Generalists Suck, Always Go For The Boring Specialists

There are a few things that I have learned from working in construction. One of the key lessons is this: unless a person is a reputable general contractor with loads of projects and good references to show for them, be very skeptical towards working with the-jack-of-all-trades-type of guys.

(As a side-note, GC’s delegate work to specialized pro’s, they don’t perform everything.)

This usually means that they weren’t good enough to maintain employment within one sphere/discipline and tried jumping around to find work elsewhere. That also means that they are not really good at anything, but ‘passable’ to a person that doesn’t understand anything about the job that they hired them to perform.

What I mean by that is they will accomplish the task for, say a homeowner, and the homeowner can be very satisfied, but if you get to display their work to a specialist in that completed work, they would grab their head and scream in agony by seeing the sheer amount of small mistakes performed that all compound into a horrible installation/product.

You get the proper job done only by hiring a specialized professional. They bring two unique factors together. Speed and quality. Meaning they will complete the job faster than anybody else can, and at the same time do it better than anybody else can. The combination of those two factors also makes them the most economical.

Specialized Professional = Speed + High Quality

My crew installing windows and doors… and only windows and doors!

A good rule of thumb is: the more boring the persons career history is, the better they are at doing their job.

I love to hear stuff like: “I’ve just been installing dry wall for 25 years” or “I don’t know anything else other than wood framing (for residential properties)”. That means they are good!

The red flag is when you are talking to the guy that does dry wall for you and he is talking about engaging in competitions for carpentry-furniture, installing custom-made decks for Washington politicians, and constantly getting jobs to paint marble-appearing finishes on people’s walls while getting a side-degree in psychology. (None of those examples are made up, I actually had work with a person doing dry-wall that was engaged in all of those activities…I had to redo their entire work by hiring competent specialists that were dull and boring, but very good at doing dry wall.)

Drywall in the process of being properly put in place. Lot’s more work to be done.

The bottom line is this:
(Generally) The more boring the person’s resume is, the better they are at doing their specialized job. Hire the boring ones.