Generalists

A facilitator is a person who helps a group of people to work together better, understand their common objectives, and plan how to achieve these objectives, during meetings or discussions.

Akin to the key-shaped profile mentioned at the beginning: more than one deep domains of knowledge and experience, joined by familiarity with a shallower but much broader set of topics.

Many deciders, team leaders, or product managers will emphasize the importance of communication between teams, the great value of varied perspectives, and getting a mixed group of people around the table. They’ll praise team members for being the glue or the cement, the more fluid connectors between the “bricks” of specialists. But they usually lea... See more

This bridging comes with broader interests and curiosity, but skills of facilitation seem like a great way to turn that up a few notches.'

So a lot of people—often working in certain specific areas like tech, some form of creative, or indie consultancy—see themselves as hybrids of multiple disciplines.

Tim Ferriss, in his short video on whether you should specialize or be a generalist, he says he often gets asked the question, and I quite liked his answer: you should be a “specialized generalist.”

Perhaps the effective generalist facilitates between disciplines? Perhaps the skills of facilitation are the fourth great multiplier?

In other words, lots of people see themselves as generalists, whether they use the word or not, and lots of people realize the value of these interstitial roles but not many brag about it, and not many hire for it.

Often times, when there’s a discussion about generalists, the words “bridge” or “translator” will pop-up.