21/ DiBello's core innovation is something called a Profiler. It takes a similar company in the same industry, extracts public information about said company, and then presents it to execs.
The execs are asked to predict performance of that company, given cues in the data.
Conversation
22/ The questions ask users to evaluate that company with respect to its (you guessed it!) strategy, leadership, and finances.
These questions are predictive of expertise because they map closely to real world decision-making these execs have to make.
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23/ Then, the users are presented with the next year of results, and they are given feedback on their predictions.
This is how DiBello is able to evaluate cognitive agility.
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24/ The end result is that DiBello and team can generate a heatmap of exec team blindspots, and use that to guide their interventions/training.
Here's a picture of an actual Profiler heatmap of an exec team:
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25/ Some of these intervention stories are wild. For instance, DiBello and team was called to do an assessment for a financial services company in the wake of the 2007 financial crisis. The exec team disagreed with the CEO and wanted to oust him. (Oxford Handbook):
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26/ But only the CEO showed high predictive accuracy for financial risk in the Profiler. With the results of the cognitive assessment, DiBello and team convinced the board of the firm not to fire the CEO.
Like I said, wild.
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27/ DiBello believes that business expertise relies not on superior analysis, but is instead on better organisation of knowledge, which allows the expert to perceive better, and therefore make better decisions.
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28/ As a result, her training methods focus on 'cognitive reorganisation' — she doesn't really aim to teach new mental models, but instead attempts to reorganise what existing domain-specific models they already have, perhaps by establishing the triad organisation in their heads.
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29/ Ok, this is the high-level thread. I've written about this body of work (and linked to all the relevant papers) in this week's Commonplace members-only post:
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30/ This happens to be Part 7 of my series on tacit knowledge, but also the first part of a new series on tacit business expertise. DiBello's work is fascinating enough that there are still a few elements I have yet to explore.
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31/ For instance, how can we use this if we are business practitioners? My instinct is to use the core expertise model as a syllabus for learning.
Knowing that shape of business expertise looks like a triad of relationships is VERY useful to know.
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32/ But the truth is that I'll have to test all of that. And I haven't even gotten into the meat of DiBello's training work.
(Again, if you're not aware, she contributed to Accelerated Expertise, a book prepared for the DoD on accelerating trial and error cycles).
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33/ Follow if you'd like more tweets on business or career decision making. I have one on 7 Powers in action that I particularly like:
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If you’re an investor or analyst, 7 Powers is a remarkable lens you can use to analyse companies.
But if you’re an operator, the book is a little … weirder. What I mean by this: the path to Power is totally weird and unique, and it’s more important to pay attention to that.
Show this thread
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34/ Or subscribe to my newsletter, if you'd like notifications on new pieces: commoncog.com/blog/subscribe
The end!
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