Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)
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Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)
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Re: Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)
#2The best thing I ever read on this topic came from biology. In "The Diversity of Life," E.O. Wilson describes how specialist species thrive in stable environments. The stability allows them to evolve "deeply" into a niche and outcompete any species less specialized for that same niche. So if I'm really great at plucking fruit from tall trees, and you suck at it, I win. In unstable environments, however—say all of those trees burn down in a forest fire—it's the generalists that triumph, because they have more options and are therefore more resilient. Of course specialization and generalization are abstract terms. Reality can operate on a spectrum, often a discontinuous one at that. So maybe I'm a finch that's best at poking my long beak into a particular kind of tree, but in a pinch I can also hoover up ants off the ground better than most of the other creatures in my ecosystem. So it goes for humans competing in an economy too.
Re: Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)
#3I always feel like these types of posts are too kind to generalists. Maybe that's just because I am one and I am falling for the greener grass. It's true I've done well in my career, but I've never felt particularly competent. I can do a half assed job as a manager, developer, product owner, and salesman, but I am not any better at those tasks than someone who specializes in doing those things.
I could argue that I have a little more career resilience, since some creative editing of my resume gives me the ability to apply for 5-6 different careers, but my resume will be suspiciously lacking in details compared to people who have focused.
Generalists are definitely at an advantage when it comes to leadership roles and entrepreneurship, but it doesn't do me any good to be good at a role I have no chance to get without networking or a large cash base.
I think those who specialize have a more successful career, assuming their specialization doesn't die out. If I had spent the last 10 years being a really good C++ programmer instead of doing a little bit of everything, I'd have a lot of confidence in doing a lot of C++ focused jobs.
Re: Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)
#4I am not sure I buy the authors argument. I am not even sure if I am clear about how the author defines a generalist and specialist!!
The way the world knowledge is evolving, there is a blurring of what we call specialist and generalist. For e.g. If you are a medical researcher, then knowledge of biology, biochemistry, software development (simulation anyone) and maths is required. Now is this specialisation or being generalist?
To me specialists go deeper and solver harder problems. They work on a problem or set of problems in the same space for years together.
Generalists span either multiple disciplines and leverage the connections or have an overview of the field and jump between sub knowledge every couple of years.
And which is better? It all depends on context!
In a space which has higher population of specialist then generalist will be more successful as they will be able to tap into multiple peoples work which a specialist will find harder to do.
In case there are many generalists in a given space then specialisation is the way to go as you can take up problems that generalists will never be able to see or solve.
For me it's all about context.
Re: Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)
#5The best thing I ever read on this topic came from biology. In "The Diversity of Life," E.O. Wilson describes how specialist species thrive in stable environments. The stability allows them to evolve "deeply" into a niche and outcompete any species less specialized for that same niche. So if I'm really great at plucking fruit from tall trees, and you suck at it, I win. In unstable environments, however—say all of tho…
Just a restatement of K vs r theory.
Re: Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)
#6In mathematics, there is this thing called the “Curse of Dimensionality”.
In careers, there is the “Blessing of Dimensionality.” If you can make yourself good along multiples axes, you can carve a niche out for yourself. Maybe you are a top 20% coder. That alone, may be enough to get you a pretty good job. However, if you also have top 20% people skills, suddenly you have opened a very nice niche for yourself and are a very strong candidate for Director of Engineering or above.
Instead of obsessing about your weakness is a single dimension and worrying about if you are specialist or generalist, develop another dimension of competence.
Re: Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)
#7I strongly liky my generalistic knowledge. It often helps me find solutions or ways others can't see.
However, I do relay on some specialists in my Team to fulfill other demands.
For me, a good Team had both.
Re: Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)
#8I always feel like these types of posts are too kind to generalists. Maybe that's just because I am one and I am falling for the greener grass. It's true I've done well in my career, but I've never felt particularly competent. I can do a half assed job as a manager, developer, product owner, and salesman, but I am not any better at those tasks than someone who specializes in doing those things. I could argue that I h…
The grass is greener where you water it.
Re: Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)
#9The best thing I ever read on this topic came from biology. In "The Diversity of Life," E.O. Wilson describes how specialist species thrive in stable environments. The stability allows them to evolve "deeply" into a niche and outcompete any species less specialized for that same niche. So if I'm really great at plucking fruit from tall trees, and you suck at it, I win. In unstable environments, however—say all of tho…
I've had a going theory on this - that it's a yoyo between generalization and specialization.
A particular topic starts with generalists but as time progresses and stability (i.e. a path worth pursuing) becomes apparent, specialization is needed to eek out more performance gains.
Then after a while, that particular area gets disrupted because there's a fundamental shift in landscape and the cycle repeats because the landscape is new to everyone. Many times this new landscape was brought on because a specialist applied a specific finding to a new, larger group. Then generalists help build that new space.
Maybe this is obvious...
Re: Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)
#10The best thing I ever read on this topic came from biology. In "The Diversity of Life," E.O. Wilson describes how specialist species thrive in stable environments. The stability allows them to evolve "deeply" into a niche and outcompete any species less specialized for that same niche. So if I'm really great at plucking fruit from tall trees, and you suck at it, I win. In unstable environments, however—say all of tho…
My nickname for this phenomenon is the "robustness/efficiency spectrum." In this case, it would be the robust generalists and the efficient specialists on opposite ends of the spectrum.
(I'm not sure it has to be a two-dimensional spectrum in all scenarios —I believe there may be cases in which robustness and efficiencies are at least partially orthogonal/independent to each other.)
Taleb discusses this in his writing, if I recall correctly.