I recently re-listened to this episode with Heidi Gardner, Distinguished Fellow in the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School and author of Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos.
What blew me away (again) was the point she made about the need for us to be both a specialist in our field AND a generalist. The question was: "Should we be generalists or deep specialists?" Gardner's response was a direct, "Yes, And."
"I don't think we have the privilege anymore of being one or the other."
But there is a trend towards being specialists. We are all headed down that road. And yet, the world is becoming more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). In a VUCA world, there is a huge demand for multi-disciplinary perspectives to tackle complicated problems. Smart collaboration is the ability to bring together a group of specialists to solve VUCA problems. Those who can do that in service of customers are at a huge advantage.
Smart Collaboration is one of my favorite, most thought-provoking reads of the last two years.
110 (Re-Air): Heidi Gardner You Must Be a Specialist AND and Generalist