Organizing Chaos

Whether we know it or not, we categorize all the time. “You’re just like your mother!” “That’s like the pair I got in New York.” He’s the kind of doctor, lawyer, etc., who….” We do it with animate and inanimate objects as well as with ideas and other less tangible items—it’s just like the time you….

Categorizing is one of the ways we learn to navigate the world. A perfect example is biological taxonomy, where life has been divided into domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. While we may not need this taxonomy to navigate day-to-day, it comes in handy when we are trying to learn or understand something new. Categories help us organize chaos.

The tricky thing about categorization is that while it may lead to efficiency, it doesn’t necessarily lead to effectiveness. It can even hinder effectiveness because it can cause us to limit our thinking. Truly effective people and organizations categorize at a higher level.

At its most basic level, words refer to people, places, and things. Learning that one word can refer to many similar things—my house, your house, a Tudor house—takes us from the specific to the general, from the concrete to the abstract. This second level allows us to infer and predict.

There is however a third level—insight, symbolic, and reflective thinking. This third level is about more than just ordering things in the most efficient way possible; it’s about seeing beyond that efficiency to see what more can be done. Many people confuse categorization with sorting. But sorting is static whereas categorization is dynamic.

Think about your work environment. People are generally good at sorting and bad at categorizing. In other words, they are good at putting information into files but bad at juxtaposing the filed information and creating new and innovative categories. This is one reason why some people have difficulty working in cross-functional teams—they have trouble seeing problems and challenges from perspectives other than their own.

Categorizing helps provide a framework for storage and retrieval of details and larger concepts, which in turn helps improve memory. To effectively categorize information, we must first develop the ability to look at part-whole relationships and examine similarities and differences, comparing and contrasting different elements. Once these analytical and critical thinking skills are habituated, we can then begin to group or classify data according to these fundamentals and categorize the information.

To categorize we need to be able to:

• · Compare similarities and differences between objects
• · Break down complex images into simpler parts
• · Distinguish relevant from irrelevant information
• · Determine which parts belong to which wholes

In the exercise below, 1, 2, 3, and 4, are complex geometric designs. 1, 2, 3, and 4 have been marked with small lines radiating out from the picture to indicate eight pie-shaped separations to help you identify different parts of the design. The 16 pictures below represent kaleidoscopic images created from one of the pie shaped pieces. Your job is to find the original shape (1, 2, 3, or 4) used to create the kaleidoscopic design. For example, 2 has a smooth circular shape around the design. Any image related to 2 will have to have a smooth circumference.

Categorization Exercise

Source: 2002, Donalee Markus Ph.D. & Associates. All rights reserved worldwide

Categorization enables us to look at both the big picture and the details, using each element in a different way. You can combine details to create new categories to meet specific goals. Reorganizing the details gives you a language to explain how you reached your conclusions and results.

If we go back to the example of the houses, how we might approach rehabbing the house will depend on additional categories such as, age, historic value, monetary value, and more. Our new organization helps to prioritize how we allocate resources. You can see this on any home rehab show—they balance these categories to decide how to proceed and which changes will pay off in the end. Categorization speeds up problem-solving and catalyzes creativity.