Range Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

A really useful book to challenge the perception that a meandering path is a wasteful one.

Shows through countless studies the benefits of gaining wide experience earlier in life before specialising later, and that the head start from specialising sooner gets beaten by the breadth a more wide ranging path can take.

It also made my wandering generalist path feel a little less wasteful.

A foundational read for anyone who has big life decisions to make — so all of us.

Packed with tons of information. Almost too much. Less examples would have made the read clearer. Especially more flowy, considering the often complex sentence structure.

The case for generalization was well made. In this book we looked at Roger Federer, famous musicians and Nobel laurates and came up with a conclusion: it's not necessarily a bad thing to be a generalist early on. After all, in many situations,being an expert may cause you to predict incorrectly. It may cause a rather narrow view, in which a generalist point of view would overcome. Decent read.

Lots of authors in the “this conglomeration of studies and anecdotes will make you a better [insert profession or identity here]” genre would probably like to think that they argue their core message well. But in Range, David Epstein has a unique opportunity not only to argue his point but to demonstrate it. Cleverly, Epstein shows that generalists “triumph” in their ability to draw upon a wide range of experiences, their varied library, and their scattered knowledge sets by doing so himself. He proves the worth of generalists in spaces from the arts (the Van Gogh chapter is a highlight) to the military. As an educator and learner, I have two major takeaways: 1. Learning doesn't just lead to struggle. It requires it. 2. Make a feast of learning.

This was pretty much exactly the book I needed to read right now. There is a lot to take away from this book, but there were two quotes that stuck out to me that aren't necessarily even what this book is about: "So, about that one sentence of advice: Don’t feel behind... Compare yourself to yourself yesterday, not to younger people who aren’t you." "Ideas are not really lost, they are reactivated when useful."

Picked up the book with high expectations and it delivered on them. The book brings lots of examples where having broad knowledge leads to superior outcomes on average. Be it doing many sports when you are young and specializing then or applying scientific knowledge across fields. For a fellow generalist, it's a pat on the back so would rather recommend to read to every specialist.

What a wonderful read. I could totally relate to several things described in this book. Am a bit surprised by other reviews though - from my understanding, the book didn't talk down about specializing (or hyper specializing) in something. It was more about why having the range, going broad, is actually not bad, and in some circumstances, even good.

Early on in the book I felt like the same sort of story was getting rehashed again and again to make a simple point — broad experience will serve you better. But, as the book progressed I started to enjoy it more (candid confession: I found countless examples of 'confirmation bias' that me feel better about my own 'jack of all trades…' career!) Mainly because Epstein is right, and certainly in my experience — if you want to see a bigger picture, or expand your current view, it's faster and easier with a wider ranging set of experience. If you're building new products, having experience outside of your industry or current field will pay dividends for your creativity of a 'new' solution. So, although the book could have been shorter in places, I think it's an enjoyable read. Especially if you feel like you are a generalist, and you sometimes feel like that's a negative. It is anything but.

