The future of specialization

Hey Praise,

It's been a minute. 4 days actually. I've been all shades of busy and stressed out from a particular project. Remember the one I said I was experimenting Agile with? Yes, that one!

I presented it yesterday, and it was fire.

It leaves me wondering why I was nervous about it. I was very nervous, yet, as I talked through 62 pages of presentation, there was this confidence in outcome that oozed out of my tired, sleepy mouth. Praise, a brand designer, killed that.

Few hours later, I'd find myself developing a page on Figma for another meeting I had. It was a new feature they had added to the product, and I'd be presenting how it worked based off the requirements they had sent over.

That's me also, a Senior Product Designer at an Online Public Data Bank based in the USA and Nigeria.

Few minutes later, I'd be receiving a request to handle a communication misalignment for a team I work with. That's me, as a Comms Strategist.

A day prior, I had acted as Copywriter, Chief Marketing Officer, Art Director and Operations.

"Generalist or specialist? Which do you tend to?"

This was one of the questions that the CEO of IDAfrica asked me on my interview call for Art Director earlier this year.

"Generalist", I said in a split second.

I am generalist. I always have been. I can't stay in one field. I am intrigued by the ability to work in any place, hold any conversation I am interested in, or even be a polymath.

Yet, articles left and right talk about how focusing on one thing means more impact. Blair Enns says that to command a premium, you need to be known to do one thing. This means saying no to other things.

I disagree slightly and have a different theory to that.

Alex has a cutlass. No, let's be fair.

Alex has a shovel. Justin has a shovel. Alex decides to dig 4 different holes at the same time, digging in a particular sequence—1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4.

Justin, however, decides to dig only one hole.

At the end of the day, who'd have the deepest hole given the same amount of time? Justin! The flip side is that Alex would have more holes than Justin.

Deciding the amount of stuff each hole can contain is a different story, but I can put my money on Justin's hole.

That is specialisation as it is talked about today. Justin is the specialist, the one doing the right thing.

Rewind a bit, and let's change one variable.

Alex has a bulldozer. Justin has a shovel. Alex decides to dig 4 different holes at the same time, digging in a particular sequence—1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4.

Justin, however, decides to dig only one hole.

At the end of the day, who'd have the deepest hole given the same amount of time? Who?

Alex!

He'd have the deepest hole, and more deep holes than Justin. Yet, Justin is the specialist and Alex remains the generalist.

The variable that the argument against generalists misses is "capacity". The message shouldn't be "cancel generalisation". It should be "cut your cloth according to your size".

This has been my stance for a long time, and it remains so.

But I have another theory.

Everyone should be specialists!

Obviously not their kind of specialists. Instead of it being about doing one thing, it should be about achieving one outcome.

The future of specialisation will move from the ability to do a skill, to the ability to achieve ONE consistent outcome. The specialist, irrespective of his range of skillset, will be recognised for his ability to get the job done.

John Wick is a generalist by today's standards, but in hindsight, he's a specialist through and through. He kills, and does it well, irrespective of what gifts he uses.

I am a generalist by today's standards, but in hindsight, I am a specialist—consistently delivering on one outcome.

Back to Blair Enns.

His definition agrees with me.

He advises to charge based on the value you provide, and not the skills you have. Yet, he says you should specialise. I read it as "deliver consistently on one outcome to charge a premium".

You can only build expertise in that outcome if you hit it repeatedly over and over again. How you get there is your own business.

The future of specialisation is value and outcome.

Did you miss me?

Thanks for reading! If you loved it, tell your friends to subscribe.