Specialists
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Specialists
Do you know this story? Blind fakirs of India gathered near an elephant and were asked to describe it. "An elephant is like a snake." said one as he stroke the elephant's trunk. "No, it's like a tree." said another as he stroke the elephant's feet. "A wall" for the body. "Paper" for the ears. "Rope" for the tail. None of them tell the elephant as it is, an elephant.
How do you define a specialist? I define a specialist as someone who specializes in one subject. I, too, am a specialist. My specialty is Generality. :) Okay, that's not much. However, it allows me to see the big picture. How often I've heard a specialist protest that what I ask them do is outside their specialty. My answer is always the same: What you don't know, you learn. Learning takes a long time? Learn how to learn! My experience is that if learning something is hard, it means that I have a faulty notion of what it is. Tabula rasa or empty slate works well. Here's another story:
A professor visited a wise man to learn his wisdom. However, upon meeting the wise man, the professor advanced so many of his ideas, that the man can barely speak at all. He recognizes that the professor was not interested in learning wisdom as much as advancing his own. So the man poured the professor some tea. Once the cup was full, he kept pouring, and pouring. The professor finally protested, "Stop! Don't pour anymore! The cup is full!" The man said, "Like you, this cup is full. How can I give you knowledge unless you first empty your mind?" At that point, the professor was enlightened.
Why do children learn so quickly and easily? Why can't adults who are supposedly older and wiser can't learn as well as children? What made us adults so stupid? The answer, of course, is experience. In fact, the more we depend on experience, the less open we are to new learning. Obviously, some experience is desirable. However, you may have a bad experience. In order to transcend that, you need to be willing to discard your experience so that you can learn something new. The term "brainwashing" may be harsh, but it merely means that you're throwing out existing knowledge for something new. Of course, if the new knowledge is worse that the old, then bad things happen.
So, back to the specialist/generalist debate. Which is better? I believe the answer is generalist. For one thing, not everyone has the multi-talent necessary to be a generalist. Another is that by definition, a specialist's knowledge is rather limited to his field. We already know how limited viewpoints affect things.
However, that doesn't mean that a specialist is useless. Consider that by its very nature, a specialist has spent a lot of time doing something. He must be pretty good at it. If you look at tools point of view, you can see that a typewriter is more limited than a pencil. However, a typewriter does its job very well, that it's very useful to have in an office. The fact that it is completely worthless when it comes to drawing is irrelevant. A typewriter types very well.
In a team where there's generalist and specialist combined, I think that a generalist should lead the team. This is because due to his generality, he can communicate best with the whole team, instead of to just of his fellow specialist. For example, on my web projects, everybody has complains about my work. The graphic artist complains that the graphics aren't sharp enough. The technical purist complains about irrelevant graphics. The marketer thinks there's not enough update. The owner thinks there's too much work for him to do.
What they miss is that I take a little bit out of their ideal vision in order to satisfy everybody. The graphics aren't as sharp as they can be because otherwise, the download time will be too long. The graphics are there to provide spice to the website, as well as breaking down monotony. The updates aren't done everyday because the owner is busy. The owner is busy providing content because he's the only one who can do that. Each subsection, taken individually isn't the best. However, the project taken collectively does provide the best solution.
Who is right and who is wrong? Since the project is for the customers, then the customers is the right one. No matter how much those graphic artist complains, if the customers don't care about graphics and worry more about response time, then I'll keep the images sparse. What happens if a specialist lead a project? Sometimes you get lucky, but usually it results in disaster.
In one of my many projects, the director couldn't help herself and started taking control of the whole project. Unfortunately, she's no generalist. Although the cited goal was to get funding for a non-profit organization, she places so much importance on look, which is the only way she evaluates a website, that download time suffers, administration suffers, content non-existent, and costs astronomical, both in time and resources expended. The whole project is a failure, not just in management, but also in result. You see, if I am a funder looking for organization to support, I would look at the different programs the organization offers. If I like the programs, I'll contribute money. The more I like the programs, the more I am willing to contribute. Well, there's no content like that whatsoever. Couple that with long download time, and I think no one will stay long enough to give funds.
A generalist alone may not give you the best work quality possible. As the saying goes, "Jack of all trades, master of none." However, a generalist backed with specialists is certainly much better than a specialists backed with generalists. The former promotes the specialists' talents. The latter undercuts the generalists' skills. And of course, a specialist with completely clueless idea of how good other specialists are may very well end up with idiots. A generalist, at least, aren't idiots and can tell the difference between a talented specialist (better than him) or just an ignorant amateur (worse than him).
I will end this essay with a quote. If you know not and you know you know not, then you are wise at least so far. If you know not and you know not you know not, then you are a fool indeed. A specialist who at least make an attempt to learn other trades may not learn them, but he's not blind to them either. He is wise, at least so far. A specialist who ignores everything outside his specialty is blind and may not very well know he's doing something wrong. That, my friend, is a fool indeed.