Generalist Vs. Specialist: Is One Really Better Than the Other?

Settlers of Catan is my favorite board game.

It presents the perfect combination of luck and strategy; honest trading and biased robbery; pure elation and eye-watering frustration.

If you’re a fan of the game, you know that most of your strategy is deployed during the initial placement of your first two settlements. Your starting position really has the power to make or break your game.

My strategy over the years has evolved to take on one of two forms:

1. Generalize – get settlements on every available resources and/or every number available.
2. Specialize – double down on one or two resources and build on a trading port.

A Strategy for Your Career

My two strategies for Catan are not much different than a common career question I often read about online: Is it better to specialize and develop deep expertise in one area, or to generalize and gain broad knowledge with a diverse skillset?

Specialists are Valued for Their Uncommon Expertise

I read and hear a lot of advice to become an expert. Specialists are supposed to go further in their career, and be compensated more for having deep knowledge in one area of focus.

In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Cal Newport makes a very compelling argument in favor of advancing your career by going deep.

He urges us to follow a path of mastery through deliberate practice to become an expert in a specific field.

The logic for his advice follows simple economics.

Great jobs – the kind that allow you to be creative, have a big impact, and give you control over your time – are rare and valuable. Therefore they are expensive, and can only be purchased with a lot of career capital. In this case, “career capital” is years of specialized experience and mastery.

If your goal is to love what you do, you must first build up “career capital” by mastering rare and valuable skills, and then cash in this capital for the traits that define great work.

Cal Newport

Generalists are Valued for Their Creative Insights

For what generalists may lack in uncommon expertise, they make up for in their creative insights. Generalists may be better equipped to adapt to a changing environment and make smarter long term decisions by drawing on a wide breadth of experiences.

In many ways, the internet has discounted the value of specific knowledge. Data and information is cheaper and more accessible than ever before.

Seth Godin summarized this idea in his book Linchpin when he wrote, “Depth of knowledge combined with good judgement is worth a lot. Depth of knowledge combined with diagnostic skills or nuanced insight is worth a lot, too. Knowledge alone, though, I’d rather get faster and cheaper from an expert I find online.”

Sometimes, being able to provide the right insight or diagnosis stems from connecting two or more dissimilar ideas.

Investing giant Charlie Munger once described how he believed successful insights often come from avoiding the temptation to bias specialization.

The first rule is that you’ve got to have multiple models — because if you just have one or two that you’re using, the nature of human psychology is such that you’ll torture reality so that it fits your models… And the models have to come from multiple disciplines because all the wisdom of the world is not to be found in one little academic department.”

Charlie Munger in his 1994 address to UCS Business School

Is One Strategy Better Than the Other?

I don’t think it’s possible to say that becoming a specialist is better than a generalists, or vice-versa. There are too many variables at play.

Some career paths with make sense to generalize. A good salesman might be someone who has technical knowledge of the product, a good grasp on behavioral psychology, and wide ranging interests that lend him to carry on conversations with any potential buyer.

On the other hand, if I’m having severe chest pain, I just want a cardiologist who can diagnose what’s wrong with my heart. In this case, a specialist is critical.

But Maybe It Doesn’t Matter

Debating whether to become a specialist or a generalist really isn’t the right question. There’s no right or wrong answer, and most careers fall somewhere on the spectrum between one extreme and the other.

Perhaps the more important question is: Are you prepared to play the game?

Some of us leave school following a very specific path. For others, that path winds and jogs unexpectedly. Either way, your goal should be to master the tools you need for the journey.

We need a personal operating system to use on our journey towards specialization or generalization. Regardless of what path you take, the ability to communicate clearly and effectively, galvanize a team with productive meetings, and the discipline to organize and productively manage your time are all simple and effective skills for any successful career.

When we learn how to do the basics well, it doesn’t matter what number we roll. Our chances of winning will always be good.