Yes, systems. And, silos.
Why it’s important to specialize in order to make meaningful connections.
Y'all ever meet someone that is so smart you can't decide whether to be impressed or jealous? That's how I felt when I met Scott, an FFA member who was applying for his State FFA Degree. He was so eager to share about his project that the interview committee finally had to tell him "no, we don't need to hear more about your precision planting equipment," because a fifteen minute time slot wasn't nearly enough time for Scott to share everything he knew. I was the biggest farm nerd I knew until I met Scott. Even more impressive than his technical knowledge of row crop farming was his ability to connect it to other areas of his life and the people around him.
Systems and silos defined.
Lately, I've been fascinated with the idea of systems thinking, which focuses not on individual parts of a field or specific events that occur, but instead seeks to understand how those separate pieces interact with one another. In the context of high school, it might look like thinking about how our class work affects our involvement in clubs and vice versa. Thinking in silos, on the other hand, is focusing on the parts themselves, sometimes to the exclusion of the other parts.
When it came to Scott's Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE), he was an expert. It was clear he'd spent a lot of time in the metaphorical silo of row crop farming; he knew how to properly manage nutrient applications, how to run day-to-day farm operations, and how to repair and maintain equipment. His boss rarely had to tell him what to do because Scott already knew the next step necessary to keep the farm running effectively. He excelled in this one specific area of his life, because he cared about it and spent a significant amount of time in it.
If Scott was so successful in this one area, doesn't that suggest that silo thinking is effective? On the surface, the answer might appear to be yes. And, to a certain extent, I think it is—if we don't specialize in something specific, whether in our career or hobby or elsewhere, we'll never reach a depth of understanding of any one thing to where we can actually do something meaningful with it. Yet, if we know everything about how to bake the cake but we've never even thought about the icing, we'll struggle to understand why people don't want our plain dessert. Or, we'll get mad if the icing expert offers to make the cake more appealing.
Just when I thought Scott couldn't be any more impressive with his knowledge, he mentioned that his boss had tasked him with finding his own replacement since he was graduating from high school soon and would be moving away. He was clearly qualified, though; his SAE had taught him the technical expertise of the job itself, but his time in FFA leadership had taught him how to interact with other people. He knew how to manage a farm and produce a successful crop, but he also knew how to share that knowledge with people in a way that made them want to be a part of it. He spent enough time in the metaphorical silo to be really good at his job, but enough time with people who excelled in other areas of the farm to know how to make the whole system work effectively.
Scott was successful because he understood his specialty at a deep level without sacrificing the understanding of how it interacted with everyone else's specialties. This is the balance I believe we can all learn to find in our own lives.
Two things to consider:
1) What's my specialty?
We talked about this in terms of service last week, but what about in classes, or in a job? What are you naturally good at? Wherever we find ourselves translating knowledge to action most efficiently is likely a good silo for us. For me, this is economics. I instinctively look at the world through this lens (just ask my friends how many times I've described emotions with terms like "return on investment" and "diminishing rate of returns") and I believe I can show others how to better navigate the world by sharing what I know in the space, especially in the area of agriculture.
2) How does my specialty (silo) interact with the general (system)?
Who should we surround ourselves with that can help us learn how our piece of the puzzle fits into the big picture? We might choose to focus especially on our classes in school, but if we lose our relationships with friends and teammates along the way, that 4.0 GPA won't do much good for us in the long run. We can be an expert in plant science, but if we never consider how our field influences, and is influenced by, animal science, we'll have less of an impact than if we recognize our role in the whole system.
Ironically, I've recently found myself in a bit of a silo about systems thinking itself. Thanks to a discussion I had recently in an online group, my mindset has shifted to recognizing that we need both the silo and the system. Some of us will be more inclined to think in the silos, others in the systems, and that's okay. At the end of the day, I think we can all learn this one lesson from Scott: it's important to know our stuff, and it's also important to be able to explain to others why our stuff is important.
What's the one step you can take to better understand your specialty in a way that will help you connect it to someone else's? Let us know in the comments or on social media by tagging @miriamrosah and @nffaevp and using the hashtags #EmbracingComplexity and #FFA21.
New to the blog? Curious about why I push for “yes, and…” in so many areas? Check out the intro post here.