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Are you a specialist or a generalist? The world needs both, so I’m not going to argue for one over the other. I can see the benefits of choosing either path for your career.
And, to be honest, I’m not even sure I know what the definition of specialist is because it is all relative. You can specialize in marketing vs finance – sure. But, within marketing there are a lot of different roles you can specialize in. I’ve even seen job postings for inbound or outbound marketing specialists. Apparently, there is a big difference between whether you send the message or receive the message. Specialization Bias The thing is, when you specialize in an area, you begin to look at everything in a certain way. You fall into patterns or routines. You know the saying ‘to a hammer, everything looks like a nail?” To a marketer, every problem looks like a marketing problem. To a finance person, every problem looks like a numbers problem. We all approach our specialty with blinders on. We bring our experiences, our knowledge, our comfort zone to our actions. It is natural and expected, and doing this doesn’t make you a bad person or serve as a weakness. Expand Beyond Your Specialization But, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive to improve. Having a broad, generalized knowledge about areas outside of your core specialty help you to find innovative solutions to problems. It helps you to connect seemingly unrelated dots in ways that others might not have thought of. This takes effort and requires you to be a little deliberate about the whole thing. It may require you to go a little outside your comfort zone. It takes some effort and time, so you will need to build that into your schedule. But, my experience has been that it is so very worth the effort. Area of Focus So, what I’m advocating for this week is that you pick an area of focus to expand your horizons. What is something that you can learn about that is outside of your area of specialty? Spend the next 6 months purposefully learning about it. That could mean reading books about the topic. It could mean listening to podcasts focused on the topic. It could mean reaching out to people in your company, or in your network and asking them to teach you about it. Not because you want to move into it as a career, but because you want to expand your knowledge beyond your current blinders. An area of focus is like taking a 101 course in college. Your goal is to learn the basics and be able to speak the language. Whether you move beyond 101 is up to you. But, you have to be deliberate about it. It takes effort. It doesn’t just happen. It isn’t going to be part of your routine, so you need to make it a priority for yourself and give yourself enough time. Little by little, you can learn more about the topic until it is time to pick the nxt area of focus. Over the years, I’ve had areas of focus in sales, support as I’ve already mentioned, critical thinking, nutrition, podcasting, change management, customer experience, and literacy. Right now, I’m taking a deep dive into the industry of senior living community operations. What will your next area of focus be? In this episode, you’ll learn:
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PMO COachI teach people how to thrive at work. Let's connect on LinkedIn 
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