May 5, 2023 4 min read

As a young kid, when challenges arose, I often found myself looking at them in MacGyver-like ways.

What was the problem? What were the available resources? Was there a shortcut? Was there a better way to get it done? Now that I’m older, it’s clear to me that my brain was doing system thinking.

In an article in the Harvard Business Review, “Why managers should think more like hackers,” by Paulo Savaget, an Oxford University professor, he describes the hacker’s methodology for making decisions as identifying opportunities to make outsized impacts creatively, quickly and resourcefully. Those three areas of focus are in direct contrast to the three methods of efficiency, long-term planning and hierarchical decision-making currently employed by managers everywhere.

Savaget studied hackers, cybersecurity experts, blogs, books, and online platforms to determine what made hackers tick. He quoted Paul Buchheit, creator and lead developer of Gmail, who once wrote, “Wherever there are systems, there is a potential for hacking, and there are systems everywhere.” One of the other more profound hacker points that Savaget uncovered was that hackers do not “tackle obstacles head-on” but instead they look for the workarounds.

One of the most mind-numbing aspects of management was the silo mentality that evolves in most organizations. When I first began working in health care, it was clear to me that the entire system was inundated with silo-thinking that, as the article stated, assured “employees can produce plans and go through their checklists more quickly.” The problem with that system is it desensitizes them “to different ways of interpreting and acting in situations that are all too familiar to them.”

Because of my background in music, I ran across this type of thinking in science as well. I’d often refer to a very specialized scientist as a Piccolo Ph.D. because they would get their degree in one specific area of science and that resulted in them thinking like the old adage describes, “If all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail.” They were often trapped into believing that their way was the only right way. I also referred to this as diva thinking. In music school, you could be a soloist or an ensemble player and science has the same pattern. If you’re the solo scientist, the world revolves around you, your unique ideas, your ability to get grants, to buy the equipment you need, and then to think selfishly about keeping your discoveries secret.

As Savaget discovered, Hackers “can help create a culture of pragmatism, valuing experimental and incomplete approaches.” In straight-talk, they are not hung up by the sophistication process but look only for those elements that will assist them in getting a job done. This includes being able to repurpose specific aspects of whatever system in order to accomplish something.

One more significantly recognizable trait of a hacker is when a team is “mobilized around a process instead of goals or outcomes.” It’s well-known that many of us are more inspired by social responsibility or a sense of belonging than by profit or bonuses. Hackers are not bound by the traditional criteria such as the numerous degrees that allowed me to get into health care administration. In fact they are typically not impressed with age, race, sex or position.

That list reminds me very much of what it was like to walk into a studio to record music where the “pick-up band” of performers came from every age, race, sex, education level or position. I remember playing with a jazz group that touched on every one of those areas with complete diversity. No one ever asked me if I had a degree when it came to how I played my trumpet. Just hit the right notes.

Finally, “keep it simple and complex.” The author suggests we just “think of Legos,” where very simple pieces can lead to incredibly complex outcomes, and hack away.

Nick Jacobs is a Windber resident.