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Quote of the Day: Specialists and Generalists
“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.
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. To actually choose a specific specialty however one must have talents. 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. 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.
My EMBA Program, (Ranked 7th in the Nation) focused on leadership. It was quite generalized.
Exactly. The ability to adapt, to be flexible, is one of humanity’s greatest abilities. Some of these I’ve done a lot. I get paid to analyze problems and program computers. I have four daughters; I’ve changed more diapers than I ever wanted to change. I’ve written sonnets, balanced accounts and built walls. (Some of these efforts turned out better than others.) I’m a pretty decent cook. There are other items on the list where I don’t have much experience. (Although it depends how you define invasion. If you count invading restaurants and bars then I’m overqualified.) I haven’t set a bone but I have splinted compound fractures so that a doctor could set the bone later. But even the ones I haven’t done at all I’m fairly confident I’d be able to do in an emergency. If it’s not an emergency, I’ll leave them to the specialists.
Wonderfully contradictory terminology. Is it a warmer that would melt the snowflake’s unique and beautiful qualities, or a freezer that would prevent fluidity and adaptation? Could be either and both. I love it!
Heinlein also said, “Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.” I think Heinlein’s highly limited respect for “experts” was very much akin to the way we view “elites” today.
An inspiring post.
A couple of years ago I read a great book about the Navy SEALs, and what impressed me the most about them is that they are always getting more education. They never rest in this commitment to learning and mastering new skills (including learning foreign languages and learning about the culture of different countries). And on their teams, there is a lot of redundancy in terms of skills. They learn from each other, and they also take courses constantly so they are always growing. They don’t wait until they have spare time to do this. They make the time to do it. It’s that important to them.
I think we should emulate the Navy SEALs. I think adults should always be “in school” and learning new things. It should be a way of life.
Nine for 21.
I aim to be a jack of all trades, and a master of many.
Ah, leadership. If only it was as easy to master as it is to teach.
Well, Doc, for my money, shame is always the more prudent choice. It keeps your critics off balance.
Popular self-help author Dr. Constance de Sperridgement recommends changing up seemingly interminable binges of morbid shame with bursts of inexplicable pride at odd intervals. You can find her bestseller “12 Reasons Why They are Right–You SHOULD Be Ashamed of Yourself!” in most airport bookstores.
I’m ashamed of how proud I am of my humility.
Great post and wonderful quote. I feel lucky that I grew up reading during what must have been the golden age of science fiction when Heinlein was writing. I have stopped reading it lately and think I should go back to those books.
On this topic, T. H. White in The Once and Future King –
“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
Growing up around a farm gives one a head start here. Plumbing, electrical circuits, carpentry, roofing, wall-building, gardening, animal husbandry, etc., get to be taken pretty much for granted. Boy Scouts and Army expand the list.
Post-specialization, living in suburbia, all of this still comes in handy.
Well, animal husbandry — only if we count wee critters.