How We Make The Mistake In Thinking Specialization Alone Answers Business Questions

By: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

A man has found himself tormented, on a daily basis, by frustrations in life. His repeated attempts at finding a high-paying job have failed. He studied Literature in the university and has proved to people he has happened to interact with to be far more than ordinary in terms of critical acumen. Ask him vital questions about business, management, world affairs, how to discriminate between right and wrong, and others, and he will surprise you with the depth of his answers. He is prized with the calmness of (his)thoughts, a striking body language that wins very productive attention from all sorts of people - that kind of attention that is great for a steady business growth. His speaking style is unusually charming. He knows the right words to choose when relating or interacting with different kinds of people matched with a captivating tone of the voice. But why is this man out of favour with employers and, accordingly, denied a fitting job? Has he shown some transgressions that employers see as discouraging to their respective businesses? Certainly not! It should be admitted that in this contemporary world the study of Literature may prove one's intellectual depth and answer some pertinent questions about the nuances of language and its application or connectedness to cultures, societies; but it may not prove the depth of one’s specialization in terms of business. Since our man in question shows plentiful finesse in the former skill, why not give him the chance to practise this at the workplace?

If this question makes a lot of sense, which I believe it does, then a good deal of employers fail to grasp the important connection between intellectual skills and practical skills. For a person who has a lot of intellectual skills can break down the skills into various parts of which practical skills - that are essential for business growth - can be part of. He/She can exercise the intellect in polished ways on a variety of subjects or topics that immediately connect to business or ultimately to it. What we presently have at most workplaces are specialized skills that conform to specialized knowledge studied specifically in a university or a college. So, for example, a man wants to be a business manager, first through an entry-level position, then he ought to have studied, by the predictable reasoning, business management or administration in school. But specialization of this form rids the mind of a broad scope necessary for relating directly to business and necessary for relating to other issues that could indirectly enhance business. A broad-minded person has what it takes to perceive and understand the complex world of business. He/She sees this world aright and acts accordingly to enable business to go on at the right pace. It should be noted that business is not just a matter of goods and services, but the politics related to it, the present life and life history of people related to it, the structure of societies and the people related to it, and other affiliated matters. Thus, we must be careful about the confusion we tend to bring to business whenever we talk about specialization.

Having said the above, we need not overplay the issue of intellectual skills. Certainly, our man who studied Literature cannot be an engineer, nor can he be an architect or a computer programmer unless he goes back to school to study the details of any one of these vocations. These highly skilled, specialized jobs need the special skills related to them, not intellectual skills. But if, say, a female architect wants to be a top manager of business, she has to broaden the scope of her skills to incorporate intellectual skills. What I am saying here is that business managerial skills are not to be equated with specialized skills but the generality of skills of the form: “how do we manage human resources, in particular, in a way that will maximize proficiency.” It is clear that stress on human resources is preferable to any other categories of business. Put differently, the final arbiter of business progress is human resources. Thus,the manager who rightly adopts human-centred approaches to business must prove to have intellectual insight about the affairs of business, not only at the workplace but in the world of business. If his/her scope of knowledge is all-embracing, so much the better.

Let me conclude by saying that what we miss so much in business is the fair balance of human-centred management and technical sophistication - the kind of sophistication that yields state-of-the-art products and, peculiar as it may sound, services too. But if we can realize this point, then it shows how far we are in recruiting the desired human resources to let business flourish in the right directions. Let us avoid the risk of misapplying the term "skill" at the workplace; and our man who read Literature should remind us of our avoidable errors. Above all, the question must be asked: Is the man who read Literature significant at the workplace? Yes, he is. Is Liberal Arts significant for positive consideration at the workplace? Yes it is. But job candidates in this discipline - or allied disciplines - have to be positively considered only if the jobs at stake are not strictly technical.