For my first 24 years, my life was largely about my academic education, with a focus that narrowed further into mathematics and then Accountancy, such that I qualified as a Chartered Accountant before my 24th birthday. At that point, though, I decided that I would never sit an examination again, instead choosing to focus my voracious curiosity across a wide range of areas. For the next decade and more, this was still quite focused on what I could learn to help me in my career, such that by my mid-30s I had already shifted to the point where, when asked about what I did “for a living” (as the phrase goes), I would often say “I’m a specialist generalist”, in that you could set me to run any business in any sector or of any size and I would be able to do it and do it well. In Cayman, where there are so many specialists (particularly lawyers and accountants working in offshore finance), I was an anomaly in proudly declaring myself to be a generalist.
In September 2004, this was brought home to me when Cayman was devastated by a Hurricane. At 38 years old, some of my peers were utterly lost as to what to do in a crisis. They were so specialised in their skill sets that they literally did not know what to do or how to do it, even something as basic as using tools to repair things in and around their damaged homes, and often far less how to listen to and care for their team in ways that served them other than money (which was of little utility in the early days of the devastation the island faced, yet was sometimes the only tool some business leaders knew how to consider using).
Fast forward nearly twenty years further and much of my time in those decades has been invested in following my curiosities in many areas, so I now “know a lot of things about a lot of things” (the phrase someone used recently to introduce me), from which I am able to “connect the dots” (the formal term is “pattern matching”) quickly and often in unexpected ways.
Which is best though? To deeply specialise in one area or to be a specialised generalist, or perhaps somewhere on a spectrum from one extreme to the other?
First, let us look at the idea of foxes and hedgehogs, then I’ll give the thoughts of one wise man as well as my own.
“The fox knows many things; the hedgehog one great thing” ~Archilochus
“There exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system, less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel – a single, universal, organising principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance – and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related to no moral or aesthetic principle.”
Last week I was listening to a recent podcast episode of Cautionary Tales by Tim Harford, “The Man Who Bet His House on a Pop Song – A Eurovision Tale“, within which reference was made to the work of Phillip Tetlock on “Superforecasting“, and specifically on the difference between “foxes” and “hedgehogs” and how one tends to be more successful in forecasting than the other. Contrary to what one might instinctively imagine, the foxes are better at forecasting, not the hedgehogs who are deep in expertise in whatever the subject may be.
One reason given for this in the podcast and by Tetlock in his work is something I have often phrased as “holding my thoughts loosely”. As my mentor, Ed Percival used to say, “I no longer have any deeply held beliefs, the furthest I will go is to have a strong suspicion”. I try to emulate Ed and, though I may have some strong suspicions, I always seek to be open and curious and ready to change my views, thoughts, beliefs on any topic. In terms of forecasting, Tetlock’s 18-year-long study of forecasters showed that the “foxes”, by having specialist knowledge at a certain level across many areas, could allow their instincts and experience to help them both forecast more accurately and (crucially) change their mind when circumstances and information changed. Hedgehogs, by contrast, tend to try to fit the information into their pre-existing model of the world.
So, back to the question of whether to be a fox or a hedgehog, a specialist or a generalist. My own instinct is “It depends”.
I feel it is very useful to have a clear and also deep understanding of a number of key theories, concepts and ideas that inform many areas of life, work, and business. I’m a chartered accountant by training then spent many year evaluating businesses for their investability. I have literally reviewed financial statements, strategic plans and forecasts for thousands of companies. That depth of knowledge means that I can now work out within minutes exactly what question to ask someone about their business that will cut to the heart of the matter. This comes partly from experience, and partly from the related deep study of coaching and human behaviour (including, for example, training on reading facial micro-expressions to see behind the words someone says in answer to a pointed question). By reading the numbers and the person as they explain their business to me, I don’t normally even need to review the financial statements anymore.
Another example is economics. I have been deeply interested in this field for many years but noticed that, in my early years of interest in the field, when talking to leading Economists, they would not only be readily able to baffle me with thier technical terms (a quick way to cut a layperson out of a conversation!), they would refer to theories where I would have, at best, only a thin veneer of understanding. Chastened by this, I have since put in thousands of hours into learning, yes, core theories and models as well as their applications and inter-relatedness. The way I sometimes put it is you have to learn the boring basics (including, yes, the specialist mathematics and models used by economists) so that you can have a meaningful seat in a conversation in, say a pub in Kilkenny in November as a bunch of global economists argue over a pint of Guinness about, say, central bank monetary policy and how it impacts day to day life in x country.
Not sure you agree? As yourself how much you really understand about monetary theory? (after several years, I at least have some comfort in this area). Or, how comfortable you would be putting your own money into an investment in a company if you only had less than ten minutes to interview the founder and could only ask them three or fewer questions? (I’ve done this many times, whilst also saying “no” just as quickly even more often).
So, I’ve given some of my own thoughts, but I also ranged widely reading the thoughts of others who also range widely. One such person is Shane Parrish, and from his article on the topic, I found this beautiful piece on the thoughts of the very wise Charlie Munger (the far less famous but perhaps even more brilliant mind than his investment partner, Warren Buffett):
When Charlie Munger was asked whether to become a polymath or a specialist at the 2017 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting for the Daily Journal, his answer surprised a lot of people. Many expected the answer to be obvious. Of course, he would recommend that people become generalists. Only this is not what he said. Munger remarked:
I don’t think operating over many disciplines, as I do, is a good idea for most people. I think it’s fun, that’s why I’ve done it. And I’m better at it than most people would be, and I don’t think I’m good at being the very best at handling differential equations. So, it’s been a wonderful path for me, but I think the correct path for everybody else is to specialize and get very good at something that society rewards, and then to get very efficient at doing it. But even if you do that, I think you should spend 10 to 20% of your time [on] trying to know all the big ideas in all the other disciplines. Otherwise … you’re like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. It’s not going to work very well. You have to know the big ideas in all the disciplines to be safe if you have a life lived outside a cave. But no, I think you don’t want to neglect your business as a dentist to think great thoughts about Proust.
spend 10 to 20% of your time [on] trying to know all the big ideas in all the other disciplines