Hire or Be a Generalist?

 

I read an article the other day about how Google only hires generalists.  It caught my attention because in today's day and age, it seems like no one wants to be a generalist and no companies want to hire them.  So it got me thinking about the difference between someone who is a generalist - someone who has the capability of wearing many hats and being good at doing the jobs depicted by those hats; and a specialist who has deep, more singular knowledge.  Clearly, this is something that gets talked about a lot in small businesses. Since more than 80% of all businesses are defined as small, I wanted to understand it more so I could share with you.

 

The mantra of generalist at Google is strong.  It refers to the desired characteristics when they look at hiring, as well as the aspiration of having generalists be a big part of their teams.  As a matter fact, it seems that they consistently look for and put together teams of generalists. 

 

So taking a step back, what is a generalist?  Most commonly, we know the word generalist to mean someone good at a lot of things and possibly an expert in none. In the world of commercial real estate brokerage, it might mean someone who handles tenant rep, property management, leasing, as well as sales.  It would be someone who doesn't  focus on any one property type or any specific geographical region.  Industry wide, this seems to be the way that larger companies have attempted to operate for several years. In software and technology, it might mean an engineer who is great at Javascript, CSS, HTML, Java, Rails, PHP, et al.  Taking it further, it could be that technical person who is familiar with every technology up and down, including software design, infrastructure and support of desktop, laptop and mobile devices. 

 

My guess is for the most part super generalists are like unicorns - they're mythical. Peter Drucker the business efficiency guru and writer puts forth what I believe is a great definition- "generalist is a specialist who can relate his own small area to the universe of knowledge." Peter Drucker

 

This speaks to someone who has an open mind and can articulate relationships between known silos and new ideas.  And certainly I can see why theses types of people - smart, flexible thinkers who communicate well, would be someone that Google or anyone for that matter would want to make up a high percentage of their employee base. 

 

Everyone always talks about the need for start ups to be fast and nimble.  They use analogies such as being able to have people that can change the tires on the bus as it's traveling at 60 mph; be "MacGyversih" - combine a little bit of knowledge, add a wad of gum from their pocket and some raw smarts to solve a problem.  Reality is, it's not just start ups that need to be fast and nimble.  It's all companies. It's all teams.

 

So, how do you spot if you have the right type of generalist(s) on your team, and if you don't have the right ones, how do you either find them or help someone become one?  First of all, define the position and think about the depth of technical/professional expertise needed.  And don't forget about one key component - the more technical expertise someone has, the deeper their functional knowledge, the harder it will be for this individual to adapt to change.  You know, that's worth repeating - the more technical expertise someone has, the deeper their functional knowledge, the harder it will be for this individual to adapt to change.  And it certainly makes sense that when someone has spent a good deal of their career focusing on a specific area and has deep knowledge in that particular area, it will be difficult for them to see a reason to become more general.  Therefore, it may be a terrible idea for someone to force them in that direction.  Also, really good specialists are rarely good working in teams because frankly, there's really no need to.

 

It seems that the best answer is to try to have as many solid generalists as possible and hire for specific deep knowledge.  Why?  Because the perfect environment for specialists is one when conditions are just right, and when in the heck does that happen?  Also the risk for specialists is that they are much more likely to become extinct, so the risk for companies is when they leave, they leave a bigger void.  Generalists are able to survive a wide variety of conditions and changes in the environment, so it seems to me that Google has it right.  Long live the generalists. I'm glad that I'm one.  How about you?

 

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