Hishberg's unusual management philosophy "hiring a divergent pairs" is really profound and meaningful to the succuess of Nissan Design International. As we see, these two different people Semple and Flowers working together will spark certain unexpected reaction called "creativity". I think the concept of "creative abrasion" is both quite simple and extremely difficult to achieve in the company.
There is no doubt that most of people don't think about matters divergently but straight. That's why inventors and scientist only account for a very small portion. However, hiring a divergent pairs is an interesting practise that helps to bring in a divergent thinking. One of key factors to perform "creative abrasion" successfully is the business culture that forms disciplines under which the company is run. Let's imagine a different situation: Hirshberg is an opponent of hiring a divergent pairs. This idea must have been stifled in the cradle if someone had raised it at that time. Just like what Hirshberg said, anyone in this pair need to have a pretty secure sense of self when the other person working on the same project as you has an entirely different set of priorities. So this kind of secure sense is the other key factor.
Befor I pursued my graduate study in WPI, I had three months' internship experience in American President Lines (APL) in Shanghai. Unlike Nissan, APL is a moving business forwarder. One of main functions of APL is to audit freight and surcharge and I worked for this audit department. At the first glance, "creative abrasion" seems to be unrelative to this kind of industry but we can't define creativity so narrowly. On the contrary, divergent thinking is absolutely necessary when we want to solve the problem. For example, we often find difference of total amount between APL's system (it should) and e-order generated by salesmen (it actually). Sometimes the reason why this difference comes up is not straightforward. Discussion or even controversy over the matter is essential when linear thinking by self doesn't work. When a divergent pair work together, abrasion will spark thinking in depth each other.
