Brendan Foley's 'meaningful' success blog

I and many others use very complicated and detailed personality profiles or psychometric assessments to help people to understand their key traits and therefore the type of work or career that would best suit their skill set and personality. In the absence of these tools there is a very simple technique that you can use. It’s called the T theory.



The top bar of the T represents what is described as the generalist profile and the upright bar of the T represents the specialist. The generalist is the person who is 1 inch deep and one mile wide and the specialist is 1 inch wide but 1 mile deep. This describes the type of work and knowledge that each of these styles has.

The generalist will love broad based activities with variety being the spice of life. They will usually have a lot on the go and like to know a little about everything. They are very good delegators and their greatest challenge will be time management across the wide spread of interest that they hold. Typically project management, organization, administration, and management are the areas that are most suited to generalists. Typical jobs or careers might include; Medical GP, project manager, entrepreneur, marketing, sales, management consultant.

The specialist in contrast loves deep knowledge in very specific areas. For the specialist knowledge is power and the more you know on your chosen field the better you are. They are excellent researchers and experts. They enjoy ‘deep diving’ and data analysis, detail and accuracy are key to their happiness. They are drawn to science and professional roles that reward their knowledge and study. Typical careers might include; architects, software development, programming, engineers, surgeons, researchers, academics, scientists, industry expert and so on.

So which part of the T are you? Generalist or specialist and are you in the right role?

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1. Can success in your career be matched by happiness?

Tags: balance at work, Brendan Foley, business coach, careers, Coaching, life coach, positivity, self development, The 5 States of Success

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 29th, 2011 at 9:24 am and is filed under Coaching, Create Balance & Success, Feel positive series (3 min Videos), Leadership, Sales marketing advertising, The 5 States of Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.