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Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

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Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#61

Post by mobjack »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #34
nordsieck wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look, this essay is ridiculous. It starts by citing Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, and then delivers silly things like this definition of a "generalist": >> Someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set. If you take this advice and tone it down a lot, it becomes both reasonable and good. From Scott Adam's Career Advice [0]: >…

Thing is, it doesn't seem to pay, at least in the employment market. Employers want specialists, and pay for them. If your CV is two or three distinct things (I don't mean a selection of languages, or front and back end dev here, I mean distinct skills like say programming and accountancy) it's very unlikely to get you a better salary. In fact if you've diverged from a straight specialism throughout your career it's…

Project management requires a more generalist skill set compared a senior programmer. Specialization is good to a point, but then it can be more valuable to branch into other areas.

After you learn how to program, you will need to learn what to program and that requires more diverse skills and knowledge to make those decisions.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#62

Post by sultanofswing »

overgard wrote: post #57
snowwrestler wrote: post #10

Look, this essay is ridiculous. It starts by citing Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, and then delivers silly things like this definition of a "generalist": > Someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set. Then proceeds with: > Despite the world’s immense need for polymaths, these individuals seem to be quite rare. That’s because…

Feynman is kinda the counter argument though — I think his IQ was 120ish. Obviously very smart, but his unique insights seem to have come more from a broad base of knowledge and an intensely curious personality vs raw brain power. I don’t think you need to be a genius to make an impact in a lot of fields.

Usage of Feynman's official IQ score as some sort of 'proof' of anything is often overused.

I don't have the exact citation but it is fairly well documented that he scored well on other very challenging tests that correlate strongly with IQ (not to mention his actual career accomplishments).

Needless to say, people bandying around his score on this one test as evidence that he was 'bright but not in a high IQ' way is disingenuous or ill-informed, to say the least.

I could be wrong but I believe the common consensus is that his 120ish score on that test was not representative of his actual IQ, and was maybe the result of some other circumstance.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#63

Post by gus_massa »

alehul wrote: post #32
pps43 wrote: post #5

In times of Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, and (to a lesser extent) Benjamin Franklin one person could learn a significant portion of total scientific knowledge. That's no longer the case. There could be no more deep generalists.

So true. There's two types of research; one that builds upon prior knowledge to new conclusions, and another that undermines everything previous to be incorrect or incomplete. The first is done by your average PhD in Physics, for example, while the latter was Einstein and then Heisenberg, Planck, and Born. While someone can be successful in the latter kind (undermining previous knowledge) through a fresh new hypothes…

To undermine previos knowledge you need to understand everything prior and reaching the current point of knowledge in that field, even more than if you want to make some incremental discovery. Einstein, Heisenberg, Planck, and Born had a deep knowledge of the current state of Physics at their time.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#64

Post by Godel_unicode »

mobjack wrote: post #61
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, it doesn't seem to pay, at least in the employment market. Employers want specialists, and pay for them. If your CV is two or three distinct things (I don't mean a selection of languages, or front and back end dev here, I mean distinct skills like say programming and accountancy) it's very unlikely to get you a better salary. In fact if you've diverged from a straight specialism throughout your career it's…

Project management requires a more generalist skill set compared a senior programmer. Specialization is good to a point, but then it can be more valuable to branch into other areas. After you learn how to program, you will need to learn what to program and that requires more diverse skills and knowledge to make those decisions.

Is that actually true? I've met very few project managers who know any discipline other than project management with anything I would call depth. I can't even imagine talking to a PM about any serious technical question anymore. Their answers in the past have always been a unique type of unhelpfully vague but hard to argue with which puts all the effort back on you, but not in a way which adds anything to solving the problem.

Things like "what's best practice" when I've just exhaustively explained how we're in the precise corner case to which the normal best practice doesn't apply are, for me, the hallmark of PM ideas. Deep technical insight or domain knowledge are not.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#65

Post by Godel_unicode »

madhadron wrote: post #56
snowwrestler wrote: post #10

Look, this essay is ridiculous. It starts by citing Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, and then delivers silly things like this definition of a "generalist": > Someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set. Then proceeds with: > Despite the world’s immense need for polymaths, these individuals seem to be quite rare. That’s because…

I don't know why you have Francis Crick on that list. Franklin being on the same list as the others is also pretty weird.

You don't think that Franklin was a polymath? That's a pretty jarring take, can you expand on it?

