Let's Hear It For Generalists
What I read: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized Word by David Epstein. Published May 28, 2019.
Long before I was aware there is a word for how I am wired regarding my varied interests and pursuits, I knew that I had a predilection to jump around considerably with my reading material, studies, hobbies, professions… everything really.
Nowadays the word generalist is becoming more widely used and it resonates with me.
generalist: one whose skills, interests, or habits are varied or unspecialized.
Despite early efforts by family, friends and career guidance experts for me to specialize in something, that pressure did not stick. Inevitably I would veer off into new territory just as I was beginning to gain a decent amount of knowledge or skill for a particular topic.
In 1972 I entered my freshmen year at the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana as an accounting major with the eventual goal of becoming a Certified Public Accountant (my father’s profession) and then attending law school to become a barred attorney. By my second semester I was a dance major and by my third semester I had left college to pursue a newfound dream of becoming a professional dancer, which I did.
Did I have any notion whatsoever that I might want to be a dancer when I entered college? None at all. My 10-year gymnastics background certainly gave me a physical leg up in that regard, but studying, let alone considering a career in dance, never crossed my mind until I happened to take a physical education dance class in college and a teacher suggested I consider it.
In the introduction of my book, The Art of Self-Education: How to Get a Quality Education for Personal and Professional Success Without Formal Schooling, I list the wide range of jobs and careers over my lifetime to date and they clearly illustrate my bent toward being a generalist.
My life then followed a fantastic journey from that point on that included careers as a dancer, actor, singer, model, bartender, waiter, retail clerk, designer of windows for a high-end department store, makeup artist, word processor, Hollywood script reader, script doctor (improved other people’s scripts), aerobics instructor, Hollywood film researcher, administrative assistant, corporate trainer, software specialist, instructional designer, network administrator, freelance writer, owner and President of a book publishing company, internet talk show producer and host, business policies and procedures writer, technical writer, business analyst, marketing writer, information developer, project manager, corporate manager, corporate senior manager, and eventually corporate director. And of course, an author and blogger.
I have certainly spent some time studying and practicing enough in certain areas of life that I could call myself a specialist. My current field in software technology information development is a good example. But the term generalist seems to more accurately apply to me overall.
Generalists like me often thrive on the random opportunities life presents and while my life trajectory might appear to be a hodgepodge of disparate paths, they all share one thing in common – my curiosity. I believe generalists are by nature incredibly curious creatures and it propels them to learn and experience much of what life has to offer.
Recently, I ran across Bill Gates’s annual list of five books for 2020, 5 good books for a lousy year, and when I saw the book Range was included on his list, I knew it was a book for me.
Gates said this about the book.
I started following Epstein’s work after watching his fantastic 2014 TED talk on sports performance. In this fascinating book, he argues that although the world seems to demand more and more specialization—in your career, for example—what we actually need is more people “who start broad and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives while they progress.” His examples run from Roger Federer to Charles Darwin to Cold War-era experts on Soviet affairs. I think his ideas even help explain some of Microsoft’s success, because we hired people who had real breadth within their field and across domains. If you’re a generalist who has ever felt overshadowed by your specialist colleagues, this book is for you.
(Also check out David Epstein’s 2020 TED Talk, Why specializing early doesn't always mean career success.)
I felt seen. Here was a book that justified all my years of resisting sole specialization in favor of a more generalist approach to life. I immediately bought and read Range.
The gist of Epstein’s contention in Range is that having a diverse spectrum of skills and interests is better than specializing in only one area.
Epstein deconstructs the popular belief that hyper focused specialization, often bolstered by examples such as top chess and golf champions, is how to get ahead in life.
The recently popularized 10,000 hours approach suggests that if you practice something for that many hours you will become an expert is so pervasive that it has cemented a commonly held belief that such vigilant practice of just one thing is the best way to get ahead in life. That is not necessarily true.
Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling book, Outliers: The Story of Success, is largely responsible for introducing "the 10,000-hour rule" to the masses. Gladwell and others are not entirely wrong about lots of practice leading to success in some areas, but it tends to apply mostly to repetitive or narrow skilled activities such as golf, playing a musical instrument, or winning chess tournaments. When it comes to taking knowledge and insights from various areas of life and blending them into new patterns and solutions, the 10,000-hour rule does not hold up quite the same.
I know some reading this will point to professions such as doctors or lawyers and claim these are areas of specialization and the only way to become successful is to focus on only that which improves those professions. That might appear to be intuitively the case, but it is not.
A doctor who studies philosophy is going to better understand their patients and perhaps have more compassion for them. A lawyer who volunteers with a nonprofit racial justice organization is going to better use their skills to benefit humanity. Plus, the skills developed while undertaking a variety of pursuits feed into your brain’s processing power by fostering neural connections that make you more creative in your chosen profession.
Epstein highlights this truth throughout the book, but in this case mentions how Nobel Prize winners and esteemed scientists are more likely to engage in a diverse set of activities and studies than others.
Scientists and members of the general public are about equally likely to have artistic hobbies, but scientists inducted into the highest national academies are much more likely to have avocations outside of their vocation. And those who have won the Nobel Prize are more likely still. Compared to other scientists, Nobel laureates are at least twenty-two times more likely to partake as an amateur actor, dancer, magician, or other type of performer. Nationally recognized scientists are much more likely than other scientists to be musicians, sculptors, painters, printmakers, woodworkers, woodworkers, mechanics, electronics tinkerers, glassblowers, poets, or writers, of both fiction and nonfiction. And, again, Nobel laureates are far more likely still.
When it comes to your career, I will caveat the generalist approach with the stark reality that sometimes a bit, or a lot, of specialized knowledge or skill is not only helpful, but required. I would not want to hire a computer programmer who is not highly skilled writing code or an accountant who did not understand through study and experience the pitfalls of bad accounting.
In When Generalists Are Better Than Specialists, and Vice Versa by Florenta Teodoridis, Michael Bikard, and Keyvan Vakili, published in the Harvard Business Review, the authors strike a nice balance between advocating for the hiring of generalists versus specialists.
About generalists they say,
Many studies have found that the best ideas emerge from combining insights from fields that don’t seem connected. For example, Charles Babbage’s invention of computational machines powered by punch cards, the foundation of modern computers, was inspired by Babbage’s knowledge of the silk-weaving industry, which used cards with holes to create patterns in the silk fabric. Similarly, Henry Ford’s revolutionary idea of the car manufacturing assembly line was inspired by Singer sawing machines and meatpacking plants.
Based on this thinking, you might try to make your team more creative by encouraging employees to explore new fields or by hiring more generalists, people who have a variety of experience and expertise. They can connect dots where others don’t see a link.
Then, in the same article, they contend that there are indeed careers for which specialization is a plus. They make a strong case for a balance between the hiring of generalists and specialists.
There’s considerable evidence supporting both sides, so we reason that both are probably right. But there must be certain circumstances under which generalists shine and others under which specialists do.
And that is pretty much how all of life goes. Nothing is absolute in life and the generalist versus specialist argument is no different.
Still, regardless of whether someone chooses to devote a considerable amount of study and practice to one area, I still contend studying and pursuing interests among an array of subject matter areas and life experiences will benefit everyone, even if in one’s professional or primary avocation specialization is a wise choice as well.
Try to not specialize early in life. Cast a wide net for new experiences, topics to study, and skills to learn. Have fun. Venture down a path, then do not be afraid to veer off on a tangent, or drop it entirely and try something new. Repeat. Often.
I think Range is one of those books everyone should read. I cannot think of a single aspect of life that would not benefit from the advice it offers to diversify one’s interests. Much like life as a whole, there is power in diversity.