Driving Leadership growth in the region through a coaching approach | ICF Master Certified Coach | Founder Cupela Consulting.
In global innovation centers (GICs) and global capability centers (GCCs), various challenges have traditionally meant that employees ended up being generalists rather than specialists:
• IT services companies created generalists for easy marketability to different types of projects.
• Many employees ended up becoming generalists due to the constant switching of jobs.
• Since managers receive more salary, perks and power, many employees would strive to be promoted to management, which meant that depth in tech skills was less likely to be achieved.
However, expertise is increasingly becoming an organization’s main asset in the knowledge economy, so there is a growing demand for specialists.
One way that GIC leaders can accomplish this shift is by looking to other companies, particularly startups, that have long been grooming their specialists. Leaders in GICs can learn from startups about the importance of investing in employee development and training. Keeping up with the latest trends in their field, particularly in the many fast-evolving areas of technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, can enable experts to help the company keep its competitive edge.
Interestingly, many startups have also evolved a new kind of employee, someone who is neither a generalist nor a specialist. These people have a fair amount of expertise and depth in two or three areas. By providing employees with the opportunity to develop their skills and expertise in two or three specific areas, organizations can create a more agile and focused workforce that is better equipped to meet the changing needs of the business.
This can be helpful when employees are reluctant to become too specialized in one area. They may perceive it as safer to have broader knowledge so that they can easily switch companies or technologies when needed. Developing depth in more than one area provides the employee comfort that they can change easily while giving the company someone specialized.
Additionally, with today’s climate of fast-evolving trends, people who have developed expertise in two or three areas are more agile and adaptable in times of change, which benefits both the employer and the employee. They can continue to grow, even in a changing environment.
Let me use my personal story to demonstrate how that might work: I started as a programmer, then became a network engineer. Later in my career, I engaged in such varied fields as customer support across geographies, managing product development and venture capital management. These diverse experiences have given me the necessary background, understanding and skills—as well as the confidence—to solve problems for companies and individuals, allowing me to build a career as a management consultant, coach and mentor.
Another advantage is that specialists with fair expertise in two or three disciplines are better prepared to advance to more senior roles than generalists. The former has enough understanding of various disciplines to judge their reports’ performance and aptitude.
As Emilie Wapnick reminds us in her brilliant TED Talk on “multipotentialites” (i.e., people with a range of interests rather than one deep expertise), “Innovation happens at the intersections. That’s where the new ideas come from. And multipotentialites, with all of their backgrounds, are able to access a lot of these points of intersection.” They can then collaborate with specialists in the intersecting fields to create innovation.
To create maximum resilience in their teams, global leaders need to find the right mix of specialists with deep expertise in just one topic, specialists with fair expertise in two or three areas and a few generalists.
While specialists can bring a deep understanding of a particular area of expertise, generalists can have a broader perspective and the ability to adapt to a range of tasks and responsibilities. This is something that other team members should learn from their generalist colleagues since “adaptability may be the most important soft skill of all,” as Jill Chapman writes in her Fast Company article on the topic. “Employees with high adaptability are better equipped to take on new tasks, learn new technologies, and develop new proficiencies, all skills that provide positive benefits to companies working to keep up with the changing times.”
In conclusion, in the knowledge economy, expertise is becoming an increasingly important asset for organizations. GIC leaders can adapt to this shift by looking to other companies that have long been grooming their various specialists. By investing in employee development and training and being open to new ideas and approaches, leaders of GICs and GCCs can create a more agile and focused workforce that is better equipped to meet the changing needs of the business.
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