# IDEO CEO Tim Brown: T-Shaped Stars: The Backbone of IDEO’s Collaborative Culture - ChiefExecutive.net
Synced: [[2023_11_30]] 6:03 AM
Last Highlighted: [[2023_07_13]]
Tags: [[Career Growth]] [[Teams]]
## Highlights
[[2023_07_13]] [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h57gt5tbh8an9y3xjaktnnx1)
> T-shaped people have two kinds of characteristics, hence the use of the letter “T” to describe them. The vertical stroke of the “T” is a depth of skill that allows them to contribute to the creative process. That can be from any number of different fields: an industrial designer, an architect, a social scientist, a business specialist or a mechanical engineer. The horizontal stroke of the “T” is the disposition for collaboration across disciplines. It is composed of two things. First, empathy. It’s important because it allows people to imagine the problem from another perspective- to stand in somebody else’s shoes. Second, they tend to get very enthusiastic about other people’s disciplines, to the point that they may actually start to practice them. Tshaped people have both depth and breadth in their skills.
[[2023_07_13]] [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h57gvgqgjq6wzpht1gypqktw)
> It’s just as bad. Somebody who’s just got the cross of the T-it’s an empty experience. In our environment, we’re only effective if we get things done. We have to design things. Much of that is based on people using their individual skills to get things done, whether it is prototyping or engineering something. Occasionally, we have people who don’t really have a depth of skills, and they really struggle. They don’t get respect from the group.
Links to the idea of being "Glue" & how they are taken for granted despite being the binding between things.
Also relates to the idea of Yin
[[2023_07_13]] [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h57gwxc7k4yxdmzybq23vr2t)
> There is a role for people like that. Think of professional facilitators. They are very good at stitching a conversation together without necessarily contributing to it. But if you have a company full of T-shaped people, you don’t need the facilitator, because everybody can do it anyway.
If everyone is glue, no one needs to specialize in glue
[[2023_07_13]] [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h57gy7aw2t17j6d96b76eqe8)
> Also, we have a Web 2.0 knowledge system; it has wikis, blogs, pages for people, projects and clients. We look to see how people are participating in that system: Are they publishing their thoughts? Are they contributing to others in different places? You start to accumulate evidence of how people are acting.
Work in Public