 strategies will likely lose 80% of the time.
I think one of the most important things that one can know is that one can improve in almost any field by adding ‘strategies’. Be it monopoly, maths, sport, music, art, communication, design, humour etc. When one embraces this, one knows to search out strategies from others and build strategies for oneself to level up. I’ve found this to be a game changer.
IMO ‘intelligence’ is a skill, IMO one can get ‘smarter’ in almost all fields. One core way I know to improve in a given field is to add a strategy.
Strategies ≠ Tools
A tradesperson who knows 1000s of strategies for using a few tools > a tradesperson with 100s of tools that they don’t know how to utilise
Strategy acquisition stages:
L0: don't know there are strategies to get better. Think things are luck or natural ability.
L1: know that strategies can be used to improve but can only learn strategies that others teach you.
L2: can teach yourself a strategy in a place where you are set up to learn the strategy. “The maze was made for you.”
Rearticulation: there is a puzzle created by someone specifically that if you solve you ‘discover’ the strategy they intended for you to discover, eg getting out of an escape room. IMO this is what good teaching of existing ideas looks like, eg Year 7 Maths.
L3: can make new strategies for yourself. “No maze setup.” Can create your own escape room!
Examples:
Sport: eg AFL, it’s not the fastest runner or the strongest person who is the best player, it's often the person with the most strategies (the person most prepared for the greatest number of possibilities).
Art: people work on their craft and can systematically self improve eg make strategies for how to approach things well.
Edrolo: we don't try to make better content; we systemically level up through creating more and more strategies.
Each space is unique, so the secret to levelling up in any space is to develop the metaskill of creating strategies.
When you are free or not:
L0: can’t figure out how to find strategies from others in any vertical
L1: can figure out how to find strategies others came up with in one vertical
L2: can make new strategies for yourself in one vertical (eg drawing, eg sport, eg friendship, eg maths, eg music, etc)
L3: can find strategies from others and make new strategies for yourself in 2x verticals
L4: “free” - can find strategies from others and make new strategies for yourself in any vertical
Jingle: IMO it’s stupid to think intelligence is ‘fixed’. IMO use strategies to go from stupid to intelligent in most fields! OR strategise your way from Stupid to Smart :)!
If you are doing something that has never been done before (aka innovation) the only approach is to build strategies for yourself.
IMO for almost all mental pursuits everyone starts at Level 0. Be it speaking, maths, collaboration, empathy, humour, engineering, investing, etc.
IMO one way to level up is to add strategies. IMO it’s possible for someone to get good at levelling up, AKA adding strategies to themselves.
If you have been able to do it in one field there is a higher chance you'll be able to do it in a second. Each field you've done it in the increased chance you'll be able to do it in another field.
Again, if you are doing something that has neve been done before the only approach is to build strategies for yourself. Normally I’ve found people can transfer the metaskill of building strategies for yourself from other fields into new ones.
In effect in a new field you want to go from novice to master as fast as possible. Ie you want to get good at adding and / or building strategies as fast as possible...
… so you want to be a “master novice” ;)
*aside: in some respects these blogs are strategies / mini theories with which to try and navigate the world better.
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Details
The meta skill is your ability to add skills to yourself… AKA build new strategies for yourself to improve in a given field.
IMO in the existing secondary education system most people think the goal is to get the question right or get 100% on the test. They don’t mind how they get 100%, just that they hopefully get 100%.
While an oversimplification, I find this useful.
Approach 1: rote learning AKA memorising the if/then statement someone else made AKA procedural understanding AKA memorising a strategy from someone else
People don’t really understand the content. They just know ‘if I see this question, then I do this’
Approach 2: conceptual understanding AKA building the if/then statement yourself AKA making a strategy for yourself.
People understand the content and flexibly use the concept in a new place through recall and transfer.
If one does a lot of memorisation then IMO one can get an extremely high ATAR, eg 99+.
For non Australian readers: ‘ATAR = Australian Tertiary Admission Rank’ is the primary criterion for domestic student entry into undergraduate courses in Australian universities.
IMO for the vast majority of university degrees such as commerce, engineering, science, law, medicine etc one can score extremely highly with memorisation.
What this means is that IMO it’s possible two people can look exactly the same on a resume, for example got the same ATAR, went to the same university, did the same degree and got the same grades… but have done it in completely different ways.
Approach 1 person - has zero ability to teach themselves new strategies.
Approach 2 person - has very high ability to teach themselves new strategies.
Slowly all repetitive jobs (physical and mental) are being replaced by machines. So all jobs will involve you ‘doing new things you’ve not done before’ AKA ‘going into problem spaces you don’t know well and teaching yourself new strategies to get better’.
In this world IMO ‘approach 1’ person has very low value and ‘approach 2’ person has very high value.
