Specialising in Generalism: The Outsider’s Advantage

Don’t know what you want to be when you’re ‘older’? Neither did I. In fact, I still don’t, and that might be a good thing.

I was often worried that my curiosity and genuine interest in breadth of learning would be at odds with my ability to ever commit long-term to one discipline or career path. I thought it would hold me back from developing and adding value professionally.

I slowly learned that generalism has something extremely important to offer. Each domain fosters a different way of thinking, and deep specialists can experience cognitive entrenchment, coming up against problems that call for solutions outside of their usual mental model.

In a modern world brimming with knowledge, generalists cut through and provide unique links between specialisations. The latent space between domains is ripe with opportunity.

There’s a reason Nakatomi is built from a team of serial generalists. In fact, it might be the reason we’re the best place for imaginative ventures or unique solutions to grow.

Drawn to Generalism

I’ve always been someone that goes DEEP into a hobby or past time. Driven by curiosity or a lightbulb moment, I’ll get my hands dirty, figure out how something works, and usually produce a few things in the process. Often I’ll dream up my mastery of a certain craft over the coming years. Then all of a sudden… it’s gone.

It’s not that I get bored, it’s more like… I feel I’ve mastered enough of what I’m doing to satisfy my drive for knowledge, or something else arises that I’m compelled to give more of my attention.

Intermittent pursuits started at a young age. After idolising Leonardo Da Vinci (classic polymath) and trying to replicate many of his artworks, I developed a somewhat loose dream of being an artist, and this never really left. In recent years I picked this up again, but danced between artistic interests. Every new project followed the same pattern:

Over recent years I’ve created many artworks across different mediums, but I’ve never illustrated the same subject matter twice. I loved every part of the process, but worried that generalism was holding me back. How could I build an art style, or a brand, if I got sick of doing the same thing over and over? Would this ring true for other pursuits?

Trading Secrets

My tendency towards broad experience didn’t stop at art. Entering university I naturally thought combining engineering and entrepreneurialism (a business degree) was my best shot at exploring my interests (maths, art and physics) and being an inventor (like my guy Da Vinci).

I noticed three things:

1. I was spread pretty thin, duh.
2. Businesspeople wear suits, engineers do not.
3. Each discipline taught me to think differently; to solve problems in different ways.

Both disciplines brought different challenges, and offered different toolkits to approach them with - students were indoctrinated into a mental model, provided with a specific set of skills. I found it really interesting to apply toolkits across domains. This is where I could add the most value relative to my peers.

Handling financials or planning in business school? Piece of cake. I was writing code and doing complex mathematical/physics simulations in engineering classes, abstracting problems, creating gantt charts and risk analysis matrices.

Pitching an idea in engineering class? No worries, business school gave me customer need/market analyses, pitch decks, economic angles, financial understanding, and success metrics.

I even did a few Law subjects. You can bet the lawyers had a completely different framework for thinking. I became fascinated with discovering crossover opportunities. Where else could I find unique mental models that give me an outside advantage?

What makes generalism special

In recent years I’ve been on a search for knowledge, regardless of where it’s hiding. I no longer worry about the opportunity cost of spreading myself across varying domains. Some of my favourite books synthesise broad insights from diverse fields, and I often think about how these relate to problems or challenges in different contexts. Specialisation is extremely important, but cognitive entrenchment is real - people are often trapped in stable or inflexible thinking patterns, and knowledge can be stuck in silos.

Isolation of information can mean poor distribution of innovation, especially for significant breakthroughs that can’t easily be replicated elsewhere. Even prehistoric technologies we entirely take for granted were prone to this. The development of written language is thought to have occurred in only two areas of the globe - from the Sumerians of Mesopotamia (pre-3000 B.C.) and the Mexican Indians of Mesoamerica (pre-600 B.C.)*. Every other writing system is likely borrowing or adapting from those, and where societies were isolated, they never adopted writing at all (i.e. the Incas used knotted strings for record-keeping, but never adopted a written language).

The modern world has a new problem - the expanse of today’s knowledge fosters more fragmented specialisation. Imagine a single person holding all the knowledge required to build a modern mobile phone from start to finish. Instead, it’s natural to have people specialising in processors, screens, radio communications technology rather than ‘mobile phones’ themselves.

As more people drill deeper into their own focus area, less are looking for unexpected solutions in unexpected places. Steve Jobs famously took up a calligraphy subject at College, where the art of beautifully designed fonts and spacing influenced his creation of typefaces in the first Apple computer, setting it apart from competitors in true Apple style**. Some companies intentionally create space for generalism. NASA partnered with InnoCentive to source external solutions for longstanding space exploration problems - in 2009, a semi-retired radio-frequency engineer stepped up to the plate with analogical knowledge to solve a 30-year-old problem of poor accuracy predicting solar flare radiation levels.***

So much opportunity for edge lies in the latent space between fields. Great ideas often result from generalists bridging context across deeply specialised problem spaces and technologies. At Nakatomi, this isn’t the exception - it’s the rule.

Generalism: The Nakatomi Way

At Nakatomi, I’m very different from the next person, but in a way we’re all very similar. Start a conversation with any of us and there’s a very good chance you’re speaking to a person who:

• Started a company in or created x tool/project/technology
• Studied x degree that is not directly related to their job title
• Had x obscure creative pursuit
• Partook in x niche sport or physical challenge
• Still isn’t convinced in what they want to be when they’re ‘older’

We’re in the business of solving unique problems and creating imaginative ventures like no one else. Our best partners often have incredible domain expertise - Ruminati in agriculture, Culinary Wonderland in cooking, Ovum in medicine. We’re not experts in those fields, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

We coexist perfectly because we bring something different: a fresh perspective, a broad creative, technical and strategic knowledge base, and the craft to bring brilliant ideas to life.

That’s why we’re the best place to come for uncommon problems or unique ideas. Imaginative venture creation is at the heart of each of us. Sometimes when you’re off the beaten path it’s about asking the right questions and ignoring the rulebook.

References

*Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, 1997

**Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, 2019

***NASA Technical Reports Server 2010

This article was written, edited and illustrated by humans only.