Generalist vs specialist is there room for both? Do you remember writing essay after essay or story after story that answered this question: What do you want to be when you grow up? It is a rite of passage for every elementary student to answer this question. Usually, the answers are superhero, doctor, pro baseball player, etc. But let’s be honest, what does a first grader really know about what they want to be when they grow up?
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The conventional parenting wisdom is, once a child expresses this interest do whatever you can to give your child a head start down their chosen career path. Because we need to give them an advantage over their peers. So there is pressure to start early, so that the kids can specialize and become an expert in the field they chose. But is this really the best way?
Generalist vs Specialist
In part 1 of this series, we answered the questions what is a generalist. Here is a brief re-cap from Range by David Epstein: people who start broad and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives while they progress.
Basically, a generalist is a person who is always learning. It is someone with a curious mind and seeks answers to satisfy her curiosity. It is someone who can integrate knowledge from various fields and come up with a solution to an unrelated problem.
A specialist, on the other hand, is someone who has hyper-focused on a specific skill and gaining specific knowledge to the exclusion of everything else. They’ve chosen the path early, focused narrowly, and never changed direction.
Changing the Generalist vs Specialist Ideas
Our culture has so pushed and promoted the idea that the only way to succeed in your career path is to specialize. This idea is actually detrimental to innovation, coming up with better solutions, and problem solving.
The idea to specialize can be found in a number of places, but let’s start with Dr. Ericsson’s theory of deliberate practice or his 10,000 hour rule. This idea can be found in so many popular books. Have you read Talent is Overrated, Deep Work, Grit, or The Outliers? There are others, these are the ones that I’ve read. All of these books, to some degree, base their ideas on the theory of deliberate practice. The basic idea is that the accumulated hours of training is the sole factor in skill development no matter the domain (Range, Pg. 5).
Can we challenge this popularly accepted idea? It is a little scary when you start venturing out of the stream that everyone is traveling up. Or swimming against all the fish going in the same direction. But we need to do this every now and again. It is important that you ask the questions: Is this really the best way? Or the only way? Is it ok to change the generalist vs specialist ideas? Can we change the idea that being a specialist is the only way to be successful in any field.
The Biggest Downside of Specializing
It sounds so much easier to just focus on one thing. Your mind doesn’t need to switch gears, and you just do the same things over and over again. This works great in environments that have a fixed set of rules, with known outcomes if you follow those rules. Think chess or sports. You can easily get better at these because the rules and outcomes never change.
Being a highly specialized individual can cause you to lock into what is familiar and not think of outside of the box solutions. Or solutions that would differ from your training.
This is probably the most illustrative and scariest example of overspecialization. Again, I read this story in Range. It was found that cardiologist have become so used to using stents when they are treating chest pains that they do this reflexively (think muscle memory). So here is the scary part. A study found that cardiac patients were less likely to die if they were admitted to the hospital when the majority of the highly specialized cardiologist were out of town.
When you have a very narrow focus, you only come up with very narrow solutions.
The Benefits of Being a Generalist as Seen in the Life of Frances Hesselbein
Now for the benefits of being a generalist. There are many benefits, a whole book was written about it, Range. (Books were written about the benefits of specializing too. All ideas are flawed, so we take the best out of the flawed idea.) Since, I am a generalist and I experienced the thoughts and feelings that you will never succeed in business as a generalist. I want to give you hope if you are experiencing those same feelings.
We are going to talk about the benefits because I want to give hope to those handful of generalist living in a specialist world. I mentioned 5 in part 1 of this generalist series, now for a few more. But I want to give you the benefits a little differently. I want to tell you the story of Frances Hesselbein. Have you ever heard of her? I didn’t, but I so appreciated her story, I want to share a little bit with you.
A Remarkable Life as a Generalist
When she was past her 100th birthday, she was still in her office every week. In her lifetime she held 4 professional positions, and she tried to turn down 3 of the 4 jobs. In all 4 of these positions, she was asked to be the CEO or President of a company that she never applied to.
It all started with Frances, a mother to a little boy, being asked to volunteer to lead a Girl Scout troop. At the prospect of the group being disbanded, she agreed to volunteer for 6 weeks until a leader could be found. She ended up staying with that troop for 8 years.
After the Girl Scouts, Frances volunteered in other organizations. She loved to volunteer and looked at this as her calling. When she was asked to become the executive director of the local Girl Scout council. She replied, “I would never take a professional job. I am a volunteer.”
At 54 she began her professional career as director of the local council. She would eventually become CEO of the Girl Scouts. A role that she would hold until her retirement 13 years later. And then the next morning her phone rang. It was the chairman of an insurance company inviting her to come see her new office. What!? She had just retired.
Hesselbein never graduated from college. Her education was whatever would teach her and let her be of service at each moment. She spread her knowledge broad and wide. “I was unaware that I was being prepared,” she said. “I did not intend to become a leader, I just learned by doing what was needed at the time.” (Range, Pg. 152).
This, my fellow generalists, is what we do. We learn by doing what is needed at the time. And the range of experience and knowledge we get from that is more than any college degree could offer.
Generalist vs Specialist Conclusion
It is possible to create the life you love without specializing in something or finding a niche. Be sure to download your free Mom Boss 2.0 workbook. It is a step-by-step guide on starting a business without a niche.
Read the other posts in the series: What is a Generalist and How to be a Great VA as One and How to be Successful in Business as a Generalist.
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