Tiger and Federer, and the Case for Generalists

Source: Bleacher Report

David Epstein has published a terrific new book titled, "Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World." He makes the case for not specializing too early in life, but instead, taking advantage of a period of sampling and discovery. He makes a strong case for why generalists tend to innovate more effectively. In fact, he offers an interesting contrast in the book between Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. Tiger specialized at a remarkably young age. Federer did not. He argues that we seem to be favoring the specialists such as Tiger, and extolling the virtues of intense focus, and failing to recognize the value of generalists. Here's an excerpt:

I found more and more evidence that it takes time to develop personal and professional range—and that it is worth it. I dived into work showing that highly credentialed experts can become so narrow-minded that they actually get worse with experience, even while becoming more confident—a dangerous combination. And I was stunned by an enormous body of work demonstrating that learning is best done slowly to accumulate lasting knowledge, even when that means performing poorly on tests of immediate progress. That is, the most effective learning looks a lot like falling behind.

The challenge we all face is how to maintain the benefits of breadth, diverse experience, interdisciplinary thinking and delayed concentration in a world that increasingly incentivizes, even demands, hyperspecialization. While it is undoubtedly true that there are areas that require individuals with Tiger's precocity and clarity of purpose, we also need more Rogers: people who start broad and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives while they progress. People with range.

I wholeheartedly agree. I've argued that we need more polymaths, more Renaissance men and women, because they often can connect intriguing ideas and concepts from disparate fields in ways that lead to creative breakthroughs. Moreover, specialists can become closed-minded and dogmatic as their expertise deepens in a particular field. Of course, we need specialists in our organizations, but we must take great care to nurture the inquisitive, curious generalists who just might help us develop our next groundbreaking new product or service.  Sometimes, these generalists may seem as though they don't add as much immediate value. Sometimes, their minds might wander.  They may tinker a bit too much, at least according to the typical ways that executives might evaluate their performance.  We just might want to tolerate a bit of that unorthodox thinking though if we want new ideas to flourish. 

Valuing Generalists over Specialists

City University of Hong Kong Professor Long Wang and Kellogg Professor Keith Murnighan and have conducted a series of studies to examine whether we value generalists over specialists in various types of hiring and compensation decisions.   They found that we do seem to undervalue specialists.  First, they took a look at 3-point shooting specialists in the National Basketball Association.  In this article on Kellogg Insight explains the conclusion:

"In one study, Wang and Murnighan used salary and performance data for over 300 NBA players to find that, on average, the three-point specialists’ salaries are tied not to their three-point shooting, but to their two-point shooting—even though their three-point shooting has the bigger impact on their team’s performance. In other words, these specialists, unlike their generalist teammates, are not compensated based on the actual role they play in their teams’ success."

The two scholars also examined how workplace managers make hiring decisions.  They found a tendency for managers to favor the generalist even if the specialist had skills better suited to the specific role being filled.   The researchers also examined job ads on sites such as Monster.com.  They found that, "Even positions flagged for specialists asked applicants to have skillsets in two distinct domains about 36% of the time. Moreover, larger organizations—those organizations best poised to take advantage of specialists’ unique skillsets—were more likely to demand multiple skillsets from their specialists than smaller organizations." 

Why the bias toward generalists?  The authors argue that risk aversion plays a role.  It's safer to pick someone who has a broader set of skills, in case the job changes or the person turns out not to be a perfect fit for that role, but may still have a place in the firm.   Moreover, our tendency to hire people like ourselves may play a factor.  Managers at higher levels tend to be more generalist than specialist, and thus, they may look for people who are similar to them.  

I think the studies are fascinating, but I do wonder whether this "bias" is truly a bad thing or not.  Perhaps, in a fast-changing world, we need more generalists.  Perhaps strategy, organization, and markets are changing too quickly to bank on specialists.   In a highly ambiguous situation, it may be quite the rational thing to do to select people with a wider range of skills.  It's a tough balancing act for any manager.  Perhaps the research is most useful at least in making us aware that we may be a bit too inclined to dismiss the specialist candidates.