Is there anything more unsexy sounding than a generalist? Whatever comes to mind when you hear that utilitarian expression (for me it’s dungarees and a toolbox?!) it’s unlikely to inspire.
But an expert generalist? Well, it’s not sexy but it does have teeth....
What makes a generalist expert?
A chairman of one rather high brow consultancy (Bain & Co) is said to have ‘developed’ the concept of an expert generalist - or, more likely simply coined the phrase, but I digress - describing them as:
“someone who has the capacity and desire to master and gather knowledge in a wide range of disciplines, industries, skills, themes, and talents. Such people are better equipped to detect patterns, connect dots, and improvise in various circumstances thanks to their varied knowledge base.”
The article is an interesting read (with props for raising the importance of managerial coaching) but one could be left thinking this is something of a unicorn situation, because it’s extremely rare to be gifted all those opportunities in a permanent role.
And the lack of any reference to contracting is a massive, missed opportunity for the reader, because these people are the original expert generalists.
So, how do contractors get to become Expert Generalists?
I can’t name a single contractor I’ve worked with who has one, single, standalone specialism. A broad toolkit of knowledge (which other people will often notice you have, before you do) is an organic, contracting rite of passage.
And because - particularly in project work - you rarely encounter a fully resourced team, there are inevitably gaps to plug (which often mean the difference between completing a task or not). If you have remotely parallel or transferable skills which enable you to get plugging, you will. And in some contracts, it can even be an expectation.
Skills fusion
A communications specialist may be asked to support on a change initiative. And since there can be no change initiative without a project (even if the project is as covert as post-it notes on a whiteboard), so begins a collaboration of moving parts which cannot be successfully executed with the other. The communications specialist will be able to add change communications with a project background to their credentials.
I’ve known secretaries who’ve transitioned to business development and IT professionals, trainers who became product owners, knowledge managers who became communication channels specialists and UX researchers who became business analysts. And all because the role from which they started required interaction with and a light touch knowledge of, another discipline.
From mani-pedi bookings extraordinaire, to expert generalist
25 years ago, I was a legal secretary (admittedly, a terrible one), who managed a small sub-section of the global intranet. I realised I liked that much better than booking mani-pedi's for the Partner I reported into (a whole other story). From there, I left to work on intranet projects and got accredited in PRINCE2, while building my understanding of knowledge and information management. When it struck me that for any of those things to be truly effective, people - the end users - needed to be on board (the hardest part). So I became a qualified coach and change management practitioner.
This is not so much the stuff of a squiggly career, where you might embark on a non-linear journey to fulfil a particular career ambition. This is about a synthesis of collective skills - leveraged in tandem - which can enhance your offerings as a contractor.
The noun you want to be
While, in an earlier blog, I wrote about the the importance of being "more verb and less noun", it is rather liberating to have discovered that one noun which speaks to the breadth of those hard-won, contracting skills (and removes the need to launch into an diatribe about your organic professional growth getting from “over there” to “here”).
Coming up...
...and since this collective toolkit of skills is the stuff of portfolio careers (more on that in my next blog), in the meantime, here’s to being less dungarees and more Marvel spandex.
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