The “T-Shaped Marketer Model” from digitalmarketer.com seems to be very popular among marketers at the moment. Helena Schachtschabel has written a very detailed blog article about it on 121Watt and Michael Janssen and Olaf Olleck Kopp – to name just a few names – have also published articles about it on their social media channels. The model was also well received in my professional environment and was diligently shared.
But right from the start, I personally found something strange about the model. For me, it was somehow not “well-rounded” and too one-dimensional.
The model in a nutshell – a summary
In a nutshell, the “T-Shaped Marketer Model” describes the challenge of generalists to deepen their knowledge in a specialty (e.g. SEO, social media, programming, etc.). For example, the marketing generalist with the breadth of knowledge and overview of all/many common marketing disciplines and the marketing specialist with in-depth knowledge in one of these (sub-)disciplines. As a model, this creates a “T”, with the “general knowledge” representing the upper crossbar and the “specialist knowledge” representing one (or more) of the vertical bars. See the two integrated social media posts.
See also post on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/michael-janssen-a5340213_bist-du-ein-t-shaped-marketer-also-activity-6683292693797359616-Z0h6/ [Sorry, post could not be embedded directly]
Top-down or Bottom-up
There are two fundamentally different reading directions in the “T-Shaped Marketer Model”: top-down or bottom-up. In other words, the generalist who familiarizes himself with a discipline or the specialist who looks beyond the end of his nose and learns the “general knowledge”. The “T-Shaped Marketer Model” is therefore a mixture of generalist and specialist. While Michael Janssen and Olaf Olleck Kopp keep the model fairly concise in their social media articles (both use the same diagram), Helena Schachtschabel goes much deeper into the topic. And this is where I started to have my first doubts.
Helena Schachtschabel creates her own and much more detailed diagram and divides the “generalist knowledge” (i.e. the horizontal bar) into three larger complexes. The “general basic knowledge”, the “marketing basics” and the “channel-specific expertise”. As “general basic knowledge”, she lists behavioral psychology, storytelling, statistics, design feeling, branding and communication. The “marketing basics” section also includes copywriting, design knowledge, A/B testing, sales funnel, customer journey, HTML and CSS. Last but not least, the final section “channel-specific knowledge” lists things like SEO, SEA, social media, web analytics, CRO, multimedia, email marketing, PR and Pais Ads.
And here we are slowly approaching the first core problem – the amount of knowledge required is increasing all the time.
Digression on the core problem: I would like to make it clear at this point that this text is not intended as a personal attack on Ms. Schachtschabel or Michael Janssen and Olaf Olleck Kopp. I am purely concerned with analyzing the content of the “T-Shaped Marketer Model” and its impact on the marketing profession. All three people mentioned are experts in their field with probably more professional experience than me.
“T” becomes “M” – how much more should it be?!
In the next diagram, Helena Schachtschabel expands the “T model” to the “M model”. In addition to the “generalist knowledge” and one of the specialist disciplines, the marketing employee also needs (semi-)in-depth knowledge in 2-3 other disciplines. The knowledge required by the individual employee becomes more and more in-depth. Figuratively, this creates an “M”. According to Bourdieu, this leads to a title inflation of the “generalist knowledge” and thus to a title inflation of the generalist as such. The “generalist knowledge” is seen as a basic requirement, so to speak, and as an automatic accessory that every (marketing) employee must have as a basis. The “noble knowledge” is only the “specialist knowledge”.
The generalist doesn’t really come off well in this quote and is declassified as “not a real specialist”. If you take the model even further, the T-model (one longitudinal bar) becomes an M-model (two or three longitudinal bars) and then a “jam model” (own word creation), in which the bars of “specialist knowledge” run down the glass like jam noses. At some point, one or two “sub-disciplines” are no longer sufficient alongside the “generalist knowledge”. Then a third and a fourth discipline are added and at some point everyone burns out or – and this is important to remember – we mutate into “Jack of all trades” again, as we probably can’t be good at three, four, five or six “specialist disciplines” or have this detailed knowledge, purely in terms of brain capacity and time. This is exactly when the cat bites its tail again and we repeat the same mistakes from the beginning and inevitably thin out the knowledge again. Time for a new reading.
The generalist is the specialist for “general knowledge”
Thesis: The generalist has lost prestige for three reasons. A.) because there are many bad/inexperienced generalists, b.) because many “non-specialists” mistakenly call themselves generalists and c.) because the professional generalist must be deeply integrated into the company and product management and must also be able to exert a great deal of influence. However, as the marketing departments are losing more and more strategic influence in the company, the generalist with his knowledge and skills is also losing more and more of his ability to shape things. What remains is a powerless generalist who cannot develop or utilize their knowledge. Due to the operationalization of most marketing departments, the generalist (usually in the form of a ‘Head of Marketing’ or ‘Chief Marketing Officer’) has almost been rationalized away or marginalized.
