Two Minds of Great Teams

I've been noticing something for years now, and I can't shake it. There are these two fundamentally different ways people think about problems, learn new things, and build stuff. And once you see it, you see it everywhere. Let me try to explain what I mean.

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The Two Categories

The first kind of person thinks like they're building a proof. Step by step. Hypothesis by hypothesis. They don't move to the next thing until they've validated the previous. They're incredibly process-oriented. They can explain their thinking clearly because there is a clear path to explain. They're really good at following instructions, at defining systems, at building upon what already exists in a methodical way.

The second kind of person thinks in patterns. They need to see the whole picture first even if it's fuzzy. They make intuitive leaps. They just... know something might work, but they can't always tell you why. And honestly? That inability to explain their process can be a real problem, especially in environments that demand clear justification for every decision.

I call the first type Inductive thinking and the second Intuitive thinking. Here's the thing: both are valuable. Both are necessary. But they're completely different operating systems.

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This distinction shows up everywhere, not just in engineering or building products. Take physics. Theoretical physicists versus experimental physicists. The experimentalists? They're the process people. They have to be. You can't skip steps in an experiment. You build upon validated results, one careful measurement at a time. Theoretical physicists? They're pattern people. They're looking at the universe from 30,000 feet, seeing connections that don't make immediate sense, following intuitions about how nature might work. Sometimes they're right. Sometimes spectacularly wrong. But the breakthroughs come from those intuitive leaps.

Or take something completely mundane: learning to ski. I've watched this play out with my siblings. One of my sisters, when she learns something new, skiing, swimming, whatever, she's methodical. She reads the instructions. She practices each component. She builds upon what she's already mastered. She has a system. And it works beautifully for her.

I learn by making mistakes. I have to very often try the counterintuitive approach first. Unless I've exhausted all the other options, I can't really be convinced about what the "right" approach is.

Honestly, it could be inefficient but at the same time it's also made me think more deeply about what I'm doing. Like, why was this important to learn in the first place? And sometimes that's actually helped me build a deeper understanding of whatever I'm trying to do. There's value in the struggle, even if it doesn't look productive from the outside.

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Why We Need Both

Think about it from a systems perspective.

We need process-driven people because we need to grow systems. We need incremental progress. We can't just sit around waiting for brilliant pattern-recognizers to have breakthrough insights. The day-to-day work of building, maintaining, and improving systems requires people who can stay consistent, who can execute methodically, and who can document and communicate clearly.

But we also need pattern people because we need to challenge systems. We need people who can see outside the current framework, who can imagine what things could be if we weren't constrained by the existing structure. We need the breakthroughs, the non-obvious connections, the "wait, what if we tried this completely different approach?"

The best teams have both. The best leaders recognize the value in both.

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We think differently. We learn differently. We create differently.

And that's not a bug. It's a feature.

The question isn't which way of thinking is better. The question is: How do we build environments where both can flourish? How do we recognize the value in approaches that look nothing like our own?

That's how great teams are built. That's how real innovation happens.

Not by making everyone think the same way. But by recognizing that different operating systems can run compatible software and that the best outcomes come from letting both types of processors do what they do best.