The Future of Generalist Work
I don’t think that means we don’t need specialists. But as eminent physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson said, we need both frogs and birds. The frogs are down in the mud looking at the granular details of everything. The birds are up above and don’t see those details, but they can see multiple frogs and can integrate work. What he said is, our... See more
Don’t Underestimate Generalists: They Bring Value to Your Team
“Technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”
Evan Armstrong • Want to Build? Technical Excellence Won’t Be Enough.
Steve Jobs
These passion job organizations are burnout factories. Every year, a new crop of eager recruits comes in, grateful to have landed a job doing work “they love” — and every year, a significant percentage of the existing workforce churns out. Some have been there that single year, others for five. They leave not because they’re not good “fits” for the... See more
Anne Helen Petersen • When Your Profession is On Fire
And what you see internally is what I'll say is razor-sharp focus on reducing cycle time and bias to action and how do we reduce cycle time. I think it's basically the core of it culturally to me is getting people to think about smaller units of time for decision making. It seems obvious but I think you really have to reinforce it culturally. So... See more
Lessons from scaling Ramp | Sri Batchu (Ramp, Instacart, Opendoor)
“It's just to remind people that we don't work in years, quarters, weeks, we work in days. Each day matters and so never put out something tomorrow that you know can get done today. And that bias to action really permeates not just in the product teams but everywhere.”
On that note: hot off the presses is yet another study making the case that optimizing for youth sports performance undermines longer-term development. I highlight that specific theme because I think it’s the fundamental idea that runs through every page of Range (but that would have made for a less snazzy subtitle): short- and long-term... See more
David Epstein • Caitlin Clark's Not-So-Surprising Childhood
Another study on the power of generalist work
Generalists have the advantage of interdisciplinary knowledge, which fosters creativity and a firmer understanding of how the world works. They have a better overall perspective and can generally perform second-order thinking in a wider range of situations than the specialist can.
Shane • The Generalized Specialist: How Shakespeare, Da Vinci, and Kepler Excelled
How to clarify a concept you can’t articulate:
1. Change mediums. Draw it. Photograph it. Sing it.
2. Change levels. Explain what is one level up (bigger picture) or one level down (finer details).
3. Change fields. What would this concept look like in different fields?
1. Change mediums. Draw it. Photograph it. Sing it.
2. Change levels. Explain what is one level up (bigger picture) or one level down (finer details).
3. Change fields. What would this concept look like in different fields?
James Clear • 3-2-1: On hard conversations, how to ruin a good strategy, and asking for what you want
How great generalists think
Taking a nontraditional path will force you to grapple with what matters
The greatest benefit of a nontraditional path is that you have to figure out what you care about. Rather than an employer telling you what you should value, you have to do the hard work of determining what you value for yourself. This may sound self-evident, but in a world... See more
The greatest benefit of a nontraditional path is that you have to figure out what you care about. Rather than an employer telling you what you should value, you have to do the hard work of determining what you value for yourself. This may sound self-evident, but in a world... See more