There’s No Such Thing as a Generalist
We built Glue Club to give startup leaders a space to learn what good looks like and help them skip some of the mistakes others have made. Glue Club is a leadership development community that helps you be better and feel better at work. If you’re a company builder who wants a community of people to lean on and learn from, come join us!
For the first part of my career, I wandered from function to function like the lost duck in Are You My Mother? I started in publishing, then moved into communications, HR, Recruiting, Biz Dev, Product, and on and on. Every few years, I’d walk up to a new function and ask, Is this where I belong?
Some felt right but too limiting (HR). Others were a resounding NO like Product (turns out, I don’t care whether the button is blue or green).
But through that wandering, I realized something: my skills transcended a single function. I wasn’t a great product manager, but I always have a product mindset when solving problems. I wasn’t just an HR leader, but one of my greatest strengths is that I know how to motivate and align people. My abilities cut across traditional job titles.
Some would call me a generalist.
I fucking hate that word.
The “Generalist” vs. “Specialist” Debate Is Lazy Thinking
People love categorizing things. Introvert or extrovert. Night owl or morning person. Generalist or specialist.
Generalists vs. specialists — which is better and why? You’ve probably come across at least one think-piece or thread on this topic. It’s everywhere, and people have very strong opinions about it.
I reject the premise entirely. In my experience, there is no such thing as a generalist because everyone is a specialist in something.
I strongly believe the generalist vs specialist debate hurts both companies and humans.
“Generalists are great hires for startups but not for big companies” is something you often hear. Blech. Large organizations both need people who can scale and maintain specific systems, and they usually also desperately need people who can tackle the next big, vague problem. They need people who fit in the box of a function and people who can move fluidly between functions to pull the pieces together. It is lazy recruiting to try to put people in these arbitrary “generalist” vs “specialist” boxes.
Generalist and specialist are both black hole words, vague words that are overused and poorly defined. Every great “generalist” I know is actually an exceptional specialist—they have a very specific specialty that means they are great for certain jobs and certain problems, but not for others. Great for certain companies, stages, and moments but not for others. It also often means that their skill set that doesn’t fit neatly into a functional box.
COO is the most generalist of all exec titles, but people like Lexi Reese, Claire Hughes Johnson, Geoff Donaker, Don Faul, Stacy Brown-Philpot, and me all have very different strengths and weaknesses as well as work we love and hate doing. We have all held the COO title, but we aren't interchangeable. We each have specialties that made us great at specific things and perfect for specific types of companies.
It took me a while on my “Are You My Mother?” journey, but I eventually realized that rather than trying to fit myself in a functional box, I actually needed to figure out what I was exceptional at and what I loved to do — aka my specialties. As I said, bouncing around different departments in my early career helped me identify what my specialties were (and weren’t). And with time, I have gotten better at explaining them.
Here’s a working, incomplete list, just to help you understand:
Taking big, vague problems, coming up with solutions, and breaking solutions down into achievable steps. Problems like: “I need to build a business around this product” or “I want to build a tech company that is also a philanthropy.” The bigger and vaguer the better.
Figuring out how to organize and inspire people to tackle those big, vague problems.
Working with brilliant founders to understand their vision and help them bring it to life.
Using structured thinking to convince strong-minded people of things (see point above).
Motivating people, figuring out what they are uniquely good at, and aligning their work with their strengths and the needs of the company.
Taking over something that’s broken, identifying what’s wrong, fixing it, and then finding the right leader to own it moving forward.
This is NOT a general skill set. Plenty of companies would benefit from someone like me AND there are jobs you should NEVER hire me to do.
I am not a generalist. I am a specialist. I just don’t have a perfect functional descriptor. I don’t fit in Marketing or Sales, etc.
Stop worrying about whether you are a generalist or a specialist. And companies, please stop saying that you “only hire specialists” or “only hire athletes/generalists” – it hurts your hiring and is myopic.
Instead of worrying about labels, the real unlock is this: we all need to define our specialty. Companies need to do the work to define the specialties they’re looking for in a given role, and individuals need to determine what they are exceptional at.
You don’t need a perfect job title or to fit perfectly in a random function, but you do need to be able to clearly describe your specialty.
Define Your Specialty (Even If It’s Hard to Name)
If you are someone who doesn’t perfectly fit in a functional bucket like me – someone who might be called a “generalist” – it is very very very important to identify your specialty(ies) and the problems you’re uniquely qualified to solve, and then get good at explaining it to others. It is equally important to get good at identifying the things you are bad at and the things no one should ever hire you to do. That is the journey of your career.
Here’s an approach I’ve used with friends and folks in Glue Club:
Step 1: Reflect on peak moments
Start by making a list of experiences from the past few years where you felt your best at work — your “peak moments.” Peak moments are times when you felt effective, energized, and excited, so much so that your time at work flew by. They are moments where you felt like your best self – in the flow – and if you could do work like that forever (or for a while), you’d feel excited. If you were in any way miserable or bored, it’s NOT a peak moment, even if your work product was incredible, you got promoted, and everyone was super happy with you (indexing on those experiences will lead you to take a prestigious job that you hate, trust me).
Step 2: Define your specialties
Specialties are things you’re extraordinary at and love to do. Peak moments are usually a great place to hunt for clues as to what these are – times when you felt your best at work.
Look at your Peak Moments and try to pull out themes. Even if your Peak moments come from very different work experiences, there are usually really strong parallels and similarities between what made you feel energized in those moments. Write down the things that show up more than once, being as specific as possible. Look for moments of “and”. An example: you were in charge of two research projects but one was energizing and one was not. In the one that was energizing, you were leading a team and helping shape their work. In the other, you were alone. It turns out that you’re only energized by deep research if you get to do it with other people. It would be easy to stop at “research” but it’s really important to understand the nuance of when you feel at your best.
