Our skills are in our hands and bodies and not just in our brains
The top image is the cover of Geermat Vermeij’s wonderful autobiography Privileged Hands. Vermeij is blind. He is an important evolutionary biologist and an expert in molluscs. He overcame being blind by developing his sense of touch to an extraordinary level of acuity and could feel things others in his profession could not see.
Knowledge workers are often biased towards skills that rest in the mind and are expressed through language. That is language broadly defined, to include math and coding, conversations and negotiations … things that happen mostly in our heads.
Looking through the 2,000 odd skills that are already recorded in TeamFit most are this kind of intellectual skill, about 70% by my estimate. We know that these are not enough to build great teams or deliver on projects.
Even abstract thinking is dependent on our bodies as they exist in and interact with the world. Consider the career of Geerat Vermeij. He is a great evolutionary biologist, see his books Nature an Economic History and The Evolutionary World.
One of the extraordinary things about Dr. Vermeij is that he is blind. He has built his understanding of evolution and how forms change over time not just by reading, or even looking, but through touch. Walking along the shore, he would smell where he was, feel the textures of the sand or muck, and pick up shells. He learned to identify the hidden patterns in the shells, and how one shell was related to another, through touch. His skill and insights came from his skilled hands and not just his brain.
Another discipline where skilled hands matter is surgery. If you wanted to test people for their aptitude to become surgeons what would you test for? Obviously, you would look for high intelligence and the ability to learn and apply abstract concepts. But this is obviously not enough. Surgeons need to be able to think with their hands. So any good intake program should look for this. Check out this video from Kurashiki Central Hospital in Tokyo. It is a creative way to get some real insight into how these young people respond to some difficult physical challenges.
Folding miniature cranes (pretty much everyone in Japan knows how to fold an origami crane), reassembling a rather beautiful looking bug, making sushi on just one grain of rice … each of these tasks requires fine motor skills, the ability plan and execute a series of steps, patience and persistence under pressure. I would like any surgeon who operates on me to have all of these skills.
There are other skills surgeons need of course. Pattern recognition, problem solving, decision making, raw intelligence, the ability to learn. I would add emotional intelligence and leadership. I want my surgeon to be sensitive to my mental state, those of my family, and even more importantly those of the team, surgery is not a one person show.
Surgery is an extreme example, but the need for skilled hands extends well beyond the medical profession. The truly excellent designers I know all have skilled hands. And this shows up in their digital work. Even people who work mostly by talking and writing (that would be me) can benefit from working with their hands and bodies. It connects up different parts of the mind and feeds creativity. Simple things that require precision, dexterity and thought are good for the mind. Cooking, gardening, woodwork, sewing and knitting are all skills we should be adding to our TeamFit portfolios!
Time to get out into the garden, then cook a meal for people.