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#66

Post by cosmie »

snowwrestler wrote: post #10

Look, this essay is ridiculous. It starts by citing Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, and then delivers silly things like this definition of a "generalist": > Someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set. Then proceeds with: > Despite the world’s immense need for polymaths, these individuals seem to be quite rare. That’s because…

> then delivers silly things like this definition of a "generalist":

> No, it's because the thing you're talking about is a "genius" not a "generalist."

I think you may be misunderstanding that definition. It's not saying that you have to be the top 1% of practitioners of those domains. It's saying that by gaining general competence in at least three disparate domains and identifying ways to integrate those into each other, you inherently create a top 1% skillset for that amalgamation of skills. You might only have an average level of competence in each one individually, but drop into a situation that involves more than one of your competencies, and you've suddenly become far more valuable in that environment than more competent specialists that don't have the cross-domain knowledge that you do.

I have the type of "deep generalist" skillset that the article references. I'm competent enough to get by in about a half dozen competencies and a career that has hopped between technical, business, and consultancy roles in a variety of functional disciplines and industries. If I tried to pivot to a role focused on any one of those skillsets, I'd be hard-pressed to pass an interview for a role at the appropriate seniority level to be commensurate with my current salary.

But in the right environment and right organizational structure, I'm incredibly effective. I currently work for a consulting agency, and in the past year I've mainly worked on four different accounts. For two of those accounts, their needs were such that I was able to leverage a combination of my skillsets for them. The results were uniquely impactful enough that the client teams for both know me by name and both have tried to poach me from my agency, along with one vendor I worked with (on a client's behalf). For the other two accounts, I was brought in to fill a singular need that happened to be one of my competencies. While I filled that need adequately, the results weren't noteworthy enough to warrant me even having any direct contact with the clients beyond being one of the disembodied voices that pipe up sometimes on a conference call.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#67

Post by overgard »

sultanofswing wrote: post #62
overgard wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feynman is kinda the counter argument though — I think his IQ was 120ish. Obviously very smart, but his unique insights seem to have come more from a broad base of knowledge and an intensely curious personality vs raw brain power. I don’t think you need to be a genius to make an impact in a lot of fields.

Usage of Feynman's official IQ score as some sort of 'proof' of anything is often overused. I don't have the exact citation but it is fairly well documented that he scored well on other very challenging tests that correlate strongly with IQ (not to mention his actual career accomplishments). Needless to say, people bandying around his score on this one test as evidence that he was 'bright but not in a high IQ' way is…

I don't think it's disingenuous or ill-informed at all. Maybe people get sensitive when it comes to intelligence, but say I said something like "Drew Brees is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time despite being short for the position". It doesn't mean that height doesn't matter for the position (short stature is a disadvantage as a quarterback), it just means that he found other ways to succeed. I think you could make the same argument with intelligence: once you reach a baseline of "good enough", what you do with that intelligence is more important than just having a lot of it. Obviously Feynman applied his intelligence really well.

I think the argument of "so and so was a genius so don't bother you can't do what they did" is a really defeatist attitude.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#69

Post by tptacek »

sultanofswing wrote: post #62
overgard wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feynman is kinda the counter argument though — I think his IQ was 120ish. Obviously very smart, but his unique insights seem to have come more from a broad base of knowledge and an intensely curious personality vs raw brain power. I don’t think you need to be a genius to make an impact in a lot of fields.

Usage of Feynman's official IQ score as some sort of 'proof' of anything is often overused. I don't have the exact citation but it is fairly well documented that he scored well on other very challenging tests that correlate strongly with IQ (not to mention his actual career accomplishments). Needless to say, people bandying around his score on this one test as evidence that he was 'bright but not in a high IQ' way is…

I like how when Richard Feynman's IQ test score doesn't conform to some narrative, HN is in contortions with excuses why the test doesn't matter, but when we come around to the topic of white IQ supremacy, suddenly HN is armed to the teeth with factoids about how g-loaded and circumstantially neutral the mainstream IQ tests are.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#70

Post by linkregister »

tptacek wrote: post #69
sultanofswing wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usage of Feynman's official IQ score as some sort of 'proof' of anything is often overused. I don't have the exact citation but it is fairly well documented that he scored well on other very challenging tests that correlate strongly with IQ (not to mention his actual career accomplishments). Needless to say, people bandying around his score on this one test as evidence that he was 'bright but not in a high IQ' way is…

I like how when Richard Feynman's IQ test score doesn't conform to some narrative, HN is in contortions with excuses why the test doesn't matter, but when we come around to the topic of white IQ supremacy, suddenly HN is armed to the teeth with factoids about how g-loaded and circumstantially neutral the mainstream IQ tests are.

Thomas, were the same folks making these comments?
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