Munger on Multidisciplinary Thinking, Part 3

In the first two parts of our series on Charlie Munger's thoughts on multidisciplinary thinking, we looked at why professionals need to think beyond their own disciplines and why traditional education often fails to teach them how to do so.

Munger's argument was that real-world problems rarely fit neatly into academic or professional boundaries. Yet people are often trained to think within those boundaries, creating what he called the “fatal unconnectedness of academic disciplines.”

This brings us to the third question in Munger's 1998 Harvard Law School reunion speech: “In elite broadscale soft science, what is the essential nature of practicable best-form multidisciplinary education?” In other words, if multidisciplinary thinking is so important, what should good multidisciplinary education actually look like?

In elite broadscale soft science, what is the essential nature of practicable best-form multidisciplinary education?

To explain this, Munger uses the analogy of pilot training. He argues that professionals can learn from the way pilots are trained — through breadth of knowledge, practical application and constant reinforcement.

• Breadth and fluency: A pilot's formal education needs to cover practically everything useful to piloting. But that knowledge is not taught just so that pilots can pass the test: it is developed into practical, practice-based fluency, including the ability to deal with several hazards at once. Munger believes broadscale professionals need the same combination of a breadth of knowledge, combined with “practical fluency.”
• Prioritisation and inversion: Pilots are trained to think both forward and in reverse — not just about what they want to happen, but also about what they need to avoid. Their training is also prioritised according to what matters most, with the most important skills receiving the greatest attention. For Munger, multidisciplinary education should similarly teach people to use inversion and focus their effort on the most important ideas.
• Checklists and regular maintenance: Pilots use mandatory checklists and continue training even after their initial education, using simulators to prevent important skills from fading because they are not put to use everyday. Munger argues that broadscale professionals also need systems that reinforce knowledge and keep their skills current.

Munger's point is not that professionals need to become experts in every discipline. Instead, they need broad knowledge of the important ideas from different fields, with the most useful ideas developed to a level where they can actually be applied. He says that there aren’t very many truly big ideas in each discipline, so they can be learnt “in essence” and can carry much of the necessary knowledge. He also stresses that multidisciplinary thinking cannot remain theoretical and that professionals need to practice applying ideas across disciplines to real-world problems.

The heart of the lesson

Munger's third question moves from identifying the problem of fragmented knowledge to asking what a better system could look like. His answer is to take the elements that work in a highly successful narrow field such as pilot training and expand them to broadscale education. It combines wide-ranging knowledge with fluency, prioritisation, inversion, checklists and continuous practice. The objective is to create professionals who can connect ideas across disciplines and apply them when dealing with complicated problems.