To Be or Not To Be a Jack of all Trades

If you just read about Ben Franklin, you know he was a Jack of all Trades. I, too, am one. Actually, I'm a Jill of all Trades. What exactly does this mean?

Modern definitions of the phrase

• A person who can do many different kinds of work. ("The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition")
• A person able to do a variety of different jobs acceptably well. ("WordNet")
• Versatile amateur: somebody who can do many types of work. ("Encarta® World English Dictionary ")
• A person who can do passable work at various tasks: a handy versatile person. ("Merriam-Webster")
• A person who is passably competent with many skills but is not outstandingly brilliant with any one particular skill. ("Wikipedia")
• One competent in many endeavors but excelling in none. ("Wiktionary")
• Someone who has many skills or who does many different jobs. ("Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms")

So, a Jack of all Trades offers a greater breadth of knowledge, but the depth of knowledge is less. Is this a good or a bad thing?

Today, the phrase "Jack of all trades" is accompanied with "master of none". This lack of specialization is seen as a negative by many employers, in particular large employers and the agencies that recruit for them. Generalists are seen as people without focus, no established path, unable to stick to anything, not serious about their careers. There is also a false assumption that a generalist automatically produces mediocrity, while specialization always equates with excellence.

This way of looking at Jack has become ingrained over time. When such mindsets take hold in a business, they create situations where opportunities aren’t explored or developed and the talents of the workforce are underemployed. Given today’s difficult business conditions, companies, especially smaller businesses, simply can’t afford to let potential go untapped or lay idle. This means we must regain that lost meaning of Jack.

Back when it was good to be Jack

It is thought that the phrase ‘Jack of all trades’ came into popular use sometime in the late Middle Ages, before 1600, as a complimentary description of laborers who had the talent, creativity and motivation to perform a vast range of work. ("Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins"). A farmer 400 years ago had to be a highly talented jack of all trades simply to get by. These were times when planning, ingenuity, aptitude, and versatility were essential for survival and prosperity. Specialization reduced the ability of individuals to survive outside of their specialty, thus the original phrasing "Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one". ("Wikipedia")

Why Jack fell out of favor

Since then, generalists have been a dying breed. There are nearly no career options available to them except as entrepreneurs or at the topmost, policy-making levels of corporations, and to get to there, one must be a specialist and do exceedingly well.

Jack's renaissance

Doing business successfully is really about out-performing the competition. The 21st century should present an increasing demand for people who can not only work across boundaries and in many different fields but who can understand the linkages and connections between the various disciplines of modern life and think "horizontally" as well as "vertically to solve complex problems.

According to Wikipedia, "a Jack of all trades may be a master of integration, since the individual knows enough from many learned trades and skills to be able to bring their disciplines together into a practical finished product." Such a person is known as a polymath or a Renaissance man - a person of great and varied learning ("WordNet").

Comprehensive thinking reaches across functional boundaries and utilizes a wide range of skills such as organization, leadership, project management, and sales. None of these broader skills are explicitly part of one-dimensional, specialized backgrounds. Generalists, however, are endowed with the experience and ability to solve a wide range of problems.

Today's business environment calls for employers to revisit these long-held views and prejudices and to raise the question: what value can such a person bring to my business? After all, many of history's greatest minds have belonged to generalists, not specialists.