The Age of Hyperspecialization

From the Letter to the Editor column in the September 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review:

What kind of life are you proposing to people?  Should business leaders micro-segment employees into task performers?  This is the death blow to innovation.  Where do critical-thinking skills fit into the authors' picture of the future of knowledge work?  What about systems thinking, design thinking, and the human ability to recognize patterns and create new things?  And what about the leverage you get when people are grouped together?  Don't they develop more-effective decisions?

Ray Luebke, structured innovation and strategy consultant

The letter was in reference to The Age of Hyperspecialization by Thomas W. Malone, Robert J. Laubacher, and Tammy Johns in the HBR July-August 2011 issue.