The middle ground between specialists and generalists

I went to a family friend once for advice about work, and he told me I should focus and become a specialist at something. His words made a lot of sense because when you are a specialists your skills and knowledge will be unique that can contribute greatly in that field of work and you will benefit personally as well. However, I hesitated to accept the advice.

Specializing feels like limiting options, which for someone who was in my late 20’s still wanted to explore more of my ability. The ability to adapt deteriorates with age, and responsibilities increase allowing less space for exploration.

If someone loves doing something specific, specializing is fantastic and fulfilling. However, that is a big if. Enjoying doing something over a long period of time can also lead to obsolescence, where the skill and knowledge becomes outdated with technology and innovation.

Specialists are indispensable. They can command a premium for their service because only similar specialists can understand their field of work. But a specialist’s range of action is very limited, and with time, more people will find the specialization appealing and compete for it, which makes specialists dispensable.

Very few specialists lead organizations, because they spent a lot of time perfecting their trade that they cannot integrate different aspects of a certain industry.

There is one specialization that is everlasting, learning. As Elon Musk would phrase it, expert generalist. Learning enough to have a decent conversation with specialists but broad enough to see how work integrates.

"There is one specialization that is everlasting, learning."

The most profitable, exciting, beneficial specializations are those born out of merging multiple disciplines of specialization, creating a new one.

We are left with questions. How do we learn? How do we know what we love? The answer is simple: We need spaces of experimentation. Spaces of experimentation are not necessarily physical, it is an environment where we can try things out with little risk and cost, these spaces will help us test things out to see how we are feeling about them and how to improve.