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Specialisation; Or how not to end up as the second best
Topic Started: Jun 9 2008, 10:23:12 PM (346 Views)
Bodvar Jarl


In my time in CN, I believe that leaders can, for the most part, be separated into two groups:

-Those that specializes in one particular role or capacity, or maybe two or three at most.
-Those that tries to do everything.

Those belonging in the second category is largely, in my experience, leading alliances that nobody really cares much for, there is a thing called talent too, of course, but that only indicates how far you can get. But there are only so many Da Vinci's in the world, and they have a nasty tendency to come at irregular intervals that can be counted in centuries. The difference between me, that have specialised on Foreign Affairs for 18 months now, and a hypothetical me that went down the "Jack of all Trades"-Route is that while the latter would be capable of filling more or less any position with decent performance, decent, but not noteworthy, not excellent, just decent, just getting the job done without things falling apart.

Compare that to the Bodvar Jarl that at least some people I know and respect would put on the top 10 list of Foreign Affairs operatives in CN, I am not so sure about that one, but nice to hear anyways, compared with a decent job as a "Jack of all Trades", a very good job as a foreign affairs specialist is something entirely different.

It is quite simple, life is a learning experience, the more time you dedicate to something, the more you learn, you experience what works, you learn from that experience, you experience what doesn't work, you learn a lot more from that experience. For foreign affairs, just sticking around and meeting people is important, contacts, and at least basic knowledge and feeling of the character of important figures in other alliances is vital, and it takes time to build up such things. And time is a resource that you only have so much of.

Add to it that there is always someone better than you, and even if you are the best, you will not remain so for long unless you constantly improve. Foreign Affairs in particular is a game that you need to constantly need to dedicate time on to be any good, the political landscape can shift dramatically over the course of a few weeks, and there is suddenly a whole lot of new people which you need to get to know fast, it is also the one area that it's really hard to keep yourself cool and not do anything rash and stupid. Again, specialisation means experience, and experience means well developed instincts and a "professional calmness" that can make all the difference between disaster and success.

Most successful alliances is recognised by the fact that the various departments are lead by someone that deals almost exclusively in that line of work, normally assisted by more specialists, the leader that is above them again does not do much else than actually lead the alliance, and leave the various aspects of the alliance to the department heads, whatever their title and rank in the hierarchy may be.

Exceptions exists, and some people can fill several roles, but rarely having more than one at a time, and you tend to have one which you are better in than the others.

So where does this leave us in the big picture?
If you want to get anywhere in CN, you need to find "your thing", all of us are different, some can organize aid-schemes, others for putting together trade circles, some knows the game mechanics extremely well, some are good at managing people, even inside a field such as Foreign Affairs, there's room for further specialisation, analyse, negotiations and internal administration of the foreign ministry are my strong points, not so good at building and maintaining a contact web, not that good at gathering info, but I have people working for and with me that have contacts, that are good at gathering info, and then the info ends up on my desk, and I have it readily available for chewing and digestion, that way, the symbiosis of my skills at cycling through information and form an opinion on how to act upon it, combined with the skills of others to gather the information and have open contacts that can be used to carry out said action makes our FA-handling far more potent, especially since I am not the only one making an opinion, and the case have been attacked from several angles, illuminating things that would remain undiscovered if done solo.

However, the Jack of All Trades is still not lost, because when you start out as a rookie, you can, in principle, end up anywhere your skills and the circumstances can carry you, and that means you have to do what you can do, some people never get into one particular line of work, but rather is involved in many places, but rarely gets very high up in either of them, and it may be necessary to try various things out until you find something you have a knack for. There is no better teacher than trying and failing.

As for the Da Vinci's out there, too few of them for the odds of you being one to be more than almost non-existent...almost. Without specialisation, you can never be anything more than second best, and that kinda sucks.
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Golden Boy
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While I am a prime example of what you are talking about, a specialist, I know some that can do great things in each department.

I have always been a FA guy and I've been told I'm very good at it.

However, I have an officer that as gone from full out assistant to Head of Defense to where he is now as Head of IA. And he has excelled in each. He is my best IA guy, and also was my best Defense guy.

I know you probably understand there are exceptions, but I thought id point one out for conversations purpose.
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Bodvar Jarl


It could be that he has an organizational talent (or specialization ;) ) that allows him to excel at both roles?

It may be more of a foreign affairs thing too. There's always exceptions to everything though.
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WCR
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If your goal is to become a famous leader, or if you were attempting to create a culture for yourself, I can certainly see how the specialization would be preferable to the Jack of All Trades. But that's for creating an external perception - to have the outside world see you as being a specialist and to gain reputation because of it.

Internally, I believe, is an entirely different matter. Inside your alliance, it can hinder your internal operations if your leaders are incapable of doing some duties, or if they have no experience in certain fields - because everyone's got their "thing" and they're sticking to it. Your members want people who can lead the whole alliance. Perhaps they will elect you because you're strong in a certain field, but if you're elected to run the alliance you will be ultimately responsible for doing everything in the alliance - to be a Jack of All Trades.

