Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 2

Chapters 3-5

Chapters 6-8

Chapters 9-11

Chapter 12 and Conclusion

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 9-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 9 Summary: “Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology”

The Japanese company known as Nintendo started out selling hanafuda, playing cards with flower designs. However, the cards later went out of style, and the company when through a period of decline as it sought potential new products to market. Gunpei Yokoi was an electronics worker, who took a job at the then-undesirable company. Yokoi loved to tinker and experiment with ideas and developed a simple toy called Ultra Hand that got the attention of Nintendo leadership. Yokoi went on to pursue an approach known as “lateral thinking with withered technology” that involved using well-known and even outdated technology that could be used to create simple, reliable, and enjoyable products (193). For instance, Yokoi looked at remote-control cars, which were very expensive because of the two channels required to allow the cars to turn right and left. He developed a remote-control car that could only turn left, simplifying the technology, and the car proved to be very popular because it was inexpensive and easy to use. Yokoi’s approach went against the prevailing idea that successful products must involve new equipment and methods, but it led to iconic products like the Donkey Kong game franchise, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Game Boy, and the Wii, which all relied on relatively simple technologies but successfully expanded Nintendo’s market.

Epstein points to the candle problem, a well-known puzzle in which people are given a candle, a box, and a tack and asked to fix the candle to the wall so that the wax does not drip on the floor below. Most people try unsuccessfully to tack the candle to the wall, and fewer realize that the box can be tacked to the wall and can then support the candle. People that can solve the puzzle are like Yokoi, who did not have high-level engineering expertise but instead had a knack for seeing the possibilities that exist within familiar technology.

Epstein cites similar examples, such as Andy Ouderkirk, who created a highly-reflective plastic film while working at the company 3M. He had been told that such a film was not possible, but he was inspired by existing examples, like butterflies with iridescent wings. Now Ouderkirk’s technology is used in a variety of ways, such as making phone screens and laptops brighter without using excessive power. Epstein looks at examples from outside product design, such as comic book creators, including Japanese artist and animator Hayao Miyazaki. Research shows that individuals who were allowed to gain experience experimenting across multiple roles were more likely to lead to innovation than teams of specialists in collaboration because they were more primed to think laterally.

Chapter 10 Summary: “Fooled by Expertise”

Biologist Paul Ehrlich became famous for his 1968 book The Population Bomb, which predicted the increasing world population would cause societal collapse before the end of the 20th century. He entered into a bet with economist Julian Simon, who argued that human innovation would overcome the challenges of an expanding population. While it appears that history favored Simon’s view, Epstein proposes both men were actually wrong: Human innovation has mitigated some aspects of an expanding population, but worrying problems remain. Psychologist and political scientist Phillip Tetlock studied a variety of projections, like those of Ehrlich and Simon, and concluded that “the average expert was a horrific forecaster” (219). Experts failed to see systemic flaws entrenched in their fields of knowledge. Moreover, the more famous they became for their projections, the more likely they were to be wrong about them.

Epstein borrows the idea of foxes versus hedgehogs from philosopher Isaiah Berlin. “Hedgehogs” refer to those individuals who pursue a single idea throughout all their pursuits while “foxes” are those who are open to many ideas and approaches to pursuing their goals. Tetlock describes “Superteams” of experts from many different backgrounds who could more accurately make projections because they were open to many ideas and allowed for more individual breadth. The most successful innovators practice “active open-mindedness”; they are not hedgehogs seeking to prove they are right but instead foxes actively seeking out people to try and prove their ideas wrong, thereby testing their validity.

Chapter 11 Summary: “Learning to Drop Your Familiar Tools”

Students at the Harvard Business School examined the case study of Carter Racing. The racing group was facing a high-stakes race with potentially faulty equipment, and the students’ task was to develop a recommendation for Carter Racing about whether they should go through with the race despite the risks of equipment malfunction. The students had little data about the equipment malfunction to go on. The Carter Racing case study is a hypothetical example based on the fatal explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 due to an equipment malfunction. Epstein shows that the Challenger disaster was due to an equipment issue that was known but not fully understood, like in the Carter Racing case. The hierarchical culture at NASA at the time discouraged experts from questioning information, asking for more data, or pushing back against authorities, much as students studying the Carter Racing case often failed to ask their instructor if more information was available. Epstein suggests the tragedy shows the consequences of being too rigid and afraid to question rules.

