Tag Archives: generalists

How to cultivate the Generalist within

in Creativity, entrepreneurship, Greatness, Innovation, Interviews

The Creative GeneralistAs a rule of thumb, your business needs more generalists than specialists if it wants to innovate. Don’t get me wrong, specialists are valuable. But Generalists are the innovators, the ones who are most capable of dealing with complexity; the ones that connect that dots. For that very reason, as a generalist, I know it’s hard to get us to pay attention to anything uninteresting; much less get inspired. We need to be challenged; constantly. We also need to be unleashed; not managed.

But for an organization that is willing to change, as your own, you can turn yourself into a generalist, create the conditions for great ideas to emerge and spark the innovation mindset in your business.

How?

Simple: broaden yourself.

Here are a few ways how I do it:…

Homogeneity in an organization breeds failure

in entrepreneurship, Innovation, Leadership

for innovation hire generalistsExcellence is contagious. A business is only as strong as its people, which is why it’s so crucial to hire the right ones.

A recent experience triggered this post, one that comes up all the time in the world of entrepreneurship and innovation: how to maintain a culture of excellence.

In my experience, it all starts with vision and values, and that determines the type of people you will bring in to help you reach that vision. Very straightforward, but most of the time the “people” part is kicked to the curve in favor of “people who can come in and fill a void” to get things done as efficiently as possible; whether or not they fit the culture (if there is one).  …