Book(s) review: the power of generalists

Like many undergraduates in the U.S., I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a career when I left for college at 18. I did know, however, that I loved to read.  So, I majored in English and spent my undergraduate years reading. This love for books and literature continued throughout college and led me to consider a career as an English professor.

I attended grad school and got my M.A. in English Literature. What I found from those additional years of study was that loving to read isn’t the same as being an academic. I decided to move to New York City and got a job at a hedge fund that hired people with strong problem-solving skills and high grade point averages. Quite to everyone’s surprise (mine most importantly), I loved it. I loved living and working in Manhattan, I loved the energy of the markets and the challenge of it all. I decided to go back to school for a second master’s degree – this time an MBA – and pursued a career in financial services.

My career has taken a few twists and turns since then, but the love of reading has remained. 

My book choices tend to alternate between those two master’s degrees: sometimes I read fiction or poetry, other times I read business books. I love reading both and I thought I’d start sharing a periodic book review that covers a pair of books with similar themes. One book will be for those who read literature, another for those who like business topics. It’s not a book review – it’s a “book(s) review.”

Book(s) review: the power of generalists 

“Magnificent Rebels” by Andrea Wulf: In the late 18th century, in the small German college town of Jena, there gathered a diverse group of poets, philosophers and biologists who created the German Romantic movement. 

Goethe, Alexander von Humboldt, Schlegel, Schiller, Fichte and others ate together, argued together, one day wrote poetry and another studied geology, sparking a movement that shaped philosophy and poetry for centuries. What struck me in reading Andrea Wulf’s “Magnificent Rebels” was how broadly these great thinkers ranged, across genres and topics, all benefiting from the ability to look at things through different perspectives and disciplines. The book is also a view into a tumultuous time in European history, when the aftermath of the French Revolution was shaping both thought and then borders.

“Range” by David Epstein: “Magnificent Rebels” reminded me of “Range,” a business book I read last year that begins with the career journey of Roger Federer, who played a number of different sports in his youth and only focused in on tennis in his late teens. 

This “late specialization” leads – according to “Range” – to longer term success and has parallels outside sport. Being a generalist myself I can’t help but admire deep specialists, but “Range” pushes us to embrace diverse and analogical thinking and to “sample” before we specialize. It’s advice I often give to interns at American Express: 

Use your 20s to try different things and figure out what you both love and are good at. If you can do that you will have a fantastic career path into your 30s and beyond.

Both “Magnificent Rebels” and “Range” were thought-provoking reads. Read one or both for a reminder of how multi-disciplinary and diverse thinking can lead to new and transformational ideas.

What is currently on your reading list?

-Anna