Nurturing your ability to create strategies = future-proofing yourself
One thing I now look for in interviews: if people have been able to build new strategies for themselves in ideally 2+ fields
If the interviewee is a fresh university graduate I’ll ask:
Field 1: their uni degree
Question: Do you think you got better at studying while at university and if so why?
Comment: I’m looking for them to volunteer strategies they have built and if they are ‘conceptual, not procedural’. Then I drill down. Normally with 2-5x subsequent questions I can orthogonally check if I’m understanding correctly and get to a high confidence level.
Question: If you could give yourself some advice at the start of university degree what would it be?
Comment: again I’m looking for ‘strategies’
Field 2: I’ll also look for something they are interested in outside of their university degree and then look to see if they have been able to build strategies for themselves to level up.
Question: is there a passion, hobby or interest you have. Eg drawing, sport, science, part of a play, reading, etc.
Question: have you thought about how you try to improve in this field? If so can you talk to me about this?
If someone who has worked before:
Field 1: their most recent job
Question: do you think you have improved at your existing role vs 2 years ago and if so can you talk to me about a couple of the ways you think you have improved?
Comment: again i’m looking for ‘strategies’. When I find things I drill down.
Field 2: same as above.
Overall:
I’ve found that now I’m looking at the world with the ‘can they make new strategies for themselves to systematically level up’ lens I’m slowly able to see it much more.
Also, clearly this lens isn’t everything, but it’s an important part of the bigger picture IMO.
One definition of innovation = building new strategies for a problem space.
We need people to do things that they have never done before.
In effect to go from Novice to Master.
For the purposes of this lens on what levelling up is I’m going to say the following.
Novice: has no strategies for the field
Competent: has 1-5x strategies
Proficient: has 6-10x strategies
Expert: has 11-20x strategies and is good at making new strategies themselves
Master: 21x+ strategies and can make new strategies at will
For more and more jobs people are doing something that hasn’t been done before, so there is no university degree you can do or training you can get. You have to figure it out yourself, AKA find strategies to level up!
I’ve found that the meta ability to level yourself up in one field is normally transferable to another field.
What this means is that if someone has been able to level themselves up in eg sport then they are far more likely to be able to take the metaskill of strategy building and apply it in a new field of eg secondary textbook creation.
In short, if you are hiring people to do something that no one has done before, I now think one of the core things to look for is someone’s ability to have levelled themselves up AKA created strategies for themselves in ideally 2x+ other fields as this means there is a high chance they’ll be able to do it in a completely new field!
Revisiting the example of the two approaches to getting high grades:
‘Approach 1 - rote learning aka no strategy creation’ vs ‘approach 2 - conceptual understanding aka strategy creation’
IMO an ‘approach 1 - rote learning aka no strategy creation’ person is very unlikely to be good at doing a job where they are doing something they haven’t done before.
IMO an ‘approach 2 - conceptual understanding aka strategy creation’ person is very likely to be good at doing a job where they are doing something they haven’t done before.
No ceiling! Infinite new places to apply strategies!
Each new strategy you add is another s-curve. For a blog on continuous ‘s-curves’ see here.
Some smaller ideas for ya
Some areas have luck and some don't
If you are playing a luck game with zero strategies with 2 people the outcome of who wins is 50:50.
More strategies is good. So if you have eg 5x strategies you might shift to win:loss 80:20… but if the other person gets the same 5x strategies you are back to 50:50
Some games have zero luck, there is no dice rolling.
Even if you are the best poker player in the world you can still lose to a complete novice in any game… but over 100 games you are likely to win the vast majority of them.
For Edrolo we have close to zero luck in making secondary resources that are in house. Being good = having strategies = wins
Zero sum vs positive sum games
Most of sport and board games are zero sum. Someone wins and someone loses.
However many areas of life are positive sum games, everyone can win!
I believe good friendships are this, mutually positive sum.
I believe a good job is this. As an example, from my perspective at Edrolo in eg a meeting we want everyone to add value. It’s not about ranking who added the most value to the least value, it’s about maximising the overall quantum of value that gets created in a meeting (eg strategies found).
Objectivity ⇔ Subjectivity
IMO some areas of life have high objectivity: eg like water quality. Is the water clean or is it infested with disease?
IMO some areas of life have high subjectivity: eg what music you like. What might be a hit song today might have been nothing 10 years ago.
IMO Edrolo operates in an area of high objectivity, eg Year 7 Maths, Year 7 Science and Year 7 History have a curriculum that is set.
While the way we teach this curriculum has some subjectivity, it is still operating within the objective bounds of the curriculum
Comment
One possible recipe for a good job = 1. That doesn’t involve much luck (ie being good means you get good outcomes) + 2. Is a positive sum game + 3. High objectivity