My colleague Alex was giving me a hard time for not blogging recently, so I thought I’d post some incomplete thoughts I’ve had about teams and personal career development.

I attended a Business School that placed a heavy emphasis on general management and developing well rounded graduates.  I think the majority of my education was focused on developing myself into a smart, “all-around athlete” and that was the perspective I brought into my early career.

However, the funny thing is that I’m coming to the conclusion that being an all-around athlete is way over-rated.  When I talk to B-school students about potential roles at startups, 80% of the time I’m at a loss for what these students would do in a real company.  When resources as limited, the major priorities for a company is usually to 1. build product, or 2. sell product.  Analysis, strategy, and general business smarts is important, but there usually aren’t very many roles like that in a company if you have a smart, competant management team and helpful board.

I think this is a broader trend that we are seeing.  The world is getting more and more technical and complex, and leaders need to be specialized in order to be successful.  Even GE, one of the biggest proponents of general management has been moving in this direction in recent years.

So how should someone think about their career and personal growth?  Readers of this blog will know that I’m a big fan of the UFC, and I think the evolution of that sport serves as a perfect model.

Stage 1: Build a solid foundation

The pre-requisite for being competitive in the UFC is to be a great athlete.  No matter how skilled someone may be, it’s hard to overcome someone who is physically more fit or is much strong and faster.  In terms of building one’s career, i see this as the first 18 years of education, and probably the first 2-5 years of work.  You need to have the raw skills to compete in this world, and that means being articulate, organized in thought, and comfortable with numbers.  Most importantly, it means knowing enough to be capable of learning and adapting in the years ahead.

Stage 2: Become a specialist

In the early days for the UFC, Specialists ruled.  Specifically, guys who were excellent at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  BJJ was the perfect fighting style because almost all fights end up as a grappling match on the ground.  BJJ was the most effective fighting style for this specific purpose, and guys like Royce Gracie dominated.

In terms of careers, I think it’s very important to try to find something to specialize in relatively early on.  Somewhere in the first 3-15 years.  You need to take an honest assessment of your strengths and what you like to do, and figure out how that can apply to the needs of the marketplace.  When you start down this path and see that things are going well, double down, become really great at that one thing.  I think that’s the best way to accelerate one’s career path in the first 10-15 years.

Stage 3: Become a well rounded specialist

Over time, Royce Gracie’s dominance faded because everyone in the UFC developed some level of competance in BJJ.  Over the next few years, different sorts of champions rose and fell that had different combinations of strengths and weaknesses.  In the last couple years, guys like Anderson Silva and George St. Pierre have come to dominate their respective divisions.  Their secret?  They become specialists in multiple facets of their sport.  They are not “well rounded” fighters who are pretty good at everything.  They are among the best in the world at both some form of grappling (BJJ for Silva, Wrestling for GSP) and striking (Muay Thai for Silva, Karate for GSP).  You see this kind of thing at the top of the ranks of almost any sport.  Tiger woods has the best short game in golf to go with his incredible length.  Michael Jordan was not only the most dangerous scorer in basketball, but also one of the league’s most feared defenders.

I think careers ought to develop in the same way.  At some point, in order for a specialist to remain relevant and to continue to progress, you need to expand into other areas.  That may be a new industry, function, or stage of company.  The end result of doing this several times will be a “well rounded general manager”.  But it will be the result of tying together different areas of specialization.

Disclaimer – the ironic thing is that I’m not really a specialist or a well rounded general manager, so this advice is just as much for myself as it is for others.