Separately, it’s really helpful to make a list of the things you think you’re extraordinary at – the things you know you can crush if someone hires you to do them. It can be easy to get hung up on this list if you’re not a fan of self-promotion, so think of things that people tend to come to you for help with. Look for patterns in feedback from peers and managers. List out some recent accomplishments that you’re proud of. Imagine a job that you think would be a perfect fit. This process will reveal a lot of things you’re good at, but try to hone in on the stuff you’re truly great at. (You can also ask a close work colleague to help you with this list… other people often see us better than we see ourselves.)
In between these two lists is your specialities. You are looking for the overlap between what you love doing and what you are extraordinary at. Over time, your job is to make them more and more specific. Here are a few great examples from a friend’s list:
Setting the vision, strategy, priorities, and metrics that will make any product a success. I particularly love behavioral change products in the edtech and health and wellness space.
Designing and mapping out the customer journey in excruciating detail to identify critical touchpoints, milestones, inefficiencies, opportunities, etc.
Conducting experiments and user and market research to understand the customer journey, pain points (and design solutions), and key value creation (I love meeting with customers directly)
For some people, this list might sound draining or like a list of things they’d be terrible at. For my friend, this is an (incomplete) list of her specialties.
Step 3: Identify your kind of problems
You can refine your specialties by figuring out what types of problems you’re suited — and not suited — to solve. This is also an important sorting mechanism that will help when you’re trying to figure out if a role is right for you or pitching yourself for a role.
I group problems into three categories:
Problems that you’re uniquely qualified and excited to solve
Problems that you could solve but aren’t the best person to solve
Lookalike problems that are related to what you do but aren’t your specialty
As I mentioned, one of my specialties is taking over something that’s broken, identifying and fixing what’s wrong, and then finding the right leader to own it. Another is building things from the ground floor, and a third is motivating people. Based on this list, a founder might come to me with any of the problems below — but they’re not all Molly problems.
Problem 1: A previous leader sent the marketing team into disarray, and they needed me to find out what’s wrong, implement an initial fix, and find someone to take over.
Am I the right person to solve it? Yes. This is definitely a Molly problem. I can do this with basically any department, and I love doing it.
Problem 2: The issues with marketing have created a brand consistency problem, and they need me to build a brand book to help employees understand it.
Am I the right person to solve it? No. This is a problem I could solve, but would I be exceptional at it? No. Would it be worth paying me to do this? Absolutely not.
Problem 3: The founder actually thought I did such a great job solving the initial problems with the marketing organization that they wanted me to become the CMO and scale the team.
Am I the right person to solve it? Definitely not. I get why that person might think I’d be good at this given the circumstances. But I wouldn’t be, and I’d hate it. I can help them find someone great though!
How to Pitch Yourself (When You Don’t Fit a Traditional Job Title)
If your skill set doesn’t fit neatly into a functional box, your #1 job is learning how to explain it.
Bad pitch: “I’m a generalist. I’ve done a little bit of everything.”
Good pitch: “I specialize in taking vague, high-stakes problems and structuring them into a clear plan. I thrive in early-stage chaos, working directly with founders to translate their vision into reality. I’m the ideal person to help tackle your biggest, most confusing problem, figure out who needs to be involved to solve it, and organize the work to get it solved. Here’s three examples of where I’ve done that in the past…”
The difference? Clarity. Confidence. Specificity.
If you don’t define your specialty, people will do it for you—and they’ll probably get it wrong.
The other thing I will say is that the best way to explain what you’re great at is to be able to map it to the problems they are having. If you’ve gone through the steps above, you know what kind of problems you’re uniquely suited to help with. We often start with ourselves — here’s what I want, here’s what I’m great at — but the much better way to have these conversations (job interviews, consulting gigs, etc.) is to try to deeply understand what problems the person is facing and then try to figure out if it matches your speciality.
Reject the Box
If you look like a generalist, people will try to put you in a box. When you’re a functional specialist, people will try to keep you in your box. You have to get good at rejecting the box.
As an example, one member of Glue Club came to me recently and said, “I’m having all these conversations with companies where I tell them I’m a BizOps person and they tell me I look more like a RevOps person.”
This kind of thing drives me nuts. BizOps and RevOps are made-up black hole words. They mean different things at different companies. But there’s a ton of overlap in the skills required across roles with these titles. This conversation is stupid on the part of the recruiter/hiring manager, and it’s exhausting if you’re the person interviewing.
If this is you during an interview and you want to get the conversation back on track, you have to reject the premise of the question. You don’t have to tell them whether you’re a BizOps person or a RevOps person. You do have to figure out what THEY mean when they say BizOps or RevOps. What are the problems THEY are trying to solve and what is it that they actually need from the person filling this role?? “Explain to me what you mean by BizOps or RevOps” might be a good place to start…
This isn’t easy. It takes some guts to co-lead your own interview. But if you want to figure out what the company actually needs, beyond titles and jargon, it’s often required.
Final Thought: Own Your Evolution
Refining your specialty is an ongoing process. It is the work of a career and it will evolve — what excites you today might not in a decade.
The best careers are built intentionally—by knowing what energizes you, what you’re uniquely great at, and having the courage to own it.
So if you’ve been called a “generalist”? Take the compliment—and then tell them what you actually are.
Come explore Glue Club! We built Glue Club to give startup leaders a space to learn what good looks like and help them skip some of the mistakes others (me!) have made. Glue Club is a leadership development community that helps you be better and feel better at work. If you’re a company builder who wants a community of people to lean on and learn from, come join us!
This was such a refreshing read!
Love this, Molly.