Economists, management theorists and those who follow globalization debates are familiar with the term "division of labor". The idea behind the concept is that the economy as a whole greatly benefits when people/groups/countries specialize in what they are productive in - and then trade goods and services.
I have in the past days been giving a lot of thought to this concept, and to whether I like it. We've all heard of the frustrated surgeon, who performs the same operation ten times a day, day after day, year after year. Specialization may be beneficial for the economy, customers, and patients, as the quality of goods and services improves - but what happens to the provider?
The optimistic view is that the provider constantly improves his services, in order to keep a competitive edge. Or he manages to re-train or morph into doing something different. This makes sense for companies or countries. Think of the Finnish firm Nokia, starting out with wellingtons, and becoming a successful mobile handset producer - and now struggling for its survival because it did not adapt to new competitors fast enough. Or think of countries which are scolded for relying on "old fashioned" industry, when they should be moving into more productive service provision.
But what about individuals? On the one hand, we are encouraged to specialize through our education and careers, become the "indispensable" expert in X, Y, or Z. On the other, we are expected to adapt to circumstances, when X is suddenly no longer needed. For every new job, we rummage through our CVs to find the "specialization" that we can use to prove our fit.
What I am most interested in is what specialization does to motivation. What if, such as is my case, one has many very diverse interests and, on top of that, quickly bores of one subject matter or task? Here the learning curve and resulting motivation are key.
A lot more to think about and explore on this matter.
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