How to recognize, support, and actually use  versatile humans on your team Every organization has them. The people who don’t fit neatly into a role. Who ask questions that seem slightly outside the agenda. Who can jump into wildly different conversations and somehow make all of them better. They are often described as “hard to categorize," "a bit all over the place,” or "really smart, but…” This is a field guide for working with those people. Not tolerating them. Not flatteni

...And why having a method matters more than having a plan Most careers don’t change all at once. They bend. A new responsibility here. A subtle shift in expectations there. A role that suddenly requires a different kind of intelligence than the one that got you hired. Strategic versatility becomes essential not when everything is going well—but when the shape of your work starts to change faster than your identity can keep up. Here are three career moments where versatility

Why the future belongs to humans who can’t be reduced to skills. For years, many capable people have been described with the same faintly dismissive phrase: “They’re multi-talented.” It sounds like a compliment. But it often carries an unspoken undertone: unfocused, hard to categorize, difficult to place. What if the problem isn’t that these people have too many skills? What if it’s that our language for human value is outdated? Skills are visible. Dimensions are not. Most pr

By now, most thoughtful professionals can sense that something has shifted. We talk about adaptability, lifelong learning, and versatility almost reflexively. The language is everywhere. But there’s a quieter question that lingers beneath the buzzwords: What does this actually look like  in real life? Not in a keynote. Not in a framework slide. But on a Monday morning, with a full inbox, real constraints, and an intelligent machine quietly humming beside you. From idea to e

Most careers don’t fall apart all at once. They stall. They narrow. They start to feel oddly brittle. Looking back, I can see the moment my own career reached a fork in the road. At the time, it didn’t look dramatic. There was no crisis in my performance, no collapse of what I was able to deliver, no public failure. In fact, by conventional standards, things were going well. I had done what I was “supposed” to do. I had credentials. A coherent professional identity. A clear

For most of modern history, specialization has been treated as the safest career advice available. Pick a lane. Go deep. Become indispensable by knowing more and more about less and less. This logic made sense in an industrial economy built on predictability, stable roles, and slow-moving change. It still works in some contexts. But many professionals today feel an odd tension they can’t quite name. They’ve done everything “right.” They’re highly trained. They’re competent, c

In an era defined by accelerating change and complexity, expertise alone is no longer enough. For most of the 20th century, the specialist was king. Mastery in a single domain promised job security, professional respect, and a clear career path. But today? The rules have changed. We now live in a world where success depends not only on what you know — but how well you can connect, adapt, and think across disciplines. The Age of Complexity Demands More Today’s challenges don’

In today’s complex business landscape, leaders are faced with challenges that require not only cross-disciplinary knowledge but also emotional intelligence and ethical decision-making. This article explores the integration of polymathic leadership and compassion as a framework for innovation and ethical management. Drawing on Sara McConnell’s research on compassion and my work on polymathy, I argue that combining intellectual breadth with emotional depth enables leaders to na