Certain Habits

Ever since Adam Smith’s pin factory made obvious the benefits of division of labor, our jobs, disciplines and knowledge have become ever more specialized.

Much of this has been for the good. Scientific discoveries, particularized services, ever-more-precise tools suited to specialized tasks—all this and more have made possible the unprecedented improvements in physical comfort, most measures of standard of living, and longevity that we’ve enjoyed for the last two hundred years.

But specialization has its costs as well. And one of the more insidious is the overconfidence that comes with expertise (real or imagined). There is a tendency to substitute one’s judgment for the considered and personal choices of the (supposedly) unsophisticated individual.

Christopher Alexander, the noted architect, provides a great example:

CA– As you will have anticipated, I believe that these so-called experts, whether they are architects, furniture designers or interior designers, are quite authoritarian and usually extremely inexpert, mainly because they don’t pay attention to what people really want. They maintain a continuous belief in their own powers of judgment over and above the judgment and wishes of the people they are meant to be serving.

I can give you an example of what I mean. I was laying out a series of apartments in Nagoya and I had a Japanese assistant, a very intelligent young woman, who trained as an architect and had studied with me. We would have the families lay out their apartments and she would re-draw them for technical reasons. She knew very well what I was after, and even as good as she was, she was continually of the opinion that she would somehow help the families by cleaning up what they had done.

In one example, I looked at the drawing the family had made, and compared it to her more technical drawing. I noticed that she had moved the sink a couple of feet from where the family had placed it. I asked her why and she said, “I’m quite sure they didn’t intend it to be here, it looks awkward, so I moved it a little.” But I sensed some intent in the original drawing, and I asked the lady why she had put the sink where she had. She explained something very complex and subtle about coming in the door, washing, purifying yourself, as you come home and then relaxing. She had thought exactly where to put the sink and moving it two feet completely vitiated her design.

My assistant had moved it with the best intentions. Yet, the mismatch between the professional grasp of the situation and the so-called layman’s grasp was like night and day. I’m not quite sure how we ever got to the almost obscene state where a professional believes that just by virtue of being a professional, they know more about someone’s needs, feelings, and wishes than the person himself.

Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that the client might actually be right. And it’s a warning to those, particularly in DC, who think they can better engineer our lives than we can.