I've worn a lot of hats over the years and I think all those hats allow me to bring more to the table than if I focused on only one discipline. Is it possible that if I were more focused that I might have made more money? Maybe? Hard to say. With every economic downturn I've seen a lot of incredibly talented people stranded without work, whereas I – the guy with many hats, would just jump to a different discipline. If I don't have work creating background art for animation, I can recreate vintage packaging for props for TV and film, or I can build a website in a pinch (prefer not to... but if it pays the bills), or help someone write a book and do the layout and prep it for print. The more things one can do, the more likely it is that you can find work. I admire the sheer talent of so many specialists, but arguably the life of a generalist is much more interesting. :)
Proud generalist here. Do you get the Generalist World newsletter or have you visited their site? I forget who told me about it. I find the newsletter useful but haven't forked out to join. https://www.generalist.world/
➡︎ "I might not enjoy struggling with how best to position myself in a niche-obsessed world, but I enjoy the work of being a generalist."
I could say "all the things" about the broad knowledge and skills it takes for us to be effective generalist leaders, how much impact we have across an organization, how our portability carries with it additional responsibility for shoring up leadership cracks/gaps, how we augment so many roles inside an organization when we're generalists (because we're never "only x" or "only y"... But what really matters is that we're drawn to the breadth of responsibility... it's who we are. I can't imagine being single-thread (and no one who's ever worked with me could see me doing that either).
Having said that -- the corporate world I know and love has hardened to generalists. Your point about CEOs is spot-on about "what they do" in their leadership capacity (breadth)... but the CEOs I'm familiar with all "brand" themselves in a peculiar technical way. That could be a product of my tech history, but "domain expertise" is so narrowly defined and highly valued that it is often used as the central disqualifier for those whose brand is Breadth.
I've worn a lot of hats over the years and I think all those hats allow me to bring more to the table than if I focused on only one discipline. Is it possible that if I were more focused that I might have made more money? Maybe? Hard to say. With every economic downturn I've seen a lot of incredibly talented people stranded without work, whereas I – the guy with many hats, would just jump to a different discipline. If I don't have work creating background art for animation, I can recreate vintage packaging for props for TV and film, or I can build a website in a pinch (prefer not to... but if it pays the bills), or help someone write a book and do the layout and prep it for print. The more things one can do, the more likely it is that you can find work. I admire the sheer talent of so many specialists, but arguably the life of a generalist is much more interesting. :)
Proud generalist here. Do you get the Generalist World newsletter or have you visited their site? I forget who told me about it. I find the newsletter useful but haven't forked out to join. https://www.generalist.world/
➡︎ "I might not enjoy struggling with how best to position myself in a niche-obsessed world, but I enjoy the work of being a generalist."
I could say "all the things" about the broad knowledge and skills it takes for us to be effective generalist leaders, how much impact we have across an organization, how our portability carries with it additional responsibility for shoring up leadership cracks/gaps, how we augment so many roles inside an organization when we're generalists (because we're never "only x" or "only y"... But what really matters is that we're drawn to the breadth of responsibility... it's who we are. I can't imagine being single-thread (and no one who's ever worked with me could see me doing that either).
Having said that -- the corporate world I know and love has hardened to generalists. Your point about CEOs is spot-on about "what they do" in their leadership capacity (breadth)... but the CEOs I'm familiar with all "brand" themselves in a peculiar technical way. That could be a product of my tech history, but "domain expertise" is so narrowly defined and highly valued that it is often used as the central disqualifier for those whose brand is Breadth.
Net: Think Global, Act Local.