“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” — Robert Heinlein
I like this quote. A lot of people criticize it because there are a lot of advantages to specialization. As Adam Smith observes, specialization creates wealth. And there are some things you want to leave to specialists. Take brain surgery. If you need it, you would not prefer that someone who is simply a doctor does it, but want someone who is a surgeon, preferably one who specializes in brain surgery, and preferably the best brain surgeon around.
I personally have been a specialist of one kind or another throughout my career, and have benefited financially as a result. And yet, I agree with Robert Heinlein.
Note how the quote starts. It does not say you should do all those things. It says you should be able to do them. Over the course of my life, I have done most of the things he lists. (I have never set a bone, but I know how. I am also trying to put off dying gallantly for as long as possible.)
There is nothing wrong with specializing as long as you can do stuff outside your specialty. I have had some really wonky specializations over the years. I was not just a space navigation, I was a Shuttle space navigator, and specialized in onboard space rendezvous navigation software. Not just rendezvous navigation, but rendezvous navigation software. The software that runs aboard the Shuttle. Cannot get more specialized than that.
It was a great gig while the Shuttle was flying. Paid well. When the Shuttle program ended that specialization was worthless. If I had been an insect, unable to change my specialized behavior, I would have starved. Instead, I shed my old skin and emerged as a different kind of specialist — a technical writer. Not just a tech writer, but one who specialized in high-end software documentation, APIs, interface tables, really wonky stuff.
And, yeah, I have changed specializations since then. Because other things offered better opportunities.
Heinlein is right. As long as you have a broad range of things you can do, you can (temporarily) afford the luxury of specializing in one of them. But if all you can do is specialize in one thing, you will likely suffer the same fate as an insect.
Published in General
There is a great story illuminating the generalist v specialist divide that involves the Presidents of Harvard and MIT.   Both schools offer MBAs.  Harvard’s program is justly famous for producing generalist managers.   MIT also famous but for producing technical specialists. Â
In a panel discussion featuring both university’s Presidents, the MIT President was asked what, if anything, he identified as a shortcoming of MIT’s program.  Gesturing at the Harvard Pres he said: “Too many of my guys end up working for too many of his guys.”
Amen to that. I, too, have had a number of specialties that came from general adaptability.
The basic education and training should prepare kids to be both and to readily change and learn new specialties. Â To actually choose a specific specialty however one must have talents. Â I don’t have the dexterity to type on a cell phone, I don’t think surgery would have been my thing or specialty requiring minor motor skills and superior eyesight. Â In the digital age exposure to the best instruction in the world on any subject is at our finger tips, but instead, as I wrote elsewhere this morning, we send our kids to snowflake incubators.
Great quote. One of the reasons the smartest and best people I know are that way is that they are interested in more than one thing, and their conversation and actions reflect that fact.
I’m not sure whether I should be proud of my many and varied interests, or if I should be ashamed of my inability to focus.