What is the skill that will get you ahead in the future….
We have heard for far too long that deep domain expertise and understanding will lead to finding good opportunities, enhanced credibility, rapid job advancement, and a great career with escalating incomes. The alternative of being a generalist is usually dismissed as dabbling without really adding ‘value’.
But the future with rapid advancement of technology, combined uncertainty that we have never experienced, may be very different: Breadth of perspective and the ability to connect the proverbial dots that generalists can do very effectively, is likely to be as important as depth of expertise and the ability to of specialists to generate dots. The rapid change is making the most important career logic of the past counterproductive going forward.
To put it bluntly, has our philosophy around skills development changed with the changing world order?
The dynamic complexity today, demands an ability to thrive in ambiguous and poorly defined situations and job roles. For most people, this generates anxiety, because it has always felt safer to live in defined structures.
If I rewind my life to when I got to college about 25+ years ago, some of the buzzwords that characterized the business advice: Core competence, unique skills, deep expertise. I am sure it is the same for most of us who were looking for some career advice. All we were told was, the key to success was having and developing a specialization that allowed us get the opportunity and then to climb the professional ladder. Specialisation and further specialisation was ‘the way’.
It wasn’t enough to be a CA/CPA, one had to specialize further, perhaps in audit, tax, forensic, due diligence and more. But then it wasn’t enough to be a forensic accountant one had to specialize further, perhaps as an ‘Anti bribery expert’. And it wasn’t just accounting, it was in almost all professions- medicine, legal, IT and more.
The message was clear: Focus on developing an expertise to get the right opportunity, rise through the ranks and earn more money. Nothing wrong with the approach, it worked many of today’s leaders ascended by specializing.
What now, does the future belongs to generalists?
Today’s world of work is a fast-paced race in a complex and uncertain global field. Companies around the world are facing new competitive threats, changing market dynamics, technological disruption and the ever-changing needs of empowered customers. The pressure is on for companies to adapt to change and more quickly deliver better products and services to customer. Traditional leadership thinking and practices are failing to meet today’s challenges. Leaders must more effectively redefine and refine their product and service to meet the customer needs to solve a problem, engage all stakeholders, foster creativity, speed up delivery and mitigate risks to outpace the competition.
Just as the typical mutual fund disclaimer so famously states, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Is it time to rethink our love affair with depth, expertise, narrow focus? Does the pendulum between depth and breadth has swung too far in favour of depth?
There is a saying that “to a man with a hammer, everything looks like nails.” But think about it, what if that man had a hammer, a screwdriver, and a wrench? Might he or she look to see whether the object and decide which tool will be most effective. And finally, the expansion on the toolkit can encourage a better understanding of a problem.
I am certainly not suggesting that deep expertise is useless. On the contrary. Carrying a hammer is not a problem. But having ‘only the hammer’ in all situation could be a problem. It’s just that our world is changing so rapidly that those with more tools in their possession will better navigate the uncertainty. To make it in today’s world, it’s important to be agile, open, adaptive and flexible.
Specialization is A Golden Cage
There has been so much talk in the corporate world about specializing that we’ve forgotten the value of being a generalist. We tell our kids, “Find what you’re good at, and stick to it.” But what if that industry goes away? What if the kid figures out 10 years after graduation that they hate what they do? With no other skills in the armory, we trap ourselves in the golden cage of specialization. We can only move up and down on a single trajectory.
The world needs specialists. I work with brilliant subject matter experts every day. But specializing is not the only way to get ahead and make a name for yourself, contrary to popular opinion. Businesses need generalists to connect the dots and more so now.
So, what it means to be a generalist?
To begin with, generalist zoom out and pay more attention to the context in which they’re making decisions.
Generalists are dabbler, explorer, learner — someone with broad knowledge across many topics and expertise in a few, most likely with meandering career path. Although the life story of a generalist can look a bit disjointed, if you were to draw a Venn diagram of their experiences, you’ll find a great amount of overlap as one opportunity leads to another I’m specialized in accounting and finance, but over time I’ve stretched myself and my expertise to encompass business, client servicing, setting up and mentoring units, HR, IT, Legal venture etc. All knowledge builds on itself, and the generalist take their suitcase packed full of wide-ranging experience with them wherever he goes, offering companies a tremendous amount of value.
