The Lack of Generalists

I came across this article titled The Last Days of the Polymath. It’s an excellent article that got me thinking about my day job. I’m a generalist, though, ironically, my title proclaims me a specialist albeit in an artificial construct called “complex solutions”. Generally, what I do is think about the problems our clients inform us about. Our clients have a variety of problems. A single solution isn’t going to cut it, otherwise they’d already have purchased said solution. These clients usually have compelling and complex problems that are (usually) ahead of what the industry norm is currently focused upon. That’s OK, that’s cooler in my mind.

However, to address the problem requires the outlook of a generalist and not a specialist. The problem at hand is never so narrowly focused or defined that a single, simple, and deep approach can be applied. The problem is usually one where you want to apply a “good enough” solution. One that may only resolve 50% of the issues at hand, but that’s better than what the client currently is dealing with which is a 0% solution to the problem. True specialists usually come in before us and proclaim how their given product will resolve the problem. Unfortunately, it’s usually a pathetic attempt to restructure the problem into the specialized capability of the given solution being pushed. Rarely does this do more than aggravate the client who knows better — since, as I’ve said above, if it were as trivial as buying a point product they’d have done this already themselves.

Thus, upon reading the article on the last of the polymaths I realized that the same statement holds true to some extent to generalists. There’s this odd mystique about specialists, probably because of the word and because it requires arcane knowledge of a specific area of interest and a vocabulary typically determined to confuse anyone not in the know. However, many times the problems we all face are actually those that require not a specialist but a generalist. Someone who is well versed in a variety of problems and knows what they are and are not well versed in. And someone who is able to take a good step back and absorb what the true problem is and then formulate a way forward — which may include research into areas that, at the time of study, were unknowns and require research of either existing technologies or how technologies will need to be developed to address the gaps.

A specialist simply cannot do the aforementioned. It’s impossible for a specialist in an area of, say, cryptography to not view the entire spectrum of security problems with their cryptographically tinted glasses. A generalist can see the folly of their ways. And yet, if I were to arrive at a client site and proclaim myself as a generalist I would be considered inferior to the specialist. Thus, my title as a specialist in those very complex problems my client faces.

I don’t know how we got into this mess where we look down upon general knowledge while glorifying the specialist. I think  it’s just more comfortable for most people to comprehend that any given person is good at one thing. Someone who might actually be good at more than one thing probably feels intimidating, or just plain wrong. Perhaps improbable is the correct term.

Unfortunately I don’t know a way around this other than by using marketing tricks and rebranding “generalists” as “specialists” but in generic areas of interest such as “complex solutions” or some such. It’s all rather odd, but you have to go with the flow. But I fear it also gives the false perception to up-and-comers that you have to specialize to matter meaning we may well lose out on generalists in the future. And that is going to be both a calamity and a travesty.