How many times have you encountered a marketing professional that thinks all of business is nothing but marketing?
Or the engineer that thinks that all you need to have a hit product is superior functionality or quality?
Or the lawyer that considers nothing but litigation risk?
Or the tax professional that recommends a company reorganizes in an operationally inefficient way because saving money on taxes is all that matters?
An informal way of describing this is that when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem requires a nail. When perhaps a saw or wrench would be better.
These people encounter business problems and come up with solutions based on their training and professional experience but are unable to adjust and look outside their frame of reference.
The military has its own version of this and has even named it. It’s called “Professional Deformation”. Though some say the term originally came from Sydney Harris, a columnist for the Chicago Daily News and Chicago Sun Times many years ago. It could be a pun on the expression “formation professionelle”, meaning “professional training.”
Wherever the term came from, it’s a good description of the idea.
Professional Deformation for the military is a necessary result of looking at a world in a way that is structured, hierarchical, strategic, and operational. It focuses on the use of force. Military officers are “can do” types. Fix the problem and be done. Operational problems require operational solutions. At a fundamental level, military deterrence and combat are what they do well.
Outside the military, Professional Deformation could be defined as a (strong) tendency to look at things from the point of view of one’s own profession and forgetting a broader perspective. The implication is that all or most professional training results to some extent in a distortion of the way the professional views the world.
This may be a reason why so many scientific breakthroughs have come from people outside the field where the innovation occurs.
For me, I’m very conscious of this effect. I do my very best to seek out conflicting points of view and the opinions of people from different professional disciplines and other industries. Having advanced degrees in several different academic disciplines helps, but isn’t foolproof protection. Protecting yourself from this thinking flaw does require mental discipline.
So for you tax professionals out there: taxes are important but the world doesn’t revolve around it. For salespeople, there are entire teams of engineers, marketers, product developers, and finance types backing you up. You couldn’t make the sale without them. For finance people, there would be no capital accumulation to manage without the salespeople. And so on.
There are many different types of tools in the toolbox. Pick the best tool for the job.
