Technically Competent versus Socially Cool, lessons from the bikeshed

Technically Competent versus Socially Cool, lessons from the bikeshed

There a great article about bike-shedding here
http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/Feature-Articles/What-Can-Your-Team-Learn-from-a-Bike-Shed/ba-p/456

In essence the article suggests that sometimes it is easier to get agreement to something complex, like a million pound nuclear PowerStation than to get approval for a bike shed. This is because people don’t understand nuclear PowerStation’s but everyone feels that they can understand, contribute and improve upon a bike shed. So the latter occupies the time and attention of the stakeholders where the former does not.

I’ve seen this manifest itself in many forms. I’ve sat at a board meeting which included an agenda of many weighty business subjects and the non-executives would pontificate on the artistic merit of a design and give no more than scant attention to a complex technology project which was essential to corporate survival. I have also seen technical or business reports scanned for grammatical and spelling errors but not debated on fact.

I recommend reading the book True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society
http://www.amazon.com/True-Enough-Learning-Post-Fact-Society/dp/0470050101

This book suggests that rather than burden ourselves with the effort of real understanding, people will believe something if it is plausible, rather check if it is true. This explains why people will accept and regurgitate statistics, headlines, phone calls or catch-phrases because it is simpler than finding the truth. Vick Reeves once said “67.5% of statistics are made up.” So people base their values and assumptions on sound-bites, or whom they heard it from rather than the truth.

It seems that more are interested in celebrity, being cool, being liked than being factual. It seems we prefer media studies, hair and beauty, and being alternative, which are Socially Cool than science, maths, logic or engineering which are Technically Competent.

In an earlier article I talked about the MyersBriggs Personality types. Less than 2% of the population are INTJ the ‘Masterminds’ who are planners, thinkers, organisers.
http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/

I have also written about the Colour based Personality types: Yellow (happy, engaging, sunny) Red (dominant and driven) Green (homely peace-makers) and Blue (detail, data and routine). It seems the more of population are Yellow than Blue and perhaps these facts alone explain an apparent preference amongst many for “doing things together” rather than “doing things correctly”. http://www.mrdynamics.com/Insights/Insights-Discovery-R

In the Project and Change Management business this can lead to an over emphasis on being liked than addressing complex or difficult challenges. The story of the emperor’s new clothes is not just a nursery storey (http://deoxy.org/emperors.htm). I’ve seen business lose thousands of pounds and projects fail when they lose objectivity.

This ends up being a debate about style over substance, and both are important, but I can’t help feeling that there is an over-emphasis on the former and a lack of attention to the latter.

If you read to this point, and clicked on all the links you are BLUE.
Now go an validate all the facts!

Tim Rogers
Mobile - +44 7797 762051
Skype - timhjrogers