True expertise blooms from both depth and wide exploration

At 3M in the 1970s, specialists in adhesives, tapes, and polymers thrived independently—and often solved problems through brute-force expertise. But occasional breakthroughs came from an engineer who knew just enough chemistry, optics, and manufacturing to connect dots no one else saw. That lateral thinker was often more successful than a singular expert in any one domain. Years later, researchers found that inventors with both a T-shaped profile—deep in one area, broad across many—accounted for a disproportionate share of the company’s most impactful patents.

Imagine Sara, a product manager at a SaaS startup. She’s a wizard at customer analytics, but notices UX bottlenecks slowing adoption. Instead of outsourcing UX, she signs up for a quick design thinking workshop and teams up with a UX lead for a sprint. Suddenly, her analytics know-how combined with design insights sparks a feature pivot that doubles trial conversions. That blend of depth in data and breadth in design made her the go-to innovator.

In contrast, specialists who double downed on analytics alone saw incremental gains but rarely breakthrough wins. The lesson is clear: deep expertise gets you to a point, but without adjacent skills, you run out of fresh ideas. By sampling related domains and weaving them into your core work, you become a polymathic problem solver, ready for high-uncertainty projects that demand fresh perspectives.

You’ve mapped your T shape—one deep skill and surrounding domains. Now act. Block a quarterly calendar slot for each adjacent skill: a two-hour workshop, a tech tutorial, or a mentoring chat. Keep checklists of how each new domain shifts your approach to your deep skill and share lessons learned with colleagues. This structured breadth will turn you into the innovator who thrives where high uncertainty meets big opportunity.