DRAFT - JANUARY 2020

Want to join a group to read through this list? Sign up to our global slack group to find a local session here.

“Organising Genius” - a reading group

Introduction

Solving the grand challenges that face humanity in the 21st century is likely to require bringing together extraordinary people to solve “wicked problems”. But while extreme talent is often associated with extreme achievement, it’s easy for organisations to be less than the sum of their parts.

This reading course looks at the problem of “organising genius” through the lens of organisations that, across a range of domains, have succeeded in aggregating the efforts of “outlier” individuals to achieve exceptional collective output. These organisations are responsible for some of humanity’s most striking achievements, from the moon landings to the establishment of the US constitution.

What can we learn from these organisations? What are their origins? How did they attract and organise talent? What do they have in common? How do they vary across time and domains? What causes them to fail or decline in prominence?

Each week of this course looks at a different domain of activity and concludes with a synoptic session that considers both the learnings and limitations of this approach.

Scope

The case studies are primarily of organisations focused on a common goal or purpose, rather than networks of talented people each pursuing their own aims. We are, though, interested in “bottom up” and emergent groups, as well as classic top-down organisations.

The case studies also generally focus on a single period of extreme achievement, rather than looking at longevity itself as an achievement (e.g. it doesn’t look at universities or elite military units that have remained pre-eminent for decades or centuries).

Format

Matt Clifford and Arnaud Schenk will host a group in London that will meet fortnightly to discuss a single session’s reading.

We welcome volunteers who want to organise groups in other locations or with another cadence.

Topics

Introduction

Session 1 - The challenge of organising genius

• Warren Bennis and Patricia Biederman, Organizing Genius

• Introduction (1p)
• The end of the Great Man (~16pp)

• Michael Farrell, Collaborative Circles

• Introduction (6pp)
• Collaborative Circles and Creative Work (19pp)

• Roderick Swaab et al., The Too Much Talent Effect (~11pp)
• Stefan Torges, Ingredients for creating disruptive research teams (~20pp)

Part one: Organised Excellence

Session 2: The Manhattan Project

• Warren Bennis and Patricia Bierderman, Organizing Genius

• The Manhattan Project (9pp)

• Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb

• The Long Grave Already Dug (28pp)
• Chapters 14 to 17 (179pp)

• US Department of Energy, The Manhattan Project

• Part III (5pp)
• Part IV (15pp)

• H.D. Smyth, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes

• Chapter XII (17pp)

Session 3: The Apollo Mission

• Charles Fishman, One Giant Leap

• Tranquility Base & the World We All Live In (27pp)
• The Man Who Saved Apollo (46pp)
• How Apollo Really Did Change The World (43pp)
• (Optional/instead of the above) The Moon Landing with Charles Fishman Podcast

• Arthur Slotkin, Doing the Impossible

• Introduction (8pp)
• Program management (24pp)

• Dominic Cummings

• Unrecognised Simplicities of Effective Action (31pp)

Session 4: The great technology labs

• ARPA

• “Funding Breakthrough Research: Promises and Challenges of the "ARPA Model" (26pp)
• [Optional: Ben Reinhardt, Why Does DARPA Work]

• Bell Labs

• John Gertner, The Idea Factory, Ch 9, 20 (36pp)

• Lockheed Martin Skunkworks

• Skunkworks 14 Rules (1p)
• Organizing Genius, “The Skunk Works” (~13pp)

• Xerox PARC

• “Inside the Parc” (14pp)
• [Optional: “Oral History of Robert W Taylor” (74pp)]

Part two: Emergent Genius

Session 5: Silicon Valley and MIT

• Tech Model Railroad Club

• Mitchell Waldrop, The Dream Machine, Ch 5 (80pp)

• Fairchild Semiconductor

• Christophe Lecuyer and David Brock, Makers of the Microchip, Foreword, Introduction, Chapter 1, Pages 45-58 (63pp)

• The Homebrew Computer Club

• Steven Levy, Hackers, “The Homebrew Computer Club” (26pp)
• In Search of the Valley (Video)

• The Melancholy of Subculture Society - Gwern.net
• Charles Murray, Human Accomplishment, Chapter 16-17 (28pp)

Session 6: 18th Century Europe

• The Invisible College and the Royal Society

• Adrian Tinniswood, The Royal Society (~120pp)
• Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis (~60pp)

• The Encyclopedistes

• Morris Markey, The Encyclopedists (~6pp)
• FA Kafker, The Recruitment of the Encyclopedists (11pp)

• The Select Society

• Dennis Rasmussen, The Infidel and the Professor, Ch 1-3 (~50pp)

• Useful knowledge, the Scientific Revolution, and the Republic of Letters

• Joel Mokyr, The Enlightened Economy, Ch 3 (~38pp)

Session 7: Disrupting politics

• The American Revolution

• Gordon Wood, Revolutionary Characters, Introduction and Epilogue (59pp)

• The Mont Pelerin Society

• Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek, Inventing the Future, Ch 3 (~15pp)

• Presidential Campaigns

• Warren Bennis and Patricia Biederman, Organizing Genius, Selling a Place Called Home, (14pp)

• The Ultras

• Michael P. Farrell, Collaborative Circles, Ch 6 (60pp)

• The Federalist society and the conservative legal movement

• Steven Teles, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement, Ch 2, 5 (80pp)

• The changing landscape of political power

• Martin Gurri, The Revolt of the Public, Ch 3 (~20pp)

Part three: Themes and critiques

Session 8 - Do we know what makes organising genius work?

• Leadership vs “holocracy”, Mission vs Discovery

• Organizing Genius, “Take Home Lessons”
• Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations, Part 1

• Causation, correlation and survivorship bias

• Scott Alexander, “The Atomic Bomb Considered As A Hungarian High School Science Fair Project”

• Timing Technology: Lessons From The Media Lab
• Feminist critiques: “The Sexism of “Genius””
• Dan Wang, “College as an incubator of Girardian terror” (Or, Rene Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, Ch 5 for the brave!)