How to plan your career moves- Aim for range or spike!
A lot of people believe that if you want to be best at something then you should identify it at the earliest and keep doing it for a long period of time so that you get the edge. Tiger Woods started playing golf at the age of 2. That is why he is so damn good at it.
The same formula is so much famous in the corporate world too. I started as a fresher 8 years back and somehow this is what every year-end feedback review was about — figure out a spike and stick to it even when I was 2 years into the company.
So, it has always intrigued me — why I should not be open to sampling before specializing. It is so inverse to the popular opinion. Hence, I wanted to dig deep to answer it for me and look at it from a long term perspective.
I happened to come across a book written by David Epstein — Range — where Epstein examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters, and scientists. He discovered that in most fields — especially those that are complex and unpredictable — generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They’re also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see.
Roger Federer, unlike Tiger Woods, started pretty late in choosing Tennis as his main sport, much later than his counterparts. He did an array of sports in a lightly structured way. He was years behind his peers when he took up tennis in a serious way.
The most impactful inventors cross domains rather than deepening their knowledge in a single area. As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive.
Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you’ll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But a closer look at research on the world’s top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule.
Career takes the majority of one’s time and to have a fulfilling life one needs to have a fulfilling career. A snapshot of human life shows 60% of the time would be engaged in career out of the total time left.
In fact, people who specialize late do sample a number of jobs, they work with different people that require doing and not reflecting. Doing is a keyword here. Once you have a wide experience, you could be a more analogical thinker. Analogical thinking allows humans to reason through problems they have never seen before.
I completely get the idea of outshouting vs peers in a corporate world where the assumption is everyone has more or less has the same level of talent.
It is great to know your strengths and playing them up. But the fact that we would go the extreme of singling it out and focusing on it would mean that probably we are playing too safe for this vuca world.
Branding oneself well doesn’t mean you are more productive or happier. This idea comes from the famous brands that can be summarized in one line. Life is not just a product.
Joseph Campbell explained it in his famous book, The Hero with a Thousand faces and recognized that myths are practical models for understanding how to live. All stories consist of a few common structural elements found universally in myths, fairy tales, dreams, and movies. They are known collectively as The Hero’s Journey. Understanding yourself and your purpose is a lifelong journey.
Interestingly, we want our favorite actor to be in more avatars than just be sticking to a mainstream formula that gave them blockbusters in the past. It is picking up more in Indian cinema since 2010 where offbeats film did better and grossed big collections. Irrfan Khan’s unparalleled success was due to his offbeat choices.
There is a reason why spikes or focusing on working in one domain have found so many takers. Below is the excerpt that I came across while I was dabbling with this thought.
The simple things, the things I tend to do well are the thing I tend to enjoy. The things I tend to enjoy, are the things I tend to do well. I’m not saying ignore your limitations, I’m saying focus on your strengths. The beauty of spike is, it’s all about your strengths, and we all have strengths.
And it was just a complete mind frame shift for me, because when I went out there, normally what I felt leadership was was that you identify your weaknesses and that you work and work and work to transform your weaknesses and turn them into strengths.
And, the surprising thing is that it is entirely true that you cant enjoy everything. So focusing on ones you do give you a better result. So follow your passions is a smart thing to do.
Barbara Oakley, a renowned professor and a recipient of many awards for her teaching talks about the value of chunking and learning how to learn. So no one is expecting you to be a flawless leader by developing a range. Developing a range means developing a palette of learning more skills easily.
What it means on the contrary that you develop a range of complementary strengths in seemingly un-related but connected areas so as to be the best in the field.
Your passions develops about what you are really good at. And, sometimes, some things take much longer to get good at so just don’t follow your passion. Broaden your passions and your lives will be greatly enriched.
