In the past it was true too, that the biggest discoveries arose when there was a synthesis across several professions. It was just easier to master a whole bunch of disciplines within one lifetime. Leonardo daVinci probably had coffee whenever he liked with the leading lights of his era, on any specialization at all, and was of course himself master of many professions.

Why do we need to constantly borrow ideas from other bodies of knowledge?

• To fully understand our own areas of expertise
• To innovate further
• To be responsible within our professions

Here are some examples of ongoing interdisciplinary efforts:

• Governments and citizens grappling with ethics around genetic technologies – a mix of scientists, computer scientists, ethicists, politicians, and regulators
• Global account teams selling a variety of products and services to a variety of customer types in different cultures – a mix of product managers, salespeople, technologists just to start
• Different government departments (eg a fisheries department and an environment department) with intersecting scope and different collections of similar professionals

We need ways to facilitate the conversations between experts that help uncover tacit knowledge and lead to the most responsible, complete, and innovative outcomes. We need space where different knowledge and expertise can be combined and translated into action. We need to stitch together the silos.

It is our belief that a systems view of teams and relationships is an excellent approach for this undertaking.

Accident prevention, crisis management, and innovation share some challenges: the need to connect across different disciplines and expertises, the need to understand different kinds of knowledge, and the need to hold differing perspectives simultaneously. There are some problems with expertise today which are preventing this.

Problem #1: Expertise has become deep and narrow

Expertise has become more highly specialized than ever. Consider that in the 17th century an educated person could likely understand and maybe even build every physical thing in their environment. Since then, countless professions have emerged, and we are all highly specialized. In academic circles today there is concern about how narrow our expertise and our professions have become, often favoured by the job market over a broad and wide view.

Different professions develop their own lingo and sometimes we are alienated by a lack of common ground in knowledge, or language. Specialized knowledge can get locked into individual specialists, and not be easily share-able.

Many accidents, in the aftermath, have been found to have at cause, this very misunderstanding. Oil spills, rocket ships – examples abound of situations where someone knew there was a problem, but someone who needed to know did not hear them.

Problem #2: Everyone is an expert

Many of us are experts in one way or another. Expertise is subjective, and very much depends on your vantage point.

Experts often disagree so it is no longer the case that once everyone is simply “informed” decisions will be easier to make. Knowledge is not binary, in that you do or do not have it. We can’t just “throw” knowledge over the wall.

Problem #3: We misunderstand the nature of knowledge

Sometimes knowledge is situated knowledge, i.e. “it depends on…”, for example, where you live. Local knowledge (or “Traditional knowledge”) in Northern Canada is incorporated into governmental decision-making processes. For example, the Inuit have knowledge about wildlife pathways which is considered along with other more “scientific” findings in order to make resource and transit decisions.

Sometimes a layperson’s knowledge contains information that science has not accepted yet. After Chernobyl, countless experts arrived in rural England to counsel the farmers about their livestock and produce. The farmers had already discovered that the sheep in valleys were much better off than those higher up but this was in no way part of the formal knowledge being presented to them. Eventually the scientists found a rational explanation for this and it was adapted into their communications.

Much knowledge is tacit, as opposed to codified, and very hard to capture. This is the kind of knowledge people share in person, or within relationships, but has typically been impossible to capture in expert systems, or via other knowledge management efforts. What Zen Master goes and writes a manual? Mostly they take on apprentices.

So what next?

We need to find ways to connect and communicate across all different expertises and kinds of knowledge. Innovation today occurs in the spaces in between: in between professions, in between traditional university disciplines, and in between organisational silos.

Most new knowledge today is created in “the spaces in between,” or in multi-disciplinary groups. Especially when organisational structures tend to align with functions or professions, there is risk that new knowledge can’t be created, or that new ideas don’t get to take hold. We need ways to bridge these gaps, uncover ideas, and provide a home in which to hone ideas into innovation and results.

In some cases, expertise lies in unexpected places, and we need ways to find it.

If you agree that teams can be seen as systems, then you can see why we need ‘deep democracy’. We need every voice on the team to be heard because each part of a system offers correct but limited solutions. Critical ‘know-how’ is often embedded in social networks within organisations.

The knowledge that would help discuss most issues can be both wide-ranging and specialized, simultaneously.

We might assume that there is ‘neutral’ knowledge on a topic, and that the experts’ job is to present this to us. But knowledge is not some ‘black box’ that you either do, or do not have. Expertise is narrowing and deepening, so there is rarely just one expert to consult; more like a plethora of them, and they often disagree with one another!

One could argue that all knowledge is ‘situated knowledge’ now, depending on the perspective of the beholder. When working with a team, the ‘situated knowledge’ for that group is a combination of everyone’s voices. ORSC* calls it the 2% rule, that “everyone is right, but only partially”.

We need ways to facilitate the conversations between experts that help uncover tacit knowledge and lead to the most responsible, complete, and innovative outcomes. We need space where different knowledge and expertise can be combined and translated into action. We need to stitch together the silos.

 *ORSC is the Organisation and Relationships Systems Coaching offered by CRR Global

Could it be only 8 years ago that a friend of mine struggled with finding an advisor for her bioinformatics PhD? She was in a space in between two departments, and neither seemed to offer much guidance. Probably that’s an interdisciplinary area that has enough authorities now to guide students. But there are always new areas of expertise emerging, and the newest areas are usually between disciplines, not strictly within one area.

It’s always been true, in IT, that it is a big field, and people come up through the ranks in different patterns, and when teams assemble they have work to do to establish common vocabulary and methodology. But it seems every other field is experiencing a similar explosion, and expertise is getting narrower and deeper all the time.

We need to access the spaces in between the silos, or the departments, or the disciplines, or the careers. It is the spaces in between that generate the new knowledge, the new ideas.

The job of translating, of being a multidisciplinarian, is a really important one . . . eliciting participation, hearing from all parts of a team. Because it is context that is paramount, everything depends on context. We need more and more eyes and participation because more interpretations and participation lead to more intelligent organizations.