Non-Adjacent Learning: The Secret to Avoiding Cognitive Bias and Finding Innovative Solutions
When problem-solving, the last thing you want is to be the thing that gets in the way.
In our work (and more broadly in our lives) there are so many problems to be solved, challenges to be met, and inquiries and curiosities yet to be answered or discovered. I honestly believe that most people who are trying to figure stuff out are not intentionally doing things to make their own life more difficult or to make the resolution, solution, or answer harder to come by.
But, intentional or not, there are a number of ways that we simply get in our own way. That we, internal to ourselves, are the roadblock, the barrier, the insurmountable obstacle to the outcomes we seek. In this case, I am talking particularly about cognitive bias.
What is cognitive bias?
In short, a cognitive bias is a pattern or tendency that moves you away from a norm or more objective understanding of the content or situation at hand, and moves you closer towards a kind of “subjective reality” that is a distorted, incomplete, or even irrational take on what is actually going on. These biases wreak havoc in our lives in our decision making, judgment, memory, and especially our jobs.
Here are just a couple kinds of bias that can really mess things up…
Anchoring Bias
You know this person (or maybe you are this person), who finds themselves trying to solve a problem, and every time they “come to a solution” on the first attempt! (If you don’t know someone like this, either talk to an overconfident yet underinformed middle schooler…or it’s you.) This is Anchoring Bias.
When you find the answer, it is the solution no matter what other information is thrown your way.
Not Invented Here (NIH) Syndrome
This is a cognitive (and even an organizational) bias that presumes that any kind of insight, expertise, or solution that comes from outside “here” (however that is understood) is suspect, inferior, or not even worth considering.
Obviously, if you suffer from NIH, then you might be like a certain famous detective…
Is there a better way?
The short answer is, yes. The challenge comes from recognizing that where you must begin to look for that problem-solving where it is easier to get out and stay out of your own way due to cognitive bias is through what I call non-adjacent learning.
There are three reasons why non-adjacent learning is useful for problem-solving, particularly for sticky problems:
If you area/field/discipline/industry/niche already had a clear answer to this question it is likely that you would know (supposing you’ve tried to find it) and you would already be doing it.
Adjacent learning (an area/field/discipline/industry/niche that is distinct, but not that different) most likely suffers from similar challenges, vulnerabilities, or questions to what you are trying to resolve.
Intentionally engaging non-adjacent learning is less susceptible to the kinds of cognitive bias that make problem-solving and decision-making unnecessarily more difficult, while at the same time making it easier to understand the method of the solution (because you lack the expertise to get lost in the details).
When Cardiac Surgery Meets a Ferrari
Have you ever been at the hospital with a loved one in a major surgery? The doctor comes out, tells you how it went, and then the next waiting begins as they go into some state of “recovery” before transferring to a room? It’s not only hard on those who are waiting, but it’s bad for everyone as it creates a tremendous backlog and profoundly diminishes the number of procedures that can be done in a given amount of time.
But the average pit stop in Formula 1 racing? 2 SECONDS. Literally.
When these two wildly different (non-adjacent to say the least!) worlds collide to solve a problem…great things happen. GOSH (Great Ormand Street Hospital for Children) revolutionized their handoff procedure from cardiac surgery to intensive care through the expertise and process of the world famous Ferrari Formula One race car team.
The results were incredible, and it not only made things faster and more efficient, but it increased patient safety and decreased errors!
First they learned the keys of a good pit stop…
The routine is serious business
Make everything predictable so problems can be anticipated and procedures can be standardized
You practice until it is natural and execution is perfected
Everyone knows their job, but one person is still in charge
Some things obviously weren’t transferable…
The Ferrari F1 team can largely manufacture the tools and techniques they need. That luxury is not available in medicine, at least not without a lot of time and a ton of money.
There’s not a lot of time to practice…they have real surgeries that need to happen!
The handoff from a pediatric heart surgery is clearly more complex than changing the tires on a car. This process was going to have a lot more parts.
The F1 team is very stable from a personnel perspective. That is not true for medicine and so the amount of training and practice that is required is much higher.
All in all, these incredible advances could not have been learned by looking to parallel learning (How do dentists do this with wisdom teeth?) Having knowledge and expertise so removed from the problem opened up a whole new universe of possibilities.
Get Outside the Box
So when you have problems that you haven’t been able to solve…look elsewhere…probably in places you wouldn’t have imagined before.
I have more to say about how this happens, particularly now with the emergence of artificial intelligence tools for research and learning, but for now I leave you with some great advice…