A Company Full of Generalists Is Great -- Until You Need More Focus

By Dan Clifford, Co-Founder and Managing Partner AnswerLab, San Francisco, Calif.
My co-founder, Amy Buckner, and I are both generalists. When we started our user experience consulting firm, which helps companies improve their Web sites and mobile applications, it made sense to hire people like ourselves. That worked well initially, but we found out it's a difficult model to scale. Over time we learned that more narrowly defined roles can actually translate into more freedom for our employees.

Falling into a common trap
Like a lot of startup owners, Amy and I started out doing everything, simply because we had to. It made sense that when we brought new people on board they would follow the example we set. It was a real pleasure to see people jumping in wherever they were needed, but AnswerLab was fast turning into an 80-hour a week, nights and weekends business. We wanted no part of chewing our employees up and spitting them out -- that wasn't why we started a company.

Answers -- ones that carry serious implications for major companies' products and applications -- are ultimately our end product. In no way did we want that product to be compromised because people were trying to do too much all at once.

Our client relationships team needed to be able to focus on understanding our clients' key challenges and needs, not data analysis. Likewise, the research directors couldn't be fielding questions from clients every 20 minutes if they were going to carefully consider their recommendations.

Adopt a management philosophy that fits your business
Amy and I had to initiate a cultural shift from the top down. We're a quantitative business, so it made sense to us to address the issue quantitatively. Rather than trust anecdotal evidence, I looked for studies that documented management practices that really work.

I found two schools of thought on how to get the most out of employees. The generalist approach says, 'Round people out. Give them a wide array of responsibilities: They'll excel at some and draw satisfaction from learning to improve upon their weaknesses.' The specialist approach says that the best way to drive performance and keep employees engaged is to leverage natural talents and focus on strengths.

We had already tried the former and sensed it wouldn't work in the long run, so we opted to move in the direction of specialization.

Wrestling away responsibility
The problem with transforming generalists into specialists is that they're used to taking ownership of entire processes from start to finish. Focusing on just one part means relinquishing control of several others, and trusting that someone else will take care of them.

In order to assuage any fears, Amy and I brought everyone together to map out every last detail of our process, starting with the first introduction to the client and moving on through developing an understanding of their needs, making recommendations, creating a statement of work, project delivery and follow up. With that information we generated a master document of AnswerLab practices, which we then used to define clear roles and duties.

It seems that imposing limitations could close in a person's horizons, but we actually found that allowing our employees to focus more on less gave them a new degree of freedom. Imagine if you were to ask a room full of people to write a story. Many of them would have a hard time narrowing in on what to write about. But if you put limitations on their task and ask them to write a story about a time you overcame a challenge, they'd immediately come up with some great ideas and get right to it.

By imposing limitations, we allowed people the time and mental energy to really immerse themselves in their specific duties. What resulted was an incredible influx of ideas on how to do everything better and faster.

Don't force a round peg into a square hole
In some cases it was easy to fit employees to the new roles. For example, one of our directors in charge of project delivery had always been really good at bringing in new business. He liked it and excelled at it, so we moved him into client relationship management full-time.

When thinking about the team as a whole, we relied on quantitative analysis again. I read another study that showed that people innately focus on tasks and roles that align with their personality type. We had personality testing done for everyone in the company -- a D.I.S.C. profile -- to determine how we might find a way for them to do what they do best. Our staff really embraced the opportunity to learn more about why they naturally excel at certain things and how they could maximize their innate skills. Going forward, the testing provided a great framework for teambuilding.

Building on talent
The process of shifting our focus to specialization only took about a month start to finish. I think it was clear that the transition was really a progression: the next chapter in finding the best way to combine everyone's strengths for the greater good. I feel like we made the right decision -- our client satisfaction scores have increased while we've increased our year-over-year revenues, exceeding $3 million this year.

As an owner, I've come to see recognizing my employees' unique talents as a part of my job. It's great to know that utilizing those talents to the fullest extent makes their working lives more enjoyable -- and that it's the best possible thing for all of us as a company.

Dan Clifford stays up on the latest and greatest software and mobile apps at work and keeps up with his one-year-old son at home.
--As told to Joseph Conway

Resources:

• Read more about common personality tests employers can use to assess employees' roles.
• Put your employees in the position to succeed.
• Learn to identify signs of burnout and how to prevent it.