** spoiler alert ** Experience doesn't results in expertise. Test and learn seems like best path if you embrace experimentation to put you closer to picture of right carve of your desired character. Points narrow down to self discovery, innovation and test-and-learn, simple as it sounds, hard as it can get, fruits can it yield. Why I'm not surprised by book that's for past decade I've been doing sort of experiments which might be my sampling period. Probably now it's time to see what's will be that right thing for me :) >This myth is based on the notion that success is determined primarily by the quantity of deliberate practice, and how early in life we start that practice. >They both found out that there is no substantial correlation between experience and expertise. >the key factor that determines whether or not experience will inevitably lead to expertise is the domain in question. For instance, while a narrow, focused experience makes for better chess and poker players and firefighters, it does not make for better financial or political analysts. >Other studies have also proven that experience and repetition simply did not create an improved performance or learning in a wide range of real-world scenarios. This is especially true for those domains which involve human behavior and where there is no clear repetition of patterns. >There are two kinds of learning environments as postulated by psychologist Robin Hogarth: the “kind” environment and the “wicked” environment. >As psychologist Ellen Winner, one of the leading experts on gifted children noted, child prodigies rarely become big “creators” who changed their field. >calls this phenomenon “cognitive entrenchment.” And his solution to the problem is simple: “have a foot outside your world.” >Creative achievers don’t focus on a narrow topic obsessively. Instead, they tend to have broad interests. >Successful adapters have range. They are excellent at avoiding cognitive entrenchment, and at taking knowledge from one pursuit and applying it creatively to another. Their skill is in avoiding the same obsolete patterns. They interrupt their inclination toward outdated solutions by drawing on outside experiences and analogies. >People with great match quality are never afraid to switch careers at any point in their lives. They find better matches by capitalizing on experience. >Knowing when to quit and adopt a different plan is a strategic advantage. >The idea of a change of interest or a recalibration of focus isn’t an imperfection; it is a competitive advantage. >do not be afraid to pull the plug on an unsuccessful endeavor and experiment with something new. >Hesselbein’s most popular preamble is “I never envisioned.” The only plan she ever had was to do something interesting or needed at the moment. She had no long-term plan. She often says that for a mind to receive something from every new experience, it must be kept wide open. >Generally, we tend to recognize that our motivations and desires changed a lot in the past, but hold on to the assumption that they will not change much in the future. This phenomenon is known as the “end of history illusion.” >Nobody knows what they can do unless they try. Trying things is the key to finding your talent. >Just like all the other people you’ve been over the course of your life, the person you are now is only temporary. >revealed that personality traits change over time and in predictable ways. As we age, we tend to become more reliable, more emotionally stable, more agreeable, and less neurotic. >Find experiments that can be undertaken quickly rather than have a grand plan. Flirt with your possible selves, he says. >You must even be willing to make a complete U-turn and abandon a previous goal should the need arise. >Never let anyone make you feel behind; each of us progresses at a different rate. You probably don’t even have any idea where exactly you’re headed, so feeling behind does you no good. >Don’t be afraid to try new things; it is the only way you can learn who you are. Learn and adjust as you go. >However, while experimentation is not a neat and catchy prescription, it is the most common path to achievement, and it has numerous advantages. >It’s been scientifically proven that head starts are overrated, and mental meandering and personal experimentation are sources of power.

