Be Like Glue
Each day of our lives is filled with all forms of diverse interaction, whether it be solving complex problems, fulfilling basic needs, simple tasks, or engaging in meaningful conversation to reconnect with a friend. These interactions place us at the center of a multifarious network, which we hold together in a delicate balance, to ensure the foundation required for inspiration, ideation, and innovation. The properties of these relationships can ultimately determine our success, demise, happiness, or disappointment.
Are the people around you aligned with your values?
Do you have quality feedback mechanisms built into your social group?
Do you surround yourself with people better than yourself?
Do you provide strong value back to that network in multiple ways?
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” - Jim Rohn
With the explosive expansion of connectedness, an exceptional eye for these properties is required to truly shine above others. Not only must you be able to recognize the types of relationships and knowledge that will improve your life, but you have to know what to do once you have that insight. The types of people that have light or full mastery of multiple things, are well traveled, understand different cultures, and are emotionally intelligent. As a result, these types of people always seem to find themselves at the center of great things.
Merriam-Webster defines a Polymath as:
"A person of encyclopedic learning."
While this is interesting, Glue mentality isn’t just about learning. It’s like taking Polymath to the next level.
Take a degree in Computer Engineering for example. You can be taught about programming languages and engineering at a university, but where is the real world cultural education (not just reading books)? Where are the people management skills and social skills needed to communicate effectively with different personality types? Where is the financial management component from real world experience? Where is the required learning of playing an instrument? These things are generally single tracks in school, and if you’re not focused on a single track, they’re electives for a semester or two and forgotten about a year later.
Collectively, these are necessary skills to evolve a given field, and greatly contribute to an individual or company's success. Especially a start-ups success. Adjustments can be made in current curriculum by requiring fluency in a foreign language, fluency in a musical instrument, fluency in financial management, and deep understanding of a small set of technologies. There could also be required school outings promoting challenging yet refined social interaction, how to properly network, how to read another person, the right questions to ask and ways to relate, not just frat house bullshit. There should also be required travel over the summers to foreign countries, every year past junior year in high school. This provides a strong base layer of cultural understanding and relate-ability.
(While I wrote this originally in 2012 and am finally posting it, I recently read a book that I highly recommend call “Range - Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World” by David Epstein
Glue is Not Management or Culture or Education. It's a Step Further.
Differences
Management is knowing how to allocate resources, implement and follow procedures, and monitor progress
Management can lack the organic connections and deeper understanding required to be a successful glue
Glue effortlessly manages its connections, agnostic of what it's holding together, through natural attractiveness
Glue in a company has more power / influence / persuasion across the organization, more so than that group's manager
Glue involves good manners, good listener, understanding of nature and culture, deeper grasp on ideas shared by his/her local network
Cases Against Generalists
Generalists are often seen as not good at one single thing, but rather have smatterings of knowledge in disparate and loosely connected areas. Generalists never took the years required to hone a craft, but might be more socially adept than their specialist counterparts. These people could be considered average and can go through life happily, some of them even becoming mildly successful.
Cases Against Specialists
Obviously there are benefits to being a specialist, but as a specialist, one might lack certain other skills forgone for a life in their chosen field. They might be out of shape with no social skills, or too disconnected from society to see connections that scream at other people. but how to glue them together).
The Case For Glue
Combining the two ideas we get a shallow specialist and/or deeper generalist. The general-specialist is well positioned to optimize interactions between systems, whether social or technical. It involves a deeper understanding of a larger set of things to effectively manage specialists and generalists at in the same group or team.
Glue is a way of life, a template for learning, and the next iteration of management. It is no longer OK to just manage. Just “managing" leads to lack of motivation, purpose, and potentially mutiny.
How much more time should be spent to fully understand the connections, past just knowing "of" something. How much less time should be spent learning a single technology to give a better general overview of connections. Is there a complexity number that can be assigned to concepts, that you must know a percentage of to successfully make connections to other things?
Glue is not just people and emotion, but technology and creativity. Glue drives innovation without needing to try. It’s comfortable, poised, and lives in the moment to make good decisions. It’s moving from the idea of "OK at everything, great at nothing" to "Exceptional at the set of interests in and of my local network." Unfortunately in today's society, glue can't be taught easily, and we need a better way to approach connecting dots. This will have a transformative effect on individuals, society, ideas, and innovation.
A different take on Bruce Lee’s quote:
“Be like glue connecting ideas and people. Do not be assertive, but be comfortable in all situations, and you shall bring things together. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will be attracted to you. Empty your mind, be formless. Sticky, like glue. If you put between opposite things, they come together. Be glue, my friend.”
