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Success potential of generalists and lateral entrants: Just no child prodigy syndrome
// By David Epstein
Our society nourishes the myth of the one-sidedly gifted child prodigy who follows his specialization early on. But generalism ends tunnel vision and leads to more success.
Even top athletes often start specializing late
When I began my research, I encountered both differentiated criticism and blanket rejection. āThat may apply to other sports,ā fans often said, ābut not to our sport.ā The most vehement protest came from the community of the world's most popular sport, football. But then a team of German scientists published a study at the end, as if on demand, that showed that the members of the German national team that had recently won the World Cup were usually athletes who specialized late and up to the age of 21 or older had only played in an amateur league.
In their childhood and youth they had only played recreational soccer and played other sports. Another study of professional football, published two years later, tracked the athletic development of young players at the age of eleven over two years. Those who played multiple sports and only played recreational soccer had made greater improvements over the two years than the comparison group.
Hyper-specialization as a marketing myth
Similar results have now been reported in a wide variety of sporting disciplines, from hockey to volleyball. The alleged need for early hyper-specialization forms the core of a vast, successful, and occasionally well-intentioned marketing machine - in sport, but also in other areas. In truth, there are far more top athletes who started out as generalists than highly focused child prodigies. In general, however, the former are not so effective - if they ever get known. You probably know a few big names, only their backgrounds are unknown.
I remember a 2018 Super Bowl where a famous quarterback who played catcher baseball before his career as a professional footballer (Tom Brady) had an exciting duel with the quarterback of the opposing team, who in his youth was football, basketball , Had practiced baseball and karate and had only decided between basketball and football in college (Nick Foles).
The key is diversity and trying things out
Later that month, Czech athlete Ester LedeckĆ” became the first woman to win gold in two different disciplines (skiing and snowboarding) at a Winter Olympics. In her younger years, LedeckĆ” had played a variety of sports (she still plays beach volleyball and indulges in windsurfing) but focused primarily on school and was in no hurry to win youth tournaments. In an article that appeared the day after her sensational double gold medal win, the Washington Post wrote: "In an age of athletic specialization, LedeckĆ” is a passionate advocate of diversity."
Shortly after her great performance, the Ukrainian boxer Wassyl Lomatschenko won the world title in three different weight classes, and faster than any other boxer. Lomatschenko, who had interrupted boxing training for four years as a teenager to learn traditional Ukrainian dances, said: āAs a boy I did a lot of different sports - gymnastics, basketball, football, tennis - and I think in the end all of these did different sports have helped to improve my footwork. Ā«The prominent sports scientist Ross Tucker sums up the research in this area in one sentence:Ā» The key lies in the variety and in trying out. Ā«
Late developers often find jobs that suit them better
In 2014 I included some of the findings about a late specialization in sports in the epilogue of my first book, The Sports Gene. The following year, I was invited to speak about the results of this research in front of an unusual audience - not athletes or coaches, but military veterans. During my preparation, I rummaged through scientific journals for articles on early specializations and professional detours outside the world of sports. What I discovered amazed me. Research found that people who had already specialized at the beginning of their careers initially earned more after college than others who specialized later. However, this supposed starting advantage was offset by the fact that the late developers found work that better suited their skills and personality.
I came across tons of studies that showed that technical inventors could improve their creative output by first gaining experience in different areas, unlike other colleagues who were very deeply immersed in a topic at an early age. In fact, the best creative minds have benefited over the course of their careers from having sacrificed a little profundity on their own initiative for a greater breadth of knowledge. A study of creative creators came to almost identical results. It gradually became clear to me that the careers of some of the people whose artistic work I deeply admired from a distance - from Duke Ellington (who skipped music classes as a child to focus on baseball and drawing) to Maryam Mirzakhani (who dreamed of Becoming a novelist and instead becoming the first woman to be awarded the Fields Medal, the most famous award in the field of mathematics) - more closely resembled the career path of generalist Roger Federer than the child prodigy development of a Tiger Woods.
Generalists in top positions
In my further research, I came across remarkable individuals who succeeded not in spite of their broad experience and interests, but because of it: A female CEO who took up her first leadership position at an age when others were retiring; an artist who had five different professions before he found his calling and changed the world, and an inventor who turned a small business from the 19th century into one of today's most famous brand names with his self-fabricated anti-specialization philosophy. Since I had just started doing research on specialization in the wider world of work, I limited myself to sport in my presentation to the military veterans. Although I only marginally touched on the other results, my audience immediately jumped at them.
They were all people who specialized late or changed careers. After the lecture, one by one came up to me to introduce themselves, and I found that many were at least a little concerned about their professional lives and some were almost ashamed. They had been invited by the Pat Tillman Foundation, which, in the spirit of the late NFL football player of the same name, who left professional football to become an Army Ranger, awards grants to veterans, active soldiers and their wives who are professionally involved reorient or go to school again.
Career changers are more successful
In this case, all of the fellows were former paratroopers and translators aiming for a second career as a teacher, scientist, engineer, and entrepreneur. They were bursting with enthusiasm, but there was a subliminal fear to be felt, because their LinkedIn profiles did not reflect a linear career path that employers had been taught to want to see. They were nervous and tense, because they sat next to younger (sometimes even much younger) students in the lecture hall or, at an age when others had long been firmly in the saddle, made a career change because they had been busy up to that point gain an incomparable life and leadership experience. Somehow a unique advantage had become a disadvantage in their perception.
A few days after my lecture at the Tillman Foundation, a former member of the Navy SEAL, a special unit of the US Navy, who approached me immediately after the lecture, wrote me an e-mail with the following content: "We are all there, to change our profession. Several of us got together after your talk and we shared how relieved we were about your words. "
Get out of the dangerous tunnel view
I was a little amused that a former Navy SEAL graduate with a bachelor's degree in history and geophysics, who was now pursuing a master's degree in business and administration at Dartmouth and Harvard, needed my validation on his life choices. Like everyone else in the auditorium, he had been implicitly and explicitly made to understand that it was dangerous to change horses in the middle of a race. My talk was so enthusiastic that the Foundation invited me to give a key...
