Our old friend, Rory Sutherland has a piece of advice: “Be good at two things.”
A Marine who knows how to fight is good. A Marine who knows how to fight and is an expert in AI systems is even better (and with warfare evolving, this gets truer by the hour).
A talented copywriter is good. A talented copywriter with a Master’s in pharmacology is even better (especially if you’re pitching Pfizer).
This added dimension means not only are you more useful to your employer, but the chances of them finding somebody to easily replace your unique skill set are much lower.
Yet, most people chase excellence in a single dimension. They want to be the best programmer, the best salesperson, the best designer. They take a one-dimensional view of the world, but companies don’t live in a one-dimensional world. They need people who can help them grow in ways their competitors can’t.
Companies often make the same mistake.
Volkswagen spent decades mastering combustion engines, then watched Tesla redefine what a car company could be. Now they’re constantly in the news and for all the wrong reasons.
The real magic happens at intersections. LVMH became one of the most successful companies in the world not just because they knew a lot about luxury craftsmanship, but because they were able to scale. Apple has a similar story. They didn’t just make functional computers – they reimagined human desire.
Everyone loves talking about “diversity” these days, and it matters deeply. But what we should also be considering is “multidimensionality.”
As Jobs once said: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences… Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences…The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”
In a world where hundreds of people might be great at X, it’s the unexpected Y that makes the difference. The real question isn’t what you’re best at – it’s what combination of experiences makes your ideas impossible to replicate.
