CoachJim's Reviews > Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

This is the third book I have read recently examining the notion of success. The first book, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, popularized the idea of the Ten Thousand Hour Rule, which states that it requires 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become elite. The second book was The Sports Gene by David Epstein, the author of this book. In that book Epstein examines the genetic and environmental factors contributing to some success in sports.

The main premise of this book is a comparison between Specialists and Generalists. Epstein borrows the concept of the Hedgehog and Fox from philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s essay on Tolstoy to illustrate the difference. A Hedgehog/Specialists is someone who burrows deep into something, perhaps without seeing the bigger picture. A Fox/Generalist is someone with a wider range of knowledge. The narrow-view hedgehogs know one big thing and the “integrator” fox knows many little things.

He gives evidence of scientific breakthroughs where the foxlike scientists used knowledge from a completely different discipline to reach a solution to a problem. He gives the example of specialists who because they see their specialty as a hammer they view everything as a nail.

The book opens with a comparison of the paths of Tiger Woods, the golf star, and Roger Federer, the tennis star. Tiger Woods as a child prodigy was introduced to golf as a toddler. He dragged a putter around in his walker. His path is an example of a Specialist, and the story became the gospel for many parents attempting to make their child into an elite star. This story is somewhat responsible for the “Tiger Moms”.

Roger Federer on the other hand did not even pick up a tennis racket until almost a teenager, and even then did not concentrate on tennis. His mother, although a tennis coach herself, did not coach or even play tennis with him. He participated in many different sports. “He would later give credit to the wide range of sports he played for helping him develop his athleticism and hand-eye coordination.” (Page 3)

The book deals with the “Graduation Speech.” These are usually filled with themes about “don’t give up your dreams”. How do these 18 year olds know what lies ahead 10 years from now? A better option is to be open to what is available now and choose those that give you more and better options later.

Likewise trying to build an elite athlete or artist from a young child makes no sense. A person at 28 is different than they were at 18, and that person is different than they were at 8. The modern world is a complex place and it requires breadth of knowledge.

From that opening Epstein leaves the field of sports and writes of many other areas where a broad range of activities contributed to the success of several “stars”. He describes learning domains as being either “Kind” or “Wicked”. A Kind domain is one that gives immediate feedback during practice and experience. Examples of a Kind domain might include music or chess. A Wicked domain is one where the feedback is neither immediate, accurate nor consistent. These domains may be characterized as chaotic. An example might be the financial markets. “In wicked domains that lack of automatic feedback, experience alone does not improve performance.” (Page 230)

Epstein investigates many different areas and examples, and some are interesting, but many are very long and not all that interesting. There are a number of examples involving science and scientists.

There is an interesting story about music groups in Venice during the seventeenth century. Children in orphanages, or “Houses of Mercy”, were taught music. The children were taught all sorts of music on all kinds of instruments. Many of the instruments are no longer even around. Some were the piano, which at that time was a new instrument, and violins enhanced by Antonio Stradivari, which centuries later would sell for millions of dollars. The resulting choirs and ensembles were then used by churches as entertainment and a source of money. The Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi capitalized on the skill of these groups and the concerto was born. The point here was that these musicians did not specialize, they were trained in music across many instruments.

This book was a disappointment. First I was mistaken in what subject it was going to investigate. Epstein’s first book concentrated on sports, which is an area of interest for me. The subject of Specialists versus Generalists is not uninteresting, but his examples were. They seemed rather repetitive.

I had heard a talk by Epstein previously and he seemed to hint this book would be dealing with organized youth sports; specifically the travel and long tournament weekends. These are things that I have strong opinions about and was looking for support from him. He does refer to the Tiger model, and discusses Tiger Moms who attempt to groom their kids for a certain musical talent, and then watch the child drop the musical instrument at the first opportunity. A friend related that her young daughter played in a four-game weekend softball tournament and at the end of the weekend most of the young girls were crying from exhaustion. Not a good way to introduce a love of sports.