There are a ton of ways to categorize the subjects in your organization. You can do it by personality types, or department, but let’s talk about something deeper than that: let’s talk about whether they are a generalist or a specialist.

To sum it up, a generalist knows a little of everything while a specialist knows a lot of one thing. Both are extremely valuable in an organization as a generalist can see the forest, while the specialist can see the synergy of how animals and plants interact on one piece of bark. Both are important, and to push an organization forward, you need both to stay the course and grow.

As an individual, which one are you? And which one should you aspire to be? If you’re familiar with these articles, you might know the answer: be both.

Learn about the mindset of both a generalist and specialist and the very specific way to become both. Because by becoming both, you become invaluable.

Generalists

My friend David Despain claims he’s a generalist. He’s fascinated about everything nutrition-wise. He’s not an expert in any specific nutritional category, but he loves absorbing enough knowledge as possible. He caught the food science enthusiasm bug from me.

Generalists know enough to understand the model, but when asked for specifics, they can’t do much. They might sit in on commercialization meetings but might not understand why you can’t have active water in a nutrition bar.

The same example can be said for a good executive in a software startup: she knows basic code, enough to communicate with a software developer, but not enough to code herself.

The glaring weakness is that because a generalist lacks a specialty, they become like everyone else.

Specialists

Brian Chau is obsessed with learning about mushrooms and will do anything he can to learn the craft. He especially likes foraging and growing mushrooms but he can process them too. Brian is an example of a specialist.

Most advanced degrees fall into the specialist category because they have been trained to dig and analyze a very specific topic to help a very specific industry. A generalist for pea protein knows what brand of pea protein to use when, but a specialist will focus specifically on what makes the pea protein taste beany. This is a very niche skillset, and verifying your research is valid. Being chosen as a specialist means being at the right place at the right time but that’s a huge gamble that might never pay off,

Of course, there is a gray area between categorizing yourself as a generalist or a specialist

You can argue that David is a specialist in the nutriceutical industry and Brian is a generalist in the foraged mushroom industry depending on the scope of how you look at an industry. It’s more of how you sell yourself, but that’s a different story.

The T-model

If you listed out all of your skillsets, and ranked your proficiency from 1 to 10 with 1 being barely skilled and 10 being expert, if everything is a 1 and your highest skillset is 10, then you might follow this model. It kind of looks like a T.

The T model is where you know the basics of everything but you excel at one very specific thing. People know you for this, but they also know you’re dangerous/valuable on your own.

So for me, I’d like to think I follow this specific T-model. I generally know how to create a product from scratch and sell it to a lot of people. After all, I’ve not only done it at my old job, but did it as the only food scientist at the Better Meat Co.

Though I generally know these skills, what’s my specialty? Still trying to figure that out, but if I were to look at an outsider’s point of view, I’m very good at analyzing the functionalities of plant proteins and fibers and apply it to a product. At least on an applications level. It’s proven it’s worth in both the protein bar and plant-meat industry.

This specialty is super niche, more people care about the generalist aspect, but only a few care the value of the specialist.

However, by being a little bit of both, things actually become a bit synergistic.

If you’re a generalist, focusing on one skill allows you to connect the dots and realize that a solution you did for extruded protein chips can work for plant-meat, then it allows you to create a bridge of knowledge.

If you’re a specialist who tries to be a generalist, you realize the interconnectedness in different departments and facets in the industry which allows you to be more aware of potential problems that can happen as you scale up and up.

Overall, it never hurts to be both a generalist: someone who knows the industry and a specialist: someone who is known in the industry.

The Language of the Experts

Here’s a hack to “know everything”

Food Scientists are taught food engineering not because they will be using engineering equations but because they can communicate with the mechanical and chemical engineers.

What amplifies your ability is to not know everything in the smallest detail, but know everyone who knows something of the smallest detail. If you have a plant guy, a bar girl, an RTD dude, or a canning expert, those are important people in your arsenal.

If you have a reputation and treat them with an incredible amount of respect, they will most likely give you ten minutes of advice and if you’re respectful and enthusiastic enough, perhaps it’ll end up being longer.

I have a filter when it comes to giving advice. If you’ve done your research on me and feel like you’re genuinely interested in whatever you think my expertise is, I’ll help for free.

If you’re like “yo let me pick your brain”, I’ll ignore it or at most, charge for the call depending on the level of expertise. Whenever I give advice, I want to shorten timelines, and guide you to the right direction. Time is the only resource you can’t get more of and if you think $100 dollars is too much for time-saving advice, you haven’t sweated enough in this industry.

But enough about my pitch to get more $100 dollar phone calls. The easy thing is this: people will give you more than enough information if you treat them with enthusiasm and respect. Do your research.

What should you be?

Usually, I’ll say do whatever you want but this time, I’m going to say to follow the T-model.

Find out how to do everything.

If you’re in a big company, force yourself into commercialization meetings like I did, talk to the experts in different departments, or interview everyone in the diverse field that is the industry.

If you’re interested in a very specific topic, talk to the experts. It’s a small industry, and the experts (as long as you praise their work), will generally give you advice.

The more you learn about the whole process makes you valuable, and the more you research a specific topic enough to be an expert in, that makes you irreplaceable.