It has lately become an article of faith among many people, especially certain type-A parents, that to do anything well, one must spend 10,000 hours (or some other arbitrarily chosen criteria) practicing the activity, from playing the violin to mastering a foreign language to becoming an outstanding soccer player. Single-minded focus is recommended by the "tiger-mother" school of thinking, and is unfortunately inflicted on many children by well-meaning parents. David Epstein has done extensive research to demonstrate that what appears to be obvious about becoming proficient in a sport, game, or academic pursuit, is actually far from obvious. Epstein researched a wide range of people who were successful in their fields, and he found the opposite of what many would expect; instead of the example of Mozart, who started learning the keyboard as a very young child and then continued with daily training for years, he found that most of those who achieved great success and honors in science, sports, or the arts were "samplers". They tried many different things before settling on their chosen field, and even after choosing their profession or specialty, they continued to dabble in hobbies or other interests unrelated to the field where they achieved success. And importantly, these people cited example after example where knowledge or experience in an outside interest or hobby gave them an unexpected tool in solving a problem in their chosen profession. Also, people with a broad range of interests tended to seek and identify data that did not fit, and they were willing, even eager, to identify problems with their own theories or systems in order to find a correct theory or more effective process. An example of seeking problems and investigating data that didn't "fit" was NASA during the Apollo Program. Werner von Braun asked engineers every week to write up their activities in a weekly one-page document, and to report any problems or anomalies they were encountering. Von Braun would often write comments on these papers and direct investigation into problems that had been reported; people who reported problems were viewed as part of the solution, not troublemakers, and von Braun used these reports to improve NASA's performance. Similarly, the most effective quality-improvement system I was ever a part of was as an engineer at Texas Instruments where, on a weekly basis, a designated engineer (me) would lead a meeting in which we asked manufacturing line employees, "what are we doing wrong?", and/or, what can we improve? If a manufacturing employee identified what appeared to be a process error or inefficiency, the engineer was required to investigate and answer the issue raised by the employee and to change the process if appropriate. It was often astonishing to me to see how easy it was to get large productivity or quality improvements through this process, and all it took was for engineers and management to check their egos at the door and seek the best solution. Epstein also explored the stark contrast between strict specialists and generalists in terms of finding correct solutions or forecasting outcomes correctly. Those who were narrowly focused on their chosen field tended to be less productive than those who dabbled in a variety of fields; notable examples are Steve Jobs and Roger Federer, but a survey of Nobel prize winners turned up the same kind of profile; almost all the Nobel winners had many outside interests from bird watching to amateur theater to playing a musical instrument, and these interests, despite taking time away from their professional work, were cited by the Nobel winners as actually enhancing their performance as scientists, economists, etc. Among children who were driven to specialization by parents, a notable effect of such early specialization is what appears to be burn-out. By virtue of being forced to immerse themselves every day in soccer, or violin, or foreign language, or chemistry, children often came to hate the thing that they were being forced to learn, whereas the samplers, like Roger Federer, who was not pressured at all by his parents, ultimately chose the sport he liked best out of five or six that he played as a child, and he did not definitively choose tennis until he was thirteen. By allowing him to sample many things, his parents helped him become the greatest tennis player of all time. All this points to the foolishness of forcing children or college students to specialize early. In an earlier age, say fifty years ago, it was quite common for colleges and universities to have a large core curriculum including math, history, sciences, English, foreign languages, and other courses with the intent of providing a broad rather than a narrow view, but the current approach to higher education has turned that on its head, with ominous consequences. It has become common for Nobel Prize winners to note that the breakthroughs they made would likely not occur in today's academic environment where each discipline operates in a silo without access to the insights of other fields of study. And studies of specialists showed that when confronted with problems in their theories or conflicting data, their tendency is not to investigate to look for error, but to double down on their own views. None of this is meant to diminish the value of specialists. I have a good friend who was first in his class in nuclear physics, and he is still contributing to the science of laser physics at a major university. He is a huge asset to society, but no one forced him to be a physicist - he does it because he loves it. Not everyone need be a specialist, but everyone needs to learn how to think, and Epstein shows that people think better, and are much better problem solvers when they have broad experience and varied interests. This book made me feel better about my early life, because I was nothing if not a sampler as a child. I had intense interests in a variety of areas, but after several months, or years, I tended to lose interest in most of the things I delved into. And any hobby that required a massive commitment of time, to the exclusion of other interests, quickly dropped away for me, because I was unwilling to give up the many other things I enjoyed. So I kayaked, I gardened, I played softball, I sailed, I swam, I was a runner, I built hundreds of model airplanes, I played tennis, I read hundreds of books, I had a neighbor who was an airline pilot and he taught me to fly, I lifted weights, I built dozens and dozens of model rockets which my friends and I then launched (occasionally starting fires), I had a chemistry set and did experiments, I played basketball (badly), I drew, I water-skiied, I shot a .22 rifle and became quite a marksman, I played golf well enough to make the high school team, and perhaps my most frequent activity was just wandering in the woods and observing the plants, birds, snakes, and other animals I saw there. Altogether, one might say it was an aimless childhood. Academically, I did well, but not outstandingly well. Physics interested me, so I got A's in it. Calculus did not, so I got B's. I went to West Point (surprising myself a little by being admitted), and after two years found myself not sure about my choice, despite being ranked high in the class academically. I studied engineering, but I specifically disliked its narrowness of focus. I did not select my current profession until I was 32 years old, having been an Army officer, a product engineer, a procurement engineer, and a customer account manager. So in each new job, I felt like a bit of an imposter because of my lack of "credentials", a feeling which many of the people profiled by Epstein also admitted feeling. But I have also noted that I am frequently able to identify problems when others don't, and to see patterns, and to ignore structure and processes when logic says they should be ignored. This can be dangerous - as my dad said, if you're gonna be tough, you better be good, i.e., if you are challenging orthodoxy, you better have thought through your alternative solution. But alternative solutions are often what we need; solutions that go back to first principles and use basic logic to work to an answer. And generalists are far more likely than specialist to be able to do that. I gave the book four stars rather than five only because I thought some of the examples Epstein shared became repetitive - he could have shortened things down a bit. I also disliked his military example and did not agree with the solution, but that's nit-picking from an Army vet. His bit about firefighters dying rather than putting down their tools moved me deeply, as I have read the book he references, Men Against Fire, and I understand viscerally the instinct to keep one's tools in hand, even when survival would favor throwing them away. I wish the higher education establishment and our society generally would take the lessons of this book to heart, but I'm afraid we are wrong-headedly committed to the path of early specialization. Maybe this book can be part of a beginning to turn the ocean liner of educational practice back toward broader learning.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but I’ll admit he was preaching to the choir. I’ve always defined creativity as nothing more than linking ideas across domains, so the wider your range of interests, the more potential for creativity. As a lifelong polymath obsessed with reading and researching things while working in a creative/technical field, this seems fairly obvious. So the biggest takeaway from this book was how much overspecialization is happening across industries. I’ve seen some of this in person (the medical field: haven’t we all), but it’s still concerning to think about in regards to, say, scientific research. I think this quote from his conclusion really captures the essence of the book: “The question I set out to explore was how to capture and cultivate the power of breadth, diverse experience, and inter-disciplinary exploration, within systems that increasingly demand hyperspecialization, and would have you decide what you should be before first figuring out who you are.” If you’re not convinced, read this book. If you need encouragement that your interests unrelated to your work still matter, read this book. If you disagree with everything I just said, read this book and open your mind a little.

