I personally experienced the benefits of working closely in a diverse team during my MBA. I collaborated with a heterogeneous group made up of representatives of nine different nationalities with professional profiles that covered areas such as consulting, finance, sales, marketing and operations, among others; However, this experience also made me realize that there is a great paradox: although we value diversity of experiences when forming teams, on an individual level we tend to reward specialization. In fact, when we think of people who are outstanding in their fields, we usually imagine specialists and not generalists.
How much do we value specialization? There is no need to look beyond our educational system, which, although it begins teaching a diverse range of subjects in primary and secondary school, tends strongly towards specialization at advanced levels. This trend has led to it becoming less and less common to find generalists, figures like Archimedes or Leonardo da Vinci, who were capable of fusing ideas from different disciplines to offer innovative perspectives and solve complicated challenges. The disappearance of this type of profiles in the world has caused an overdependence on specialists, which ironically results in conformism, homogeneity of opinion and lack of collaboration.
Many recent global problems, such as the 2008 financial crisis, the Boeing 737 Max crashes and the Covid-19 pandemic, were exacerbated by compartmentalized or siled thinking caused by hyper-specialization. This lack of communication between experts, who were unaware of what was happening in related areas, led to a limited understanding of the problems, as well as their implications on a larger scale, preventing the situation from being prevented or quickly resolved.
The emphasis of our educational model on training specialists is even more worrying in the face of current technological advances. Specialists face the considerable risk that their area of expertise, which by nature is limited, may become obsolete if artificial intelligence manages to dominate it or the market changes drastically. In this context, generalists have an advantage, as they have the flexibility to adapt to a constantly changing world, and can even benefit from artificial intelligence, using it as a tool to expand the range of their knowledge.
The world needs specialists, but we must avoid hyper-specialization that acts like blinders and blinds us, just like a horse in a race. Our educational systems should aim to produce “T-shaped individuals,” who possess both depth (specialization) and breadth (generality) in their knowledge. On an individual level, this combination is essential.
A study called “Superman or the Fantastic Four? Knowledge Combination and Experience in Innovative Teams”, cited in the book “Range” by David Epstein, points out that although the diversity of experience generated by a team has a notable effect, the impact is still greater when this diversity of experience comes from a single individual. Continuing with the analogy of the title, Superman is preferable to The Fantastic Four.