Similar situations occur in other examples of highly trained and organized organizations. Firefighters and smokejumpers are sometimes unwilling to let go of their tools and flee to safety when a fire is out of control. Likewise, Captain Tony Lesmes told Epstein about an incident while serving in Afghanistan that tested his team’s willingness to break from tradition. Lesmes led a rescue team that was tasked with assisting with an unknown emergency. Unsure of how many people would need to be evacuated and why, Lesmes made the decision to stay behind and prepare for the evacuees while his team went to the site. Many on Lesmes’s team were upset that the leader would break protocol and not be on-site to assist. Ultimately, Lesmes’s approach proved correct, but the reaction to his plan still feels painful.

The continued issues with inflexible organizational culture at NASA were proven in 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry to Earth, again due to an equipment issue experts were aware of but overlooked. However, the development of the Gravity Probe B, the longest-running NASA experiment, shows the organization’s capacity for improvement. Engineer Rex Geveden noticed that an equipment piece was known to have issues and decided to temporarily pause the experiment while it was examined despite protests that it would involve time and financial costs. The examination of the equipment revealed numerous errors that would have been costly and possibly caused the experiment to fail. This outcome proved both the validity of Geveden’s judgement and the value of flexibility in decision-making.

Chapters 9-11 Analysis

Chapters 9-11 of Range critique the cult of expertise from three perspectives: play as a means of development, the problems of pursuing a single idea, and the systemic faults of a hierarchical, hyperspecialized organizational culture. Examples like Nintendo, Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon, and NASA’s Challenger disaster exemplify these issues. In exploring stories like Gunpei Yokoi’s philosophy of “lateral thinking with withered technology” at Nintendo and Andy Ouderkirk’s experimental development at 3M, Epstein emphasizes the value of play and exploration, an idea he returns to in Chapter 12’s discussion of “deliberate amateurs,” especially the story of Oliver Smithies (193). Their examples cover everything from toys to technology that improves smart phone screens, but collectively they show the importance of play and imagination within research and development as a whole not just in product design. These qualities are traits of “serial innovators” (211).

Chapters 10 and 11 take a more serious turn when examining the failures and shortcomings of experts. In those cases, Epstein makes his critique of experts blatant. Both Ehrlich and Tetlock were wrong, he argues, pointing out that their inability to question their own views caused them to err. NASA’s failures around the fatal Challenger explosion and later the fatal Columbia accident are stark evidence of the way a culture focused on hierarchy, bureaucracy, and hyperspecialization can result in fear, failure, and stagnation.

However, Epstein is not simply critiquing experts as such but rather a particular kind of expert, one that is too narrowly and rigidly focused. Chapter 10’s distinction between “foxes” and “hedgehogs” (drawing on ideas from philosopher Isaiah Berlin) helps explain the differences. NASA’s organizational culture at the time of the Challenger accident, for example, was comprised of “hedgehogs” who were unwaveringly fixated on one idea, so much so that it caused damage from within. Epstein points to more positive, “fox”-like experts through the examples of Yokoi, Ouderkirk, and others who are willing to question their own ideas, seek out new perspectives, and be flexible enough to work outside of protocol when needed. Chapter 10 also suggests that adopting such an approach can be helpful even for highly regimented and trained organizations like the military and firefighters. To do so requires them to “drop their tools,” as he puts it, a synonym for being willing and open to change direction, method, or perspective.

Such positive possibilities connect to the basic purpose of Range, which is interested in proposing more open, accepting, and flexible paths to development. Yokoi’s willingness to engage creatively with established technology instead of throwing all of Nintendo’s weight into the latest technologies, for instance, critiques the cult of the new as much as the examples of Hesselbein and Van Gogh had helped Epstein critique the cult of youth.