kitap, adı gibi başlarda çok ilgi çekici başladı ancak çok fazla isim ve örneği birbiri ile akıcı bağ kurarak aktaramadığı için odaklanmada sorunlar yaşattı bana. yine de keyifli ve motive ediciydi.

While Range is a really solid book, like most others that fall in this category, it gets quite repetitive. I'm happy to hear of all the successful generalists out there. The confirmation bias in me is excited to keep going broad.

This just didn't do it for me. Full review on chareads.com.

This book turns so much conventional knowledge about expertise on its head, without being dogmatic. He paints a full, nuanced picture that gave me so much hope as a curious generalist.

The main concept of this book is very close to my personal development ideology. It was nice exploring the excellent author’s research on the topic accompanied with a solid confirmation in the form of several great examples answering the question “Why?”.

The writing style was a bit repetitive on some chapters.

Just some bullet points of what I took away from the book. • Integrating from different fields is the advantage that comes from being a generalist • Having many different life experiences leads you to draw on different "lenses". It allows you to see problems in unique ways, and give you more tools to solve problems ○ this can lead to a better performance even if they lack the specialised knowledge • hedgehogs vs foxes ○ foxes can update their prediction when new results come in. Sort of like a K-filter :) ○ hedgehogs maintain course. non-feedback system •Kind vs Harsh Learning Environments While kind-learning environments reward the 10k hours, harsh-learning environments show that experience does not lead to better performance. In fact the opposite can be true. Due to a fossilization of your mental processes and jumping to use the same tools ○ kind - get immediate feedback sports (golf/tennis etc) specific surgery ○ hasrsh - real world firefighters • my personal tldr - try get more life experiences. take risks. dont worry too much about building skills upon each other

Range argues that early specialization — and especially deep, hyper specialization — stands in the way of innovation, insight, and significant progress. Ah-ha style insightful moments spring from connections between different areas of focus and expertise. Recommended.

Recuerda mucho el estilo de Malcom Gladwell. retrospectiva e historias de casos donde los estilos generalistas y de especializados se han podido comparar. Se puede discrepar al momento en que se ofrece el "generalismo" como la mejor o única opción, lo cual no es del todo cierto; también requerimos de especialistas que lleven a otro nivel las aplicaciones necesarios. Puntísimo a favor: la integración de ambos perfiles a soluciones innovadoras.

