MIKE LOCKIE

Specialisation is for Insects

To quote Robert A. Heinlein;

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.

― Lazarus Long — Time Enough for Love (Robert Heinlein)

The current trend, for rewarding and praising people who are specialists, disturbs me in many ways.
I am a generalist, and proudly so.
So why is that better?
A specialist will always - exclusively - use the same tools and methods to solve any problem.
A generalist knows he/she doesn't necessarily know the answer and will seek an answer out, and this gives him/her mental (and experiential) flexibility to be able to solve any problem, and in the best possible way.

To a carpenter, every problem can be solved with a hammer, to a telecoms lineman, every problem can be solved with insulating tape, but to a generalist, with broad experience, the choice between hammer & tape is made on a case by case basis.

Businesses seem to be going out of their way to defend their hiring policies of preferring specialists, and rewarding them more highly than generalists, by forbidding the use of terms that reveal the fundemantal flaws of specialisation and failing to appreciate the dangers of staff who can, by design, only do one thing, and failing to appreciate the benefits of staff who are mentally flexible.

But specialists delight in using this expression, to justify their admitedly deep, but narrow abilities;

A jack of all trades is a master of none

However, this expression actually has another line which completly flips the meaning;

A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.

In other words, the expression praises the generalist who is versatile and adept at many things.

Unless a business is huge, and can afford to have a specialist for every task that needs to be done, a business needs generalists, and should reward them accordingly.
If we flip that reward proposition, and pay staff by the tasks that they do (can do?), a true jack of all trades woud be earning 3 or 4 times as much, versus the current 40 or 50%.

When the zombie apocalypse comes who would you rather have on your side?
Or, more realistically, when something goes wrong would you rather have a person who instantly starts throwing code bandaids at the issue, or a person who has the maturity and experience and flexibility to analyse the problem and determine the most appropriate solution?