Generalists as good as Specialists?
A few days ago, a friend of mine told me: “ I do so much side activities that HR are used to tell me with a little smile that I can seem unstable”.
I asked her why she does all these activities?
She immediately replied: “ Because I like to discover new things and, believe it or not, I get better in other unrelated fields cause I learn quicker !” for sure, the more you know the more you can relate to.
At this moment, it clicked!
Do HR are looking for generalists, who try out a lot of new things, or do they search for specialists, experts in their field?
This leads to another question, how do we value generalists and specialists?
Upside of being a Specialist?
Being a specialist in a certain field gives us speed of execution while doing the specific task we love. Doing it fast and right is what specialists do best!
Most of the time, specialists are passionate about their field of activity. They follow every news and practice on their personal time, to have fun first and to get better in second. This doesn’t require them much mental energy cause they love it! (mental energy ≠ intellect)
These are the people we love talking and working with when we need more insights about a specific topic. Because they love sharing their knowledge in a useful way.
Like Roman Klčo a professional designer and illustrator specialized in 3D modeling on blender. This is what drives him, learning more about his field to bring his imagination to life!
Above all, we have to keep in mind that specialists are looking for challenges! You can see a performance of Roman in this video.
Upside of being a Generalist ?
This is the case of my friend! Generalists know a lot of things in a lot of fields, but they are not the best for doing things fast and right at the same time.
Generalists like to explore and try. Failure is well known by them, not because they fail at everything, far from it, they fail much more than specialists because they try out much more new things. As they fail, they get better.
Most of the time generalists learn 80% of the field and move on to another exciting one !
What they love is not mastering everything. They love to discover, to see links between different fields. Doing these links helps use seeing things from a different perspective.
One of my favorite example is Eiji Nakatsu who revolutionized Japan’s Shinkansen Bullet train thanks to his other activity, Eiji was a birdwatcher !
For the train to be more efficient, Eiji and his team changed the train design by copying the Kingfisher. The emulation of the models, systems and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems is called Biomimicry. For more details about Eiji and Biomimicry you can click on the video below.
Generalists want to redefine what they see by thinking outside the box with the tools they discovered while doing other activities!
So, what do Companies need?
In our era of digital transformation, companies need to find the balance between Exploration (R&D) and Exploitation (Making money), this balance is called Ambidexterity.
The evolution of technology is exponential, we can’t really visualize it because we tend to think of a linear evolution, which creates a gap between the reality (exponential) and our thoughts (linear). This gap leaves room for innovation !
For more details about the digital transformation, you can click on this link.
In pursuit of Ambidexterity, companies want visionary explorers (Generalists) and focused experts (Specialists). But there is a problem, we know the upsides of specialists and generalists and “Oh boy” we should know the downsides too!
Specialists are the best at getting things done well and fast, but when it comes to understanding the bigger picture and the exact purpose of the task, it’s more complicated. It’s like a horse blinkered he just sees what’s in front, no offense, I like horses.
“if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” The law of the instrument
For example, when developing a software, we have to keep in mind how to program (The Task) and what are the needs of our customer(The Purpose).
For generalists, it’s the other way around. They are the best at seeing the big picture, doing the story telling and explaining “Why we are solving this problem ?” and “How we can solve it?”.
For the “What to do exactly ?” they often have ideas and knowledge, but they are not the best suited to get the job done well and fast. It’s like someone who lakes of practice and is butterfingered, no offense, I like butter.
You see were I’m going with this! What we want are Teammates learning from each other and aiming at the same exact goal. One doesn’t reach his potential without the other.
That’s why companies want to created teams with Ambidexterity to get the maximum value of each one!
Let’s conclude on these few words from the eminent physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson with this analogy.
“It is stupid to claim that birds are better than frogs because they see farther, or that frogs are better than birds because they see deeper” Freeman Dyson (the Frog)
The world is both broad and deep, we need birds and frogs working together to explore it.
If you want to read about the differences between Specialists and Generalists, I recommend you “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World” by David Epstein
