Saying that’s probably going to get ’em canceled. Ooh, I’m telling mama she don’t love you Anyways, GI said it. Yeah, I said it. GI here on GI said it where I break down my perspective about different topics, and today I wanted to break into generalists versus specialists, and I’m going to start it with the age old quote that everyone says, Jack of all trades, master of none. Now, here’s the thing about that, that’s not actually the whole quote, right? They actually left out one of the most important parts. It’s jack of all trades, master of none, oftentimes better than a master of one. Now, the reason that comes up is because today is everyone’s hyperfocused on specializing. The reason is because often specialists will get their headstart a lot faster than generalists would. They went to school, they specialized in this particular area, they got internships, they got jobs, they have experience in that area, and because of that, they’re higher in demand and they’ll get higher salary right up front on the backend.

Generalists usually covering a bunch of different areas, filling it out and figuring out how to add all of that information into being used in different areas. And that often means that early on they’re not going to be making as much money. However, later on, they’re often either making a lot more money or they’re in leadership roles because leadership roles require you to have multiple skills. Say as a CEO, you don’t want to be the one just doing all the engineering. That’s ridiculous. You’re trying to run a business. You have someone else do that, right? It’s more cost efficient or you’ll get better. I if you do that for leaders, you need to be able to cover and understand multiple areas of your business, whether that’s finance, whether that’s marketing, whether that is the engineering or technological side. You need to have that experience in multiple of them so that you can communicate with your team and what’s going on, what needs to be adjusted.

So neither one is better, a specialist or a generalist. We need each other, but this is what I’m seeing. I see that when leadership is needed or guidance is needed or running a business is needed a hundred percent, I’m choosing a generalist because I need them to have enough experience in general in life to be able to avoid pitfalls, liabilities and create a strategy that will work overall. If I need someone to execute a very specific task, this one thing really, really well, that’s where the specialists come in and I will say this about it. I have found that if you flip those roles, it’s extremely problematic If you take a generalist, right? And to be honest, I’m a generalist. I’m not a specialist. If you take a generalist and you put them in a specialist role, they’ll probably do fine for one day, two days a week, they’re probably going to get bored, is what’s going to happen.

Bored, monotonous, the same thing over and over. My brain, and I’m assuming I don’t like assume, but I’m assuming this time that other generalist brains do not work that way, right? They like to see the big picture, and that is the difference between specialists and generalists. The generalists, they see the force, the big picture, right? Specialists, they’re going to see the details, the trees. So you need to place each one in its particular role where they’re going to succeed. And so if I’m going to play a role, say it’s like chess, and I got to place them each where I need them to go. If it’s a business or it’s a leadership role, bam, generalist, I need you to cover the whole area. I need you to see the things that other people can’t see. I need you to see the big picture. If it’s a specialist, I need you on point with your details.

The reason being is I don’t want to be paying attention to the details. I don’t want to be looking at the details. Everyone has the role in which case they have to play, and when they’re playing their role, things work out well. Now, I had said about taking a generalist and having them do a specialist job and that they’d be bored. Right? Now, when you take a specialist and have them do a generalist job, say leading, that’s where I do see some problems happening because you’re not looking at the big picture. Oftentimes they’re kind of zoned in hyper-focused on this one thing, but not seeing the other pitfalls that are coming. So I wanted to break this down and dive into this because it used to be a bit more known in terms of people’s roles, where they fit in where they are. Things are not quite like that now because you have so many opportunities to do whatever you want.

And of course everyone wants to be a leader, and so everyone’s trying to be a leader, but not everyone is a leader. That’s just the reality of it. You need to have certain skills. And the first and foremost of that skill is that your focus as a leader is on other people, right? You are not in it just for you. It’s not all about you. It’s about your audience. It’s about your team, your staff, your partners. It’s an outward facing focus, in which case you’re constantly focusing on other people. We’re trying to make sure that things are getting executed for other people. Specialists in general are oftentimes very focused in their little sphere, so it’s a bit more about them. So when you flip those roles, you actually have messed up the, oh, I’ll call it the hierarchy in terms of how that particular thing operates.

And I get that a lot of people today would say, Hey, no, that shouldn’t be like that. Hey, we should switch it up. We should change it. But it was designed that way, regardless of how much you want it to be something different. If it does not work that way, in reality, it is irrelevant for specialists. Yeah, dive in, learn what you need to learn, be an expert in your particular area, generalists, get some experience across different areas so that you know how to either lead or at least provide advice. Now, I’m going to give you the downside. So I already told you about generalists that they don’t really make a whole lot of money upfront usually, but usually on the backend they do. One thing about the specialists is because it’s great, you get a lot of money upfront. If that industry or your area is no longer relevant, technology replaces it or the world and societal and cultural expectations go a different direction, you now have to change your entire life.

All those years that you spent in school for that particular thing, all that time you spent on internships, possibly working for free, building up your career and different jobs, you now need to actually go and change that, and you have to start that all over again. You need to get more education in that new specialist area that you’re at. You need to go and get more new contacts, new jobs. So it’s like starting over again. And I did experience that in one particular thing, in which case I started within a new field and that essentially got replaced by technology. And then I’m like, oh my gosh, I have to start all over, learn this new contexts new, blah, blah, blah, branding all over again. That’s why it’s not for me in particular, but as a generalist, you’re able to adapt a bit more quickly, and that’s because you have that knowledge in multiple areas.

So even though this particular area is no longer relevant or popular or in demand, that’s irrelevant. You just pull from one of your other areas and then begin moving in that direction. So as you’re looking at your own self and your own potential within your career, it’s important that you’re looking and define yourself as whether you’re generalists or specialists that will dictate how you’re going to execute the plan that you have for your success or for your career. That is a really important thing. Know who you are first. That’s always that. You know me, be you, and then everything gets a lot easier. The last thing I’ll say about this is that, yeah, I’ll say it. If we’re going back to originally where humans have interacted and been executing things long before we were here, I would say that most people were generalists because let’s say out in tribe, out in the wilderness or jungle or wherever you’re at, specializing in a particular area isn’t as useful because you’re not going to be doing that one thing all the time.

You may be collecting water, you may be hunting, you may be a forging gathering, you may be building your shelter. These are a plethora of skills that you need in order to survive. So if you’re only good at one thing, that means that the entire rest of the actual community, the tribe has to support you. So you need to be able to be good at different things. That doesn’t mean that they don’t have specialists, right? Some people are good at hunting, so they’ll do more hunting, but they still need to be good at the other areas because here’s the thing, if no one else is going to pick up the slack, your survival is now in jeopardy. So it was survival base. And quite frankly, today things are so easy, you might say, oh, things are no in relation to that, things are so easy that you don’t necessarily have to know all of those things because their survival isn’t as hard as it used to be.

And where the specialists come into play for that actually has to do with business in general, right? Business, or where do you fit within society? You need to do this particular thing, not because it actually necessarily matters, but because it matters to the business that you’re doing it for. So that’s where that came into play. I would like a specialist to be really good at this one thing so that my business can thrive. So again, when you’re looking at yourself and even looking at others and just trying to figure out your place in the world, it’s important to know which one you function as and which one you feel comfortable and could be successful at. The closer you get to that thing, the easier your life is going to be. Alright guys. This’s GI here on gi, set it and make sure you check me out on the website, gi griffin.com. I’ll see you guys next time.