Why and how to be a generalist
The work world is changing. The rules for what makes a company (and a person) successful are different from where we were 10 years ago. Three things are driving this change:
First: software makes “hard” skills more accessible to “lay” people. Thousands of SaaS products aim to take functions that only specialists could do before and open up the value to more people.
Second: where software can’t close the gap, self-teaching is exploding. Don’t know SQL? Don’t know cold-calling tactics? Don’t know Python? You can learn most of what you need to know to get started, basically for free, if you’ve got the initiative.
Third: companies and industries can grow fast and change what they’re focused on even faster. What’s important at a company can change in an instant. What this means is that the project you’re working on today and the skills you have right now may not matter to your company in 6 months time.
Companies are increasingly demanding workers that can move fast, be flexible, define and solve complicated problems, and be "valuable" in ways that the company itself might not be able to predict or define.
That type of worker is a generalist.
What makes a good generalist
To be valuable, a generalist must:
Get up to speed quickly. They must be able to understand and articulate what’s important and why.
Identify and define problems in ways that everyone can understand
Find the “best” way to solve those problems.
Be “good enough” at 1000 different skills to get the job done.
On top of this, generalists must thrive in ambiguity. They are often found in roles with unclear org structures and unclear OKRs. Their most important job is to create order from chaos.
It’s tough out there
So you’ve decided to be (or have unintentionally become) a generalist! That’s great, right?! I just told you that trends are forcing companies to find and hire people just like you.
Except for this: companies haven’t exactly caught up yet. There’s no playbook for how (and when) to find, develop, and reward generalists.
For the generalist, life is uncomfortable. Nobody is watching out for you. There’s no clear career path (outside of starting your own company, more on that later). Roles like sales, marketing or engineering have pages and pages written on how to guide your career, and there are a ton of role models to emulate.
For the generalist there’s a unique set of lurking questions and fears:
What if you wake up one day and realize the skills you developed are all “wrong”?
What if you finally decide to go deep on a function but find out that you hate it (or aren’t as good as you need to be)?
What if your company isn’t able to see and reward your value because of the ambiguity in your role?
What if, like a random tool that doesn’t have a clear “home” you wind up in your industry’s junk drawer?
How do you set yourself up for success in the next move, and the one after that, and the one after that?
Generalist.me
So that’s why I created this site. I want to be valuable to generalists. I want to share things that are useful and make people more valuable in what they’re doing today. I want to help generalists find and get hired for the best “next” job for them.
This site is a professional home for generalists. Together we are a powerful community make it just a little bit easier to be successful.