The Relevance Paradox
On looking beyond ‘best practice’ in your own industry
In the modern business environment it’s more valuable than ever to encourage and look for inputs from as broad a range of sources as possible. It’s very easy to get stuck in a focus that seeks answers and examples from contexts that are very close to the ones we know — solutions or best practice from inside our own sector or industry, for example. Yet there is huge value in applying a bit more imagination — looking for solutions which may seem unrelated or far outside of our known territory but which have similar contexts and so can reveal truly innovative answers.
When NASA were developing the first space suits they began in the obvious way by adapting the high-altitude pressure suits that had been worn by aircraft pilots. As the space programme matured and the requirements of the suits became more sophisticated however, NASA realised that they needed to develop something altogether more bespoke. A particular challenge was presented in the Apollo programme by the need to be able to walk on the moon. Having a fully enclosed suit whilst still enabling maximum mobility proved to be a tricky challenge. NASA engineers spent a fortune trying unsuccessfully to develop complex knee joints in the suits that would enable smooth movement whilst still being fully enclosed and structurally strong.
Eventually, in 1962 one of the companies working on this technical challenge, Garrett AiResearch, was directed by the New York Metropolitan Museum to the Tower of London. The Met had pointed out that a suit of tournament armour made for Henry VIII to use in competition in 1520 at the Field of the Cloth of Gold had been designed specifically for foot combat rather than horseback, and so might provide the answer that they were looking for.
When the Tower of London sent pictures of the suit of armour to the Garrett AiResearch and NASA team, they saw that the joint was made from seamlessly overlapping plates of steel that left no gaps but allowed freedom of movement. The suit of armour provided the key inspiration for critical parts of the space suit that would allow Neil Armstrong to take his first steps on the moon.
One NASA engineer reportedly commented that it would have saved them a lot of time and investment had they looked at the armour earlier, but the team fell victim to a common problem — the relevance paradox. This occurs simply when individuals or groups are unaware of critical information that would help them make better decisions but in being unaware of it they don’t see its relevance and so carry on in ignorance. We usually only seek advice or information that we think we need to solve a problem, and fail to question whether we have as full an appreciation of that information as we should.
Once again, taking the broadest inputs, applying imagination and being open to challenge are key to solving problems in business well. This means opening up to fresh perspectives, examples from other industries, and the challenge that can come from new employees who question existing entrenched practices or habits.
A version of this post appeared in my latest book Agile Transformation: Structures, Processes and Mindsets for the Digital Age