A world with more Roger Federers and less Tiger Woods. The subject of expertise attracts much attention and numerous books and articles are published on the subject every year. My reference on the subject is Peak, written by leading researcher Anders Ericsson, famous for what Malcolm Gladwell had regrettably named the 10,000 hour rule. Deliberate practice was revealing but may lead to the conclusion that early specializers have a huge advantage when it comes to reaching expertise. That was what I thought before reading Range. In this hyper-specialized world where becoming an expert takes more and more time, a few continue to value range. These late specialists use the power of breaths, diverse experience, and lateral thinking to succeed where hyperspecialization cannot. Roger Federer is the most illuminating example. Federer started playing at the age of 8 and credits his hand-eye coordination to the wide range of sports he played as a child, including badminton and basketball. The book is full of stories, developed at some length to conclude each chapter with a new insight leading to a new question answered by the following chapter. Range is very different from other books like Peak or Mindset (my new trio to demystify expertise). David Epstein is a journalist, and he did a remarkable research work to assemble this compelling collection of anecdotes. In the end, main ideas can obviously be reduced to a few pages, but I loved being challenged with new ideas told as stories. As a developer, I think we have a lot to learn from this book. Several decades ago, the first hackers demonstrated range, whereas today, specialization is more and more omnipresent among programmers -- Frontend/Backend/Full Stack developer, DevOps engineer, Automation engineer -- how to create a large impact when your attention keeps on shrinking. I loved this book and I’m so glad to have read it to challenge earlier hyperspecialization as the only path to expertise. That’s not the end of deliberate practice. But success must not depend only on our ability to learn quickly and easily. And career change must not be wasted. Enter Range.

This book was a bit of fresh air for someone that considers himself a jack-of-all-trades. If you, like me, love learning about a variety of subjects and are just generally interested in broad strokes, you'll love this book. The book presents the case that many industry leaders and breakthrough successes come from those that have a wide range, and not from those that are hyper-specialized. Epstein does not dismiss specialization, but instead says that generalists that connect the dots from many specialists are more likely to have breakthroughs. Epstein fills the book with excellent examples to bolster his claims, from Roger Federer, Django Reinhardt, and Nintendo, to the Columbia and Challenger Space Shuttle disasters. A book that could easily be all about the data, is peppered with a healthy dose of practical examples to keep it interesting. Epstein suggests that "head-starts" are not necessarily the best option because often times those that start later will bring a new perspective to the table that will prove pivotal in pushing the field forward (because of their outsider perspective). And he also suggests that changing careers (for those that are seeking change) is likely to result in a happier career life and greater success in the chosen field. Essentially there is little point in staying in a career (if you desire a change) even if it seems like you'd be wasting the time you've accrued if you made a change. One critique I would like to mention is that Epstein used Jackson Pollock (and a couple other artists) as examples of successes in art that didn't have any formal training. The art examples were the poorest examples of the "range" that Epstein is promoting. I don't think history is going to be kind to Pollock and many of the other modern artists that cannot be differentiated from a typical Pre-school recess. While it is true that art is somewhat subjective, it is also true that Bernie Madoff was seen as a genius before he wasn't.

‘The psychologists highlighted the variety of paths to excellence, but the most common was a sampling period, often lightly structured with some lessons and a breadth of instruments and activities, followed only later by a narrowing of focus, increased structure, and an explosion of practice volume.’ ‘The parents with creative children made their opinions known after their kids did something they didn’t like, they just did not proscribe it beforehand. Their households were low on prior restraint.’ ‘Successful problem solvers are more able to determine the deep structure of a problem before they proceed to match a strategy to it... As education pioneer John Dewey put it in Logic, The Theory of Inquiry, “a problem well put is half-solved.”’ ‘A key to creative problem solving is tapping outsiders who use different approaches “so that the ‘home field’ for the problem does not end up constraining the solution.”’ ‘Compare yourself to yourself yesterday, not to younger people who aren’t you.’

Did I think this book was good only because it validates my own meandering career path? Probably!

The book has some interesting points, but it's one of those that is 200 pages too long. A lot of it is about individual studies or anecdotes, which often aren't all that interesting or entertaining and also don't provide much evidence for the points made. I understand that the idea is to provide a different perspective on generalists vs specialists, but it could have been done in 100 pages and been just as good. It's kind of funny that in one chapter he summarises "Superforecasting" by Philip E. Tetlock, which in my opinion has exactly the same problem.