The Radical Generalist: Why Swiss Army Knives Win
After being out of the running for a while, I’ve been going through hundreds of job vacancies lately. What strikes me is a persistent mismatch: companies officially search for "specialists" with 10 years of experience in one specific tool, while the description is actually begging for someone to orchestrate the bigger picture.
They ask for an expert in tool X, but they are looking for someone who speaks the language of developers, founders, and customers alike.
In essence, these vacancies are describing a Swiss Army knife. Is that the best tool for one specific, static goal? Absolutely not. But it is the solution when order needs to be created out of chaos and when rapid pivoting is required. That happens to be the reality for many companies today.
As markets mutate faster than the average quarter, the foundations of many business models are shifting. In practice, companies need people who not only dare to adjust the architecture but also effectively dive into the 'rabbit hole' to fix things. People who sit at the strategy table one moment and get their hands dirty solving a technical issue the next.
I am fairly certain that a lot of money and revenue are being lost here. In endless searches, but also in people ending up in roles where they don't truly belong. This leads to frustration on both sides of the table.
It also works the other way around: as a generalist, how do you filter out relevant jobs when the title doesn’t match the content? How do you position yourself as that 'Swiss Army knife' in a system that demands a screwdriver?
How do we help companies find these people and, perhaps more importantly, how do you test them? If their value isn't found in a standard list of tool-specific skills, how do you measure the ability to get things moving when the old rules no longer apply?
I’m very curious about your take on this.
Availability: If you find yourself thinking "I need exactly that kind of orchestrator to bring order to the chaos": I am currently available for a new challenge.
The content of this post reflects my vision but has been rewritten and edited with the help of AI.