Specialist or Generalist?
I often heard ‘Should I become a Specialist or Generalist?’
Let’s say person A and person B commute to the same workplace every day.
Person A always takes the same route, the one that gets them there the fastest.
Person B takes different routes whenever they can. Some might have taken them longer but they got there eventually.
A year later, person A still gets to work on the same route and they know it by heart. On the other hand, person B knows the whole town inside out.
This is why Generalists eventually become more valuable in a workplace. It might take them longer to finish one specific task but they have a broader knowledge across their area. They can leverage their extensive experience, mix and match to come up with a creative and innovative solution that the Specialist might not be able to — and that’s exactly what the future wants.
To be a Specialist is like being a machine, easily replaceable and created for one purpose only. It is our ability to connect the knowledge between different areas in our lives that makes us unique.
So it doesn’t matter what your title or specialisation is, learning something outside your scope will definitely make yourself more valuable.
