In The Mosaic Principle: The Six Dimensions of a Remarkable Life and Career published by PublicAffairs (November 2016), Nick Lovegrove observes:

“The evidence shows that you are more likely to be successful if your broader experience is underpinned and even enabled by a robust intellectual thread —m a knowledge or skill that you can carry between different walks of life. Adopting what is called a ’T-Shaped Approach’ will ensure you avoid the risk of a random walk through life. The essence of this approach is that you should develop an area of real subject-matter expertise (the vertical bar of the T) and apply it across a broad range of contexts (the horizontal bar of the T). You should also apply the lessons from your broader experience (the horizontal bar) to your area of specialty (the vertical bar).”

For example, consider now Walter Isaacson’s suggestion of a founding father’s relevance to today’s world: “Benjamin Franklin would have felt right at home in the information revolution. The essence of Franklin’s appeal is that he was brilliant but practical, interested in everything, but especially in how things work.”

The “T-Shaped Approach” can be of substantial value to those now struggling to succeed in a competitive marketplace that seems more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous than at any prior time that I can remember.