Do you have to be the jack of all trades?
This is a question that has boggled me for a while, I’d say ever since graduation. My belief is that we’ve all been there: you’re going into real life, everybody is telling you what you should and should not focus on in terms of skills and knowledge. Amidst all these contradicting suggestions, and in fear that one skill won’t get you hired, you start piling up skills in wide variety of areas knowing for sure that you will find at least one position that requires one of those skills. Problem is though, you have touched the surface of so many skills that when it comes down to this single one that gets you hired, you’re pretty much the average joe. You’re definitely competent (hopefully), but you’re not quite the master. Most people can do what you can.
I guess that’s where the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none” comes from. It describes a “person who is competent with many skills but is not very good with any one particular skill”. Sometimes known as a “polymath“, Leonardo Da Vinci (pictured on the left) is seen as the one of the greatest painters of all time, and the man with the most diversely prodigious talent ever to have lived. Hey, the man is a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, and writer. Wow! Talk about a jack of all trades!
Now, while we know that having that much knowledge will definitely get you laid at some point, can you really do what this man did, metaphorically? I mean, is it possible for an average human being to know so much about so many things and still maintain acceptable level of human sanity? (ok you caught me, any man who grows this much hair isn’t sane in my book, maybe it was a different time, but I stand corrected!)
This is a question of specialization vs generalization. In other words, how much should you learn about each skill or set of skills in your life including, but not limited to, your job skills? An interesting post by Scott Young addresses this trade off with a neat little visualization called the “T” model. The idea is originally suggested by Ben Casnocha. In a nutshell:
Through this model your aim is to have a moderate amount of skill in a broad range of areas (the top of the ‘T’) and to have a lot of skill in a select few fields (the column of the ‘T’)
The point to take home is that you should make the inevitable trade off: decide what is it that you’re extremely passionate about, and give it the best you got! I mean, by all means, come right at it with a full swing! However, meanwhile, don’t forget about the things that you’re expected to be knowledgeable in, such as soft skills or presentation skills. Most often than not, those kinds of skills will be a prerequisite for your success in pursuing your passion.
Rethinking this model, I’ve noticed that sometimes the depth of your skills is a little more complicated than the above model. More precisely, I believe that leading up to our “expert” skills, there are other ones that we’re supposed to have knowledge in varying amounts or degrees of depth.
I drew down a little diagram to help me get my point across. Notice how the shape of the T is changed into a kind of funnel. I also flipped it to go along the axes.
So does this make sense? And what do you think of the indefinite circled tip at the top of the diagram? Do you think anybody ever has reached that point where he/she just knows it all! I don’t know, but I seem to think that we as humans are never capable of reaching that point because the more we discover about things, the more it’s obvious to us how much more there is to it!
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Comments
February 20th, 2007 at 2:55 am
In certain cases, you have to be. Take myself, for instance. I’m a photographer and a writer (and a thinker really, more than anything else). There’s no way forward for me, except that I learn webskills html css, server side scripting, learn computer skills, learn about all the software I need to use. The problem is, that the 1900s business model for a writer doesn’t work. There are these publishing barons - and it’s impossible to make a living as an author, without starting your own business…
Furthermore, there is the fact that a lot of people like you and me, who are very logical, and who think independently… are really not doing well for themselves. We are out on the commune, sleeping without heat in sleeping bags. Or we’re struggling in low rent apartments, trying to “work a day job” at a restaurant, or whatever. The core problem is, that a creative person needs flex-time. And there are not many occupations which allow this.
Disney’s “imagineers,” and the SecondLife company. are examples of organizations which have office policies which work well for thinkers and creative folk. But such places really are the exception, not the rule.
Look at wikipedia… why are all those learned people giving away their work for free? Because the business world has no idea how to give such writers the posture they need with their work.
Btw - why don’t you pick up a preview plugin for wordpress? It’d make things much nicer for commenters.
February 20th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Christopher,
The thing I failed to mention in my post is that those skills that we’re talking about vary with time. As you accomplish more and your perspectives on things change, your T model of skills vary accordingly. It would be foolish to expect your acquired skills to remain relevant indefinitely.
You accurately gave an example of how a writer nowadays is required to have all that extra knowledge in web publishing. Referring to the diagram above, I would file those skills under the “skills to support your specialty”. So while you may not have had to learn those in the 1990s, in order to succeed as a writer nowadays it’s mandatory that you move to online publishing and for that to happen you often need those set of skills to build a successful online presence.
By the way, I’ve been to your site (http://www.christophervandyck.com). I think it’s a pretty good start, although you can go a long way in order make more interactive for your readers. Kind of like a blog for instance. I especially loved your piece On Writing. I think I’m guilty of dropping out important initial ideas when crafting a piece on this blog.
ps, thanks for suggesting the wordpress plugin, I will sure take it into consideration.
February 20th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
My website is designed as sort of resume, site, perhaps.. or just to show people I meet, a little bit of who I am. I’m shy of interactivity. I’ve written tomes of essays - scattered about different discussion boards… and I’ve seen there’s always a problem with people who intimidate others on the internet - especially writers, who’s opinion they don’t agree with. I’m going to market my literature under a pseudonym (not that it gives much privacy, in these days of wikipedia). My website is my public face, and I don’t want it to have things from other people written on there, as well.
The wordpress plugin I was using for awhile on a blog - was Filosofo by Austin Matzko. Although, there’s also a javascript based plugin by Iacovos Constantinou.
I found your essay here, through reddit.com - and I appreciate how you really have something really valuable to communicate. That’s your intention. Very few writers do. Most writers on the internet, are lobbying on behalf of one cause or another - and drawing up hyperbole, to do so - or they’re just narrating some sequence of events. It’s like the days of do it yourself music on Coney Island! You’re a very deep thinker, Allaedin… and I wish you well. As you saw on my website - I’m going to be using cafepress as my fulfillment company - they will print paperback books one at a time for vendors… as well as tshirts and data cd’s and all that other stuff. I figure I’ll sell a book there, eventually - and get about $10 profit on each sale - a lot higher than with mainstream publishing - I can get that 50% markup - that a bookstore would usually get. I think small businesses are the answer for all of us. And whereas, it’s good to attract attention to yourself, with a blog - it’s also important to be making a living.
Thanks for stopping by my website. I got your beep in my chat box… and I’ll try to be around more there, if you want to pop in.
February 25th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
You know I am really feeling you on this one. I went back to school to earn my BA because I wanted to catapult my career. I majored in organizational leadership, which is a broad major. Here I am after graduation and I still dont have a high paying job. I want to get into Human Resources but I dont have the job experience. I have the education but not the work experience. What a farce!
February 25th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
That’s exactly my point. If you know upfront what you’re really passionate about, then you can tailor your efforts, money time and every conceivable resource you have towards going in that direction. You’ll sure pick up important skills along the way, but you’ll never lose sight of your ultimate objective, in your case it’s HR.
I’ll show you how you can something like that in my next post, so tune in :)
March 7th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
It is important to remember that the amount of effort it took to become a master of many areas in Da Vinci’s day was much less than it is now. Most fields were not as fully developed, so it took much less time to become an world class expert.
Benjamin Franklin had a similar edge. He was considered one of the best experts on electricity in his day, but he won that distinction by conducting experiments that the average middle school student would tell you were fool hardy. Back then it just didn’t take as much time to learn everything there was to know about electricity. The trick was to not get killed in the process of learning.
I think people can easily become experts in fields of similar scope, but the number of interesting fields are dwindling. Instead people choose more narrow fields that more closely approximate the breadth that was required by Franklin and DaVinci to master fields that have rapidly grown since.