The Future of Generalist Work
When you make changes in your life, especially when learning new skill sets, you’ll have to cross a moat of low status—a period where you are bad at the thing or fail to know things that are obvious to other people.
It’s called a moat both because you can’t just leap to the other side and because anyone who can cross it has a real advantage.... See more
It’s called a moat both because you can’t just leap to the other side and because anyone who can cross it has a real advantage.... See more
Cate Hall • How to Be More Agentic
So many of the problems that teams have — communication, organization, strategy — are unrelated to the function.
23 Tactical Company Building Lessons, Learned From Scaling Stripe & Notion
Generalists can unlock solves to org problems specialists have trouble fixing.
The researchers, Todd Rose and Ogi Ogas, were interested in people who took a less conventional approach to life. They interviewed hundreds of high-achieving, wildly successful “dark horses”: people who swerved in and out of jobs—and often industries—to find a good fit. From symphony conductors to chess masters, Apple execs to dogsled mushers,... See more
Simone Stolzoff • In Praise of the Meandering Career
“It is ironic that I was never categorizable and now I’m a category.”
Jimmy Buffett
The Imperfectionist: Doing things is what counts
ckarchive.com“Here’s what I mean: everyone seems to yearn for the productivity technique or life philosophy or set of personal rules that will cause them to do more writing, launch a business, be a better listener, or finally start meditating. But nothing beats actually doing a bit of the thing to reinforce to yourself that you’re capable of making progress on it. The best way to convince a five-year-old that enjoyable leisure doesn’t require addictive technology is to spend a few hours demonstrating that it doesn’t; and the best way to prove to yourself that you can add words to the manuscript of your novel is to add a few.”
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
Managers should always be prepared to give away their people, and when the time comes for a high performer to leave, Shen argues that managers will actually be better off for it.
Pulling from the ethos of Molly Graham’s blockbuster Review article “Give Away Your Legos,” Shen has architected her own framework for how managers can avoid being caught... See more
Pulling from the ethos of Molly Graham’s blockbuster Review article “Give Away Your Legos,” Shen has architected her own framework for how managers can avoid being caught... See more
Lessons in Giving Away Your People
Job titles are just the most visible ladder of them all. It’s interesting that pompous executive job titles were invented during the Victorian era. This is when we started the trend of calling a cleaner a hygiene technician. A bin man became a waste management and disposal technician. Later on, a call-center worker became a communications... See more
Anne-Laure Le Cunff • The tyranny of job titles: from vanity growth to personal growth
Generalists have shirked the the notion of a true job title to fit their work and have followed the thread of providing value and making an impact. No wonder there’s a group of talented professionals hiding in plain sight given how constricting the traditional job titles have become in affirming our professional worth.