However, a generalist is a specialist for complex interrelationships and the big picture. In other words, a specialist for the big questions and answers in the company, in marketing and perhaps also in society in the broadest sense (keyword: market and social research).
In the article “Generalists more in demand” by Compusafe, the anonymous author (presumably an employee of the company) clearly advocates the generalist. In the broadest sense, it is about a leader who holds all the pieces together and can assess processes not only from an IT perspective, but also from the perspective of specialist departments. It is about a combination of technical knowledge, business knowledge and also knowledge of the value chain. It is about “building bridges” between IT, business, specialist departments and customer wishes as well as market requirements – and to a certain extent also increasingly about legal requirements and psychological trends. An enormous responsibility.
Instead, it increasingly boils down to integrative and social skills. This is because new, unknown technologies that employees are confronted with are always accompanied by reservations and fears. These need to be recognized and overcome. […] The generalist symbolizes the spearhead of the digitalization movement [own emphasis; editor’s note]. The respective specialists need as much field experience as possible in strategy development and the implementation of various digital projects. They should also be process-oriented. After all, agile developments must then be converted into usable applications. Those who only contribute their technical understanding and ensure that the end product is developed will no longer be able to score points. Employees only have the right set of skills once they have worked with as many departments as possible and practiced new processes at the same time.
Even for the technology-loving automotive industry, the author paints a slightly humorous picture of a car in which the generalist sits at the wheel while the specialists sit in the back seat.
“Dear generalists, learn to appreciate your diversity”
This is the title of the Xing article [german] by Dr. Bernd Slaghuis on the subject of generalists, in which he describes very nicely the inner “conflict” of most generalists, not being good enough in any discipline. Every day, generalists encounter specialists who are experts in a particular field. The generalist jumps – to put it casually – from disappointment to disappointment. This also gives rise to the prejudice: “Generalists can do everything, but nothing right” or “Jack of all trades and master of none”. [see also comments below the article]
Specialists look for jobs, generalists find employers. […] Most generalists need a good degree of freedom with scope for decision-making and creativity. They want to be led with trust and want managers as mentors at eye level instead of controlling bosses. A strong team that pulls together and pursues goals is also important to many. A corporate culture in which real doers are not just quietly tolerated, but in which change is explicitly desired.
If this scope for decision-making and creativity is lacking because the marketing department has been downgraded to an operational unit, how can the generalist become active at all and make use of his advantages and thus make his knowledge visible?
But it is precisely this overview and the associated ability to understand complex interrelationships that is becoming increasingly important in an ever more complex world.
I am convinced that we will need both generalists and specialists in our working world in the future – possibly even more generalists. This is because it will be increasingly important to be able to adapt flexibly to new subject areas and different team constellations within an organization. Collaboration in projects, agile working and perhaps even temporary changes between management, project and expert roles will increase. Generalists train and love flexibility, specialists will tend to find this more difficult.
So it’s all just a question of hierarchy level?
In addition to an “influential” marketing department and an environment defined by freedom, the generalist (in this marketing example) also needs the hierarchical position to be able to make a difference. Perhaps this is another crux of the matter. A generalist usually occupies the position of a department head, a ‘Head of Marketing’ or a ‘Chief Marketing Officer’ (more recently also ‘Chief Brand Officer’). From a purely mathematical point of view, these positions are spread much more thinly than the positions of normal team members. In order to reach a hierarchy level at which the “generalist knowledge” can be perfectly utilized, many years as an operational team member may be necessary. And this is where the specialists win. They are hired as part of the team for a very specific task and the better they master this task (keyword: in-depth “specialist knowledge”), the higher their value for the company and their prestige as an expert.
Conclusion
The generalist is anything but a “jack of all trades” and far from being “good at everything, but master of none”. The generalist is an expert in recognizing complex interrelationships and making more than just the sum of the individual parts. Good generalists are visionaries, leaders and strategists. To do this, however, they need freedom, creative scope and opportunities to exert influence, otherwise they will not be able to make the most of their abilities. The generalist is therefore not a counterpart to the specialist, but as mentioned above, the specialist for the big picture. And under no circumstances is complex “generalist knowledge” so arbitrary that it can be understood as basic knowledge by all employees. Dr. Bernd Slaghuis even goes so far as to say that the above-mentioned bottom-up reading direction – i.e. the specialist who wants to become a generalist – is much more difficult than the top-down reading direction. This certainly depends on each individual and it is difficult to give a satisfactory general answer. The fact is, however, that the generalist needs to be given significantly more space and recognition again. Not for purely sentimental reasons, but because he or she, with his or her creativity, is the driver of digitalization in companies in general and in marketing in particular and is therefore crucial for business success. Good generalists turn a team of specialists into a powerful unit.
Or do you think Steven Jobs or Bill Gates were ever asked whether they, as creative visionaries and strategists, mastered SEO, PHP, CSS, graphics programs or A/B testing?
