Jack/Jane of All Trades --
Master/Mistress of None?

By Jeff Berner

Marketing communications consultant and home-office pioneer and workshop leader Jeff Berner has been an independent since 1965.  He was the name branding facilitator for Sun Microsystems' "Java" and "Hot Java" internet software, and his clients in the United States and Europe include Office Depot, Apple Computer and Nikon USA. He has presented his "Making a Life While Making a Living" seminar at Macworld Expo annually for a decade. Jeff's columns have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, and on the websites iVillage; ThirdAge.com, and MyPrimeTime.com. He is the author of a dozen books, including The Joy of Working From Home: Making a Life While Making a Living (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). See Jeff's website at: www.jeffberner.com or email him at jeff@jeffberner.com.

You probably started choosing a college major in high school, so you could get a head start on your future career. The pressure to become an expert in a profession or trade, to specialize, was relentless, overwhelming.

And most of us did it, anyway. For some, it resulted in a successful corporate career that is now growing stale.  Others were too green to have a clue about what corner they wanted to paint themselves into for life, and those teenage commitments merely guaranteed a life that was as small as the jobs they held.

So, for better or worse, millions of talented and experienced ThirdAgers are now going solo as consultants in their chosen field, or wanting to start an enterprise that's totally new. But once you figure out how to make the leap from corporate team player (or mere toady) to Lone Ranger, you look around and discover that you're without staff!

Now you have to fill the roles of account executive, PR person, graphic designer, equipment purchasing department-in addition to doing what you do best. Perhaps you're an architect or writer or landscape designer, and haves had years of staff support, and never had to ask which commercial printer gives the best service for full-color brochures; or where to get the best laptop; or how to negotiate a contract with a new client. There were whole departments for that.

That nasty phrase, "Jack of all trades, master of none," haunts the new solo pro.

In the Renaissance, that wondrous explosion of (famously Italian) humanism that finally buried a thousand years of European darkness, no one was considered fully human, full rounded, unless he or she knew at least something about subjects ranging from medicine to opera to poetry and engineering and religion and philosophy. It was a kind of orgy of Trivial Pursuit! And it was the interrelationship of those emerging disciplines that enriched individuals and whole cultures.

Then came the polar opposite sea change: The Industrial Revolution, which trained everyone to be a cog in the wheels of "progress." And now the high-tech revolution, which required expertise in, for example, very large scale integration (VLSI) computer chip design for sub-zero environments-and there will be no time for fly fishing or opera or family life, pal! I mention this because we also have multi-media in technology, and inter-media in the arts, and ecumenicalism in spiritual pursuits. Seeing the big picture isn't dilettantism-it's a survival tactic for the new independent professional. As the ever-changing picture requires nimble souls, you simply must adjust.

But how can you handle the steep learning curve? First, look at your new independent professional life as "learning a living." It's an adventure in widening horizons and finding the interconnections among various skill sets and knowledge bases. (We've got enough data bases!!)

Second, seek out and build a "staff" like the one you once had-only better: choose other solo pros and consultants to be your mentor in special areas, such as publicity, or the art of negotiation, or tech support. Find out who are good candidates for a "skill guild" of like-minded professionals who will mentor you, network you, and benefit from the reciprocal support of your expertise.

You needn't become a Jack of all trades, but it's exhilarating to know at least something about everything that matters to your success. Then you'll not only know more, you'll see clearly what you don't know enough about. You don't have to wear a million hats-just those that fit; you simply have to find the right heads that wear the other hats.

(c) 2001 Jeff Berner

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