Balancing Specialist and Generalist Roles To Increase Organizational Agility

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As organizations grow larger, specialization increases, leading to smaller and smaller focuses for employees. While specialization brings efficiency, it becomes a liability when the need for change arises. The constant change in the external environment makes it hard to break out of structured specialization. To counteract this, a balance of specialist and generalist roles is crucial for organizational success. Encouraging employees to move across projects and roles, as well as inducing structured noise through planned cross-pollination, allows for the infusion of fresh ideas and perspectives, promoting adaptability and organizational agility.

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Why do organizations get slower as they grow? What can organizations learn from slime molds? What are the advantages of top-down organization versus bottom-up organization, and vice versa? How can organizations encourage serendipity? What use are doorbells in jungles? Why is it so hard for organizations to set a "north star" that is at once plausible, coherent, and good?

Alex Komoroske has over a decade of experience in the tech industry as a product manager focusing on platform- and ecosystem-shaped problems. While at Google, he worked on Chrome's Web Platform PM team, Augmented Reality in Google Maps, and Ambient Computing. He's fascinated by how to navigate the emergent complexity within organizations to achieve great results. You can find some of his public writing at komoroske.com.

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