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How to ThinkIn the Age of AI
Principlev1PR-2086

When assembling a team to solve a complex problem…

When assembling a team to solve a complex problem, deliberately include members with different professional backgrounds, training, and problem-solving orientations to expand the solution space the team searches.

Why This Is a Principle

This is a principle derived from Schemas as Knowledge Organization Structures (schemas organize knowledge) and Expertise as Domain-Specific Schema Organization (expertise consists of domain-specific schemas that don't transfer). The principle prescribes HOW to compose teams given that different experts have different cognitive toolkits. It's actionable (tells you what to do) and general (applies across team contexts), but derives from the axioms about schema structure and expertise.

Source Lessons

Cognitive diversity strengthens team thinking

Teams composed of people who think differently — who hold different mental models, different heuristics, and different interpretive frameworks — produce better collective outcomes than teams of similar thinkers, but only when psychological safety allows the differences to surface.

Connections

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