This is mostly for alliances with non-specific roles for their main Goverment. For example, MHA's Triumvirs don't have specific fields. We are empowered to run everything in the alliance. Yes, the individual Triumvirs have strengths in certain areas - in fact I'd say we're neatly balanced in that regard. I'm big on the internal organization and projects, Denzin is our FA, and Johnson knows War. Together, we're a Charlie's Angels kind of Government. Our dynamic would be ruined if someone else with a FA specialization got elected, because we'd have two leaders focusing on FA and no one on War or Internal. What would happen to us then?

I argue that there will only be so many people in one alliance who are truly great in one field, but there are even fewer people who are truly great at running the whole show. I believe it is good to have a strength and to play to that strength, but if you want to move up to the upper echelons of Government and you want to better serve your alliance, you need a broad knowledge of all aspects of alliance operations. You will be able to better serve your people (not just yourself), and that's what is most important - not what the outside world may see you as. At the end of the day, you should be prepared and experienced enough to do any duty in the alliance.
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Bodvar Jarl


Things are never that stereotypical of course. I'm also assuming that people does pick up a few things here and there as they rise through the ranks, neither should one single out something you want to do at once, but try various things until you find something that suits you. Personally, I've got nation building as a "hobby" of mine, that was my initial specialisation, then I moved on to foreign affairs, at one point I was a military commander too, but that was before we saw any real action. I've dabbled in banking and military too later on, but never really got the hang of it, still I've learned a lot of the non-FA stuff by being an observer.

My point is, every alliance needs specialists, they do not have to be those sitting on top of things, and how can you get into leadership ranks without having something that you are good at? At least judging by the kind of alliance TOP is, there are so many capable people around that you need to have something you can do better than most, if not all, in order to get into leadership, we have lot more defined roles than MHA does, though.

However, on your way up there, most people will pick up things from the other departments, and some even get to be jack of all trades in the sense that they help out where they are needed, but it's a big step from being an assistant to those running individual areas of an alliance to being on the top, ideally, you make a career up to minister level, where you handle one aspect and then learn by watching the others handle theirs and by being close enough to the leader(s) that you know how it's done.

At least as far as TOP is concerned, we've generally had specialists running FA, War, Economics and Admission, while leaders have had a strong tendency of being supervisors, usually with a background in one of those disciplines.

You need both kinds of people, but generally, the optimal system is that people specialise at one point and then some of them move on to be more all-round with experience coming from being involved and paying attention IMO.

Maybe I'm just too caught up into TOP's way of doing things, or perhaps it's the fact that I'm on the foreign affairs side of things where you need to dedicate so much time on it to be good that you cant really do much else. Maybe both?
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Dilber


HA! I break your mold :P I'm both a war guy and a Diplo guy. Started out in War, and shifted to Diplo :P
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Bodvar Jarl


Dilber
Jun 10 2008, 07:45:06 AM
HA! I break your mold :P I'm both a war guy and a Diplo guy. Started out in War, and shifted to Diplo :P
When did you do war last?
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Dilber


Whenever there is a large scale war, I do alliance co-ordination strategy.
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Anu Drake
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I am That One

I'm with Dilber, although I've always done FA work and started out in that capacity, I've had my hand in war planning both on an alliance level (AlMEA, ITAO, Shadow Republic) and bloc level (GOONS, Illuminati). I've always enjoyed the diplomatic build up to war, the isolation of a target, the preparation of the alliance for combat, the propaganda that goes into it. Haven't been much for post declaration affairs such as negotiating peace though. Usually too busy fighting.

I've found that specializing in areas over time, going from one focal point to another, helps stave off boredom. But I definitely agree that doing too much at once is asking for trouble. Being in NATO government for 14 months now, holding 3 different positions in that time, I've been lucky enough to have had the vast majority of support from our members for whatever adventure we've undertaken. But I find the absolute key to being a successful leader is surrounding yourself with the best possible specialists you can find. Sometimes this backfires and you have too many Type A leaders in one place. But most of the time the alliance is better off.
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bigwoody
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Personally, I tend to dabble in FA, war, and finance.

I believe <bragging>that I am incredibly able in all 3 areas</bragging> however it is definitely true that by focusing on one you can get far, far more done than if you attempt to multi-task.
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Duncan King
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I think some degree of specialization is important in foreign affairs because of the amount of time IC it takes to know who everyone is and what they want.

Does TOP do any sort of "tracking" where nations pick an area to focus on and are prepared by the members already working in that area to work in that area instead of all others?
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Bodvar Jarl


Not really, there's a tendency for it to go in that direction once you get past the mid-level.
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Tamurin
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I think that this topic is a little hard on generalists (as opposed to specialists).

I categorize myself as a generalist. OK, game mechanics and economics are not my field, but I've worked in the legislative branch as Senator and President and in the executive branch as Minister of Immigration, Foreign Affairs and Security.

While I was in no position the best person ever, I always managed to organize things and get them to "working condition". The specialists then took over at some point and made the system even better, but their work was based on my "basic layer".

I've also seen "over-specialization". When a system is extremely specialized and sophisticated, it can collapse under certain conditions (overly stressed, lack of people, key people leaving). A generalist like me can then simplify the system and make the work processes simpler and more flexible to get them working again.

I believe that there's a need for both types. The generalist can create a simple, working system out of nothing or a broken one while the specialist can refine this basic system and maximize its potential.
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Dilber


Even with what I said, I'm not a generalist. I specialize in Alliance affairs, which would include both War and Diplomacy, as both are highly important while leading war efforts. I guess that's my specialization :P
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