ABSTRACT
Current thinking suggests that we need a Research & Development (R&D) phase to better define the problem and then come up with options as a way forward. But what if we put a different kind of individual – a bee – at the centre of the system? We can transform the entire process. This bee is known by many other terms, such as joker, polymath, integrator, maverick, nexialist or neogeneralist.
At the moment, the world recognises two types of thinkers: experts and generalists. In fact, our entire educational system trains us to be one of these two types of thinkers. But as the world becomes increasingly complicated, we need a third type of thinker. We need people who can understand many different disciplines and see the connections between them. Futurist Ray Kurzweil has said, “Increasingly, the solutions to problems are found at the intersection of multiple fields. … experts in highly specialised fields can be part of the team, but the team leader needs to bridge multiple fields”. And Peter Thiel has suggested, “A lot of the world-class entrepreneurs … they’re not specialists, they’re something close to polymaths”.
The good news is that such thinkers already exist.
