Specialist and Generalist Games

• Understanding specialist and generalist strategies with the game metaphor.Management game

• There are six squares. There are six coins.

• The squares symbolize areas of knowledge and the coins symbolize the time invested in knowledge acquisition.

• Consider a game in which coins are stacked on these squares to compete with each other.

• Now what strategy is advantageous?

• Favorable strategies vary depending on the conditions of victory.

• Winning condition type 1:

  • The number of coins in the square with the most coins is the winner.

• Favorable strategies in this case

  • Of course, pile all the coins in one square.
  • This is expressed as 600000.

• This is the specialist strategy

• Winning condition type 2:.

  • You don’t know in advance which squares will be played with which number of coins.
  • After you finish placing the coins, roll the die to determine the squares to be used for the game.

• 111111 is more favorable than 600000. 5/6 chance of winning.

• This is the generalist strategy.

• However, an interesting phenomenon

  • 11111111 is not the only one, for example, 222000 and 11111111 are a 50-50 match.
    • The risk of losing by going from 1 to 0 in one square with a probability of 1/6 is balanced by the cost of going from 1 to 2 in another square and winning with a probability of 1/6.
  • 320100 or 220110 against 222000 would be 2-1-3; by going 2 → 0 you take the risk of losing at 1/6 chance and by allocating it to two fields you win at 2/6 chance.
  • A more extreme example would be a three-way game where 002211 wins over 221100, then 110022 wins over it, then 221100 wins over it. Rock-paper-scissors.
  • In other words, the axis of “absolute advantage” has disappeared.

Let me pull you back to the real issue.

• Specialist strategy is advantageous in situations where the job description is clear and you apply for a job in your area of expertise and get hired if you are the best among applicants.
  • However, jobs must be available in all fields.
  • If there are no jobs in your field of expertise, you’re out of options.
• Is the generalist strategy advantageous in graduate-hiring situations where you belong to a company and know after the fact what jobs you will be assigned within the company?
  • Unless it’s a company that will hire you even if your other areas are below average for applicants by promoting your strengths.
  • A point reduction system requires that all areas be below average.

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