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Fascinating:

walks back an old, famous post of his, about being a 'T-shaped' marketer, and argues that being a 'generalist' nearly never gives you good career outcomes. Sometimes, generalist just means dabbler. And dabblers don't go anywhere.

brianbalfour.com

Generalist vs Specialist

11:06 PM · Jul 19, 2020Buffer

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Wow, is this who invented the “T-shaped” concept?

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I’m pretty sure I didn’t invent it. Can’t remember where I first heard the analogy. But that post helped popularize the concept.

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Clarification: I don’t believe being a generalist early in your career is the best approach. When you go from a senior ic to a manager is when you need to go from I -> T. Lots of other thoughts for a future post.

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1/ Isn't the term 'Generalist' Vs 'Specialist' is just contextual? Because I personally love the integration between design, marketing, and product function. I loved learning about the integration of different fields and how they work together.

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2/ Being a great product manager or even the role of a CEO is slightly aligned to being a 'Generalist'. Because integrating and making the teams understand the importance of each other is really much valuable. It may be just the 'contextual difference'

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