Whether you're building your first roster of employees for a startup or you're putting together a team to tackle a new marketing campaign, you'll need to think through your team member selections carefully. Obviously, you want to pick the most talented candidates available to you, and ones who are most willing to collaborate as part of a group, but there are multiple "types" of talent out there, and some may be a better fit for your needs than others. As George A. Pappas from TalentLMS points out, teams are collections of individuals meeting for a common goal, so the interplay of those individuals will have a massive impact on the group's eventual performance.
At diametrically opposed talent categories, we have generalists and specialists, but which are better for efficient teamwork?
Generalists and Specialists
A generalist is a person who is skilled at many things but is not exceptionally gifted at any of them. Think of this as a handyman, who can make minor repairs for any one of a number of different appliances and home maladies, but would need to call in extra help when facing a major crisis in one particular area. According to the Harvard Business Review, generalists tend to get better job offers and can do more for organizations overall, but how do they work on a team?
A specialist is a person who is exceptionally skilled in one area, but isn't familiar with many other areas. Think of this as an electrician, who can fix or solve almost any conceivable electrical problem, but would be unable to fix even a common problem with a non-electrical complaint. As best illustrated by a report on medical specialties by CBS News, utility and pay for specialists varies wildly depending on the nature of the specialization.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Generalists and specialists obviously come with advantages and disadvantages, so let's explore some of the ways these two types of talent compare:
- Cost. Overall, specialists will likely cost you more than generalists. You'll be able to hire fewer generalists to cover individual tasks and responsibilities, and you won't have to worry as much about training and certifications.
- Efficiency. When it comes to working efficiency, specialists are clear winners. Specialists are intimately well-versed in their areas of expertise, so they can accomplish things far faster and more completely than a generalist in the same role. If you have enough specialists on a team, your project will get done in record time—as long as you're willing to pay for those results.
- Overall results. There is a problem that comes with having a team of specialists: perspective. Specialists often develop silo mentalities, which blind them to the needs and applications of other areas. On the other hand, generalists are better at big-picture thinking, enabling them to get a feel for what all departments are doing at the same time. Ideally, some mixture of the two would lead you to the best overall results.
- Management issues. Neither specialists nor generalists are inherently more difficult to manage. As long as you have a good leader in place and a strategy uniting your people, these two types of talent perform equally.
- Niche demands. Certain industries and certain applications may favor one type of worker over another. For example, in a search engine optimization (SEO) team, it pays to cover multiple areas of specialty since there are so many moving parts to an effective SEO strategy, yet for higher-level marketing campaign planning, generalists would be able to generate better all-around ideas.
The Bottom Line
Everything boils down to what you're actually trying to achieve. Some projects will favor generalists, while others will favor specialists. If you're not sure what balance of people will make the best team for your application, your best bet is to seek an even blend of generalists and specialists; you can have your generalists in higher-level positions, establishing strategies and filling in gaps where necessary, with your specialists executing the bulk of the work and advising where necessary to get the full scope of the project. There's no right or wrong way to do this, as long as you think about your decision carefully.