I have always been a generalist. To a certain extent, that is the consequence of the foundation of my career being project management. Project managers are in many ways the ultimate generalists. Being a generalist, though, often gets dismissed or derided as lacking depth, being a dilettante or being variable in approach or understanding. Those ideas are embedded in the very definition of the term, and our system biases towards specialization and expertise reinforce them further. Despite this, generalists provide a critical role in collaboration and particularly problem solving; areas where depth of expertise is presumed to carry the day. It could be that being a generalist has expertise of its own.
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