{"id":6360,"date":"2015-02-02T11:20:52","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T03:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elijahconsulting.com\/?p=6360"},"modified":"2016-11-09T12:22:56","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T04:22:56","slug":"specialization-diversification-mean-improvisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elijahconsulting.com\/specialization-diversification-mean-improvisation\/","title":{"rendered":"Specialization? Diversification? Do you mean Improvisation?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>Some people call for specialization. Our companies, our businesses, aren’t specialized, aren’t differentiated, enough, they say. Yet others call for greater diversification. We need to expand\u00a0our repertoire in order to traverse the bumpy terrain of the business world effectively. Which is right, you might ask, and of course it is both. Businesses do not make decisions. People make decisions. Businesses do not have preferences, people do. Of course, the business sphere is subjected to forces beyond its own control and for which human preferences have no relevance. Geopolitical and cultural forces inexorably carry us, the people, living and working in the business sphere, to where we may or may not want to go. It is not about specialization or about diversification. It is about how each of us is designed and how we gravitate towards what we prefer as a result. Some of us excel within a very narrow job scope. It does not mean that we can’t do other stuff as and when the need arises, but we’re quite happy doing what we do at the moment. I know of a Personal Assistant who remained at the same position, and almost at the same pay, for more than ten years! She resisted all attempts at promotion because that would have meant doing something different and she simply had no desire to do anything else. She was a highly effective Personal Assistant, to be sure, and she was quite happy serving the many Bosses throughout her vital and largely unnoticed career. I have been like that myself, at some point. I had been\u00a0a Rifle Company Trainer for some years when I received news that I was to be posted up to Headquarters. As soon as it was possible, I took a day off from the course I happened to be attending at the time and asked my Commander if I could remain in the Training Centre rather than be posted to Headquarters. I suppose I wasn’t as truculent, or as persuasive, as the Personal Assistant I referred to earlier, for my request was, of course, “duly noted”, meaning I got posted to Headquarters anyway. Of course, it wasn’t what I wanted, but I dare say I did pretty well in the Operations job I got assigned to after the course!<\/span><\/p>\n