Excellence can be built through synthesis, not just specialization

Maybe Napoleon was right…

Last week, I introduced a new series looking at topic of work.  As I mentioned, we are going to explore this topic from a number of different dimensions over the coming weeks.  The first dimension is to consider a hypothesis that there are two primary vectors in the pursuit of meaningful work – our abilities and our service.

This week we are going to look at abilities.

The most straightforward way to define abilities are the things we are naturally gifted at doing. We each are wired in such a way as to be good at some things and bad at others. No one is great at all things all the time. When we take these natural abilities and add to them specific skills we have learned, amazing things can result.

Consider an athlete like Roger Federer.  Federer was famously late in starting to play tennis. Yet he had some natural level of athletic ability that he had developed that formed the framework he was able to rapidly build the skill of tennis on top of.

Nothing about this should sound super controversial. An important insight to this way of thinking though is the realization that when we are doing the things we are good at, we naturally become more and more passionate about them. Golfers who have low handicaps want to play the game as much or more than a high handicappers – being good at the game makes it more enjoyable to play, which drives a desire to get better – a virtuous circle.

What I like about this way of thinking as it applies to a career is that it treats passion as an effect of career choice, and not the cause. Learning what you are good at doing and then finding a job where you are likely to spend a good chunk of your time doing those things is a highly productive form of job search strategy.

While I could write more about this, I’d instead point you at Cal Newport’s excellent book So Good They Can’t Ignore You. There are also a number of useful assessments that can be helping to highlight your own unique strengths.

For the rest of this post, I’d instead like to consider an important implication.  What if our skills are not that great in an absolute sense on their own? What if we are not a top-performer in any dimension – what do we do then if we have higher dreams of our own potential?

We live in a world dominated by specialization. 

For example, per the American Association of Medical Colleges, there are now 135 different sub-specialties of physician.  In a post-Enlightenment, post scientific revolution world, being an inch wide and a mile deep was an easy way to add above average value.

The more rare your skills or knowledge base, the more likely you are to accumulate above average economic rewards / opportunity. And we have seen this mentality validated by the outsized accrual of financial rewards to the top 20% of the income distribution – and certainly top 10% and 1%.  The implied message has been – if you are seeking a high income, one largely straightforward way of doing so, is to pick a singular domain and work as hard as possible to be an expert in it.

But we don’t live in Lake Wobegon – we can’t all be above average – so where does that leave the rest?

“None of my skills are world-class, but when my mediocre skills are combined, they become a powerful market force.”

Scott Adams

There is an interesting secondary strategy to consider – one highlighted by Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoon series.

This path is to develop 2 skills sets in the top 10%.  When you consider the joint probability of being in the top 10% in two domains (aka 10% * 10%), you also arrive at 1%. 

The novel combination of two unique things can place you in a singular domain.  Adams highlights that you may be unable to be in the top 1% of tennis players for example – whether due to height, arm length, training opportunity, etc. But you can still be in the 1% in your unique field of combination.

Why 10% is the right number

I’d like to suggest that 10% is an important bar. In my personal experience, there are many many domains of human knowledge and expertise that anyone can reach at the top 10% level purely as a result of grit, effort, and focus. This is a key message that Tim Ferriss and others have been sharing for quite awhile.

With discipline, focus, and desire, it is entirely possible to reach an absolutely high level of performance.  Any higher than 10% and you may begin to intersect with those who innate wiring is going to allow them to reach heights far beyond your ever reach.

By reaching high levels of achievement in 2 domains, you will have created a knowledge base that is exceptionally unique. More so if you can see how the two domains interact with one another. In the complexities of the modern world – we need both highly specialized uni-dimensional thinkers, alongside broader synthetic thinker that are integrating many domains of knowledge. This sort of specialization can create economic rewards, as well as potentially solve really tricky issues that require insights across domains of knowledge.

Understanding your natural abilities and building skills that deploy them is a powerful tool for work that can be both enjoyable and valuable. Importantly, breadth can be an asset if you develop a level of expertise that makes your knowledge base increasingly more unique. The key is to understand your foundational makeup of abilities, and then continue to build on top of that baseline.