Specialization Vs. Generalization
A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one.
1 Story from Experience
The world runs off Specialization. Most Careers rely on you learning a particular set of skills based around your chosen career. Then as you progress in your career, you are expected to specialize in a specific field of your career type. Doctors choose a specialty, Lawyers choose a specialty, those who work in Tech are no different. Whether you specialize in Dev Ops, Networking, or Cybersecurity, any way you shake it, the world still needs Generalizers as well, in this case, System Administrators. The world needs Doctors who have general medical knowledge enough to be a General Physicians. The world runs on both, but tends to give all the glory and high paychecks to the Specialists of the world.
”A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one”
-Shakespeare
Would you call Shakespeare a Generalist? Would you call him unsuccessful? Breadth vs. Depth. We need both, but while Specialists may be well fitted to solve one exact type of problem over and over again, I personally find that really boring. I prefer to solve as many problems as I can and have them be actually interesting to solve. I’ve done it my entire career, I don’t just solve the problem of a network switch failing, I solve why my company is investing in bad hardware. If you want to solve the more complicated problems in life, ones that are intertwined with multiple disciplines, you need to change your frame of mind and be a generalist. They are actually more in demand because we don’t even know they are fixing the world, cause before the Specialists are even aware there was a problem, we’ve already fixed it.
2 Ideas from Me
Most Job Titles sounds like a Specialization, until you get to the Job Description and the long list sounds more like a Generalist Position, especially in the Tech Industry. Maybe they should tag each Job Offer with a Specialist or Generalist Tag, or maybe I should just start a Job Board with that functionality.
I hate Grocery Shopping, but I also hate paying full price for Grocery Delivery and/or Pickup. Maybe I just hate food entirely, or at least anything to do with the preparation of food. The real problem is food prep is just so utterly boring, I hate it, but obviously its necessary or else I would starve. Maybe my brain is already living in the future where we have the Jetson’s Auto Food making machine at home. Maybe 3D Food printing might be a real thing soon? Either way, I’m hungry now but I don’t want to go make anything. Hurry up Future!
3 Quotes from Others
“It is a painful thing to say to oneself: by choosing one road I am turning my back on a thousand others. Everything is interesting; everything might be useful; everything attracts and charms a noble mind; but death is before us; mind and matter make their demands; willy-nilly we must submit and rest content as to things that time and wisdom deny us, with a glance of sympathy which is another act of our homage to the truth.” —Antonin Sertillanges
“The dilemma is this. In the modern world knowledge has been growing so fast and so enormously, in almost every field, that the probabilities are immensely against anybody, no matter how innately clever, being able to make a contribution in any one field unless he devotes all his time to it for years. If he tries to be the Rounded Universal Man, like Leonardo da Vinci, or to take all knowledge for his province, like Francis Bacon, he is most likely to become a mere dilettante and dabbler. But if he becomes too specialized, he is apt to become narrow and lopsided, ignorant on every subject but his own, and perhaps dull and sterile even on that because he lacks perspective and vision and has missed the cross-fertilization of ideas that can come from knowing something of other subjects.”― Henry Hazlitt
“Favoring specialization over intelligence is exactly wrong, especially in high tech. The world is changing so fast across every industry and endeavor that it's a given the role for which you're hiring is going to change. Yesterday's widget will be obsolete tomorrow, and hiring a specialist in such a dynamic environment can backfire. A specialist brings an inherent bias to solving problems that spawns from the very expertise that is his putative advantage, and may be threatened by a new type of solution that requires new expertise. A smart generalist doesn't have bias, so is free to survey the wide range of solutions and gravitate to the best one.”― Eric Schmidt