Recently I was listening to an audio book “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference” by Malcolm Gladwell…In this book the author mainly talks about how a very small group of key people can trigger a dramatic change in society and why some products or ideas tip but not others. Among all the concepts explained in the book, “Channel Capacity” and “Transactive memory” really strike my mind and I thought of sharing the same with you all…
While we are all continuously trying to acquire many new skills in many different areas which are very critical to accomplish many things at work or at home, our human brain have tightest upper bound on the amount of information that it can reliably store, share and apply, which is called the “channel capacity”. I also learned that “On an average our brain is wired to store about 6-7 categories/bits of information before making mistakes in recalling”. So going by this concept we can’t really squeeze in everything we love to.
Does that mean we can’t master and benefit from wide spectrum of technology and scores of tools available in the open and liberal world? don’t give up yet….the answer is you don’t need to master everything…..while we continue to master the domains we are good and comfortable with, what if we can rely on our friends or teammate for some of knowledge areas which they have mastered …and know enough about these realms in terms of where and when to apply, how to involve your teammate to resolve or get help from… yes…this is called “Transactive memory”…this is the concept which fascinated me the most, believe me I did a play back on this chapter at least 3 times.
I am sure we all knowingly or unknowingly use “Transactive memory” in our daily life either at work or at home or in small social groups, but how effectively we build and use this memory determines how much benefit we get out of it. “Transactive memory is the shared knowledge storage, retrieval and communication of information from different knowledge domains, which often develops in groups and can lead to greater efficiency and effectiveness”. We can call this one as “group memory” which is very essential to establish innovative culture in small groups/teams. In this concept team members relies on other team members’ specialization or knowledge by storing a metadata or metamemory. This metadata is about which team members know what kind of information and how to retrieve that knowledge to maximize cohesion and effectiveness.
The ideas/skills learned, discussed and applied in smaller groups with the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts (mavens, connectors and salesmen) triggers a dramatic change in the society and give birth to great ideas and products. So let’s start building our transactive memory by compiling information like…what skill we need to solve a particular problem?, who masters that skill?, how I can involve that person to resolve or learn?, what subjects I can get better at ? How do I broadcast the team about my expertise? How can I underline my credibility?
- A maven is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others.
- A connector is a person with the ability to span many different worlds, some combination of curiosity, self-confidence, sociability, and energy.
- A salesman is a persuader, charismatic person with powerful negotiation skills.
what do you want to be? A maven or a connector or a salesman? Wear your title BOLD
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