And, what are the benefits of being a generalist?
Broad experience has its benefits. Generalists have a more diverse collection of knowledge to draw from, so they can see connections and correlations that specialists might miss. They tend to have a higher EQ and ability to collaborate, too, because becoming a generalist means interacting with many different kinds of people in all sorts of situations.
Generalists also tend to have a higher level of situational awareness and can see the bigger picture. Where specialists tend to have a high degree of awareness in their own area, they may not be great at understanding areas outside their fields. They need a generalist, a big-picture thinker, to bring it all together.
They surely are ‘value providers’, and spot opportunities because of their ability to connect dots and imagine how changes in one domain can disrupt operations in another one. Because generalists have a set of tools to draw from, they are able to dynamically adjust their course of action as a situation evolves. Just think of how rapidly the world changed with the development of the Internet and wireless data technologies. Jeff Bezos was not a retail specialist who took on his competitors and won. He was a relative newcomer to retail but was able to adapt rapidly to seize a gigantic opportunity.
How to become a generalist
It’s never too late to become a generalist, even if you’re already well-established in your career. In fact, it might be exactly what you need to boost your motivation as well as your skill set,.
To begin, expand your knowledge. Think bigger and wider than you’ve traditionally done. Are you a finance professional? Why not read a book on marketing? Or better still why not raise your hand to work on a cross department / cross market project?
- Get out of your comfort zone. Say “yes” to new opportunities. Have you watched the movie, “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey? I loved it because he commits to saying “yes” to everything, and his life changes for the better.
- Be learner for life. I’ve always been a dabbler. Learn something new today, and you can use it to connect with someone that can help you tomorrow.
- Be better than what you were yesterday. There is always a new subject to learn that branches out from what you already know. Remember the Venn diagram I mentioned above? Start adding circles to your own.
- Mind your gaps. Think of what you’re really good at now and what areas of expertise you’re missing. Connect with people, take classes, read books, and create experiences that help you fill those gaps.
- Seek Feedback: Ask for feedback from people who know you and who will tell you the unbiased truth about yourself. They may have an outsiders’ perspective about your strengths and weaknesses that helps you grow.
- Side hustle. Side projects help you explore new territory without the pressure of your higher-ups calling the shots. Even if your side hustle is completely unrelated to your current job, you’ll learn valuable skills you can use at work. You’ll learn a lot about the most important person influencing your career path, too — you.
Career success for generalists
Many forward-looking companies look for multi-functional experience when hiring. This is essential for large organisations where employees jump from team to team and from role to role.
In fact, the companies value those who have a “general cognitive ability” over role-related knowledge. Think of any large organisations with demonstrated track record of growth- they need to evolves constantly. So, if they just hire someone to do one specific job, and then the company needs change, they need to be rest assured that the person is going to find something else to do. And that comes back to hiring smart generalists.
If you’re relatively new to the workforce, my advice is to manage your career around obtaining a diversity of geographic and functional experiences. The analytical capabilities you develop (e.g. basic statistical skills and critical reasoning) in the process will fare well when competing against those who are more focused on domain-specific skill.
The one certainty about the future is that it will be uncertain. The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and technological innovation have commoditized information. The skill of generating dots is losing prime value it has enjoyed over last 3-4 decades. The key skill of the future is, well, not quite a skill; it’s an approach, a philosophy, and way of thinking — and it’s critical you adopt it as soon as you’re able.
You’ll Never Regret This adventure of Becoming A Generalist
Apart for a lot of career benefits, there’s one I forgot to mention, it’s also a lot of fun. I’m always invigorated when I test my own limits, acquire a new skill, and use it to make something great happen at my company or in other things I dabble in.
So start today, get out if your comfort zone, say yes and hustle way…..
Kriti Makhija
Chief Financial and Compliance Office, BCW India
Advisor, Nasscom Community
Views expressed are personal
Sources: Vikram Mansharamani, blog on CNBC and Paul Genberg on Forbes
