What is a T-shaped person?

The concept of T-shaped skills, or T-shaped persons is a metaphor used in job recruitment to describe the abilities of persons in the workforce (see here).

T-shaped skills describe specific attributes of desirable workers. The vertical bar of the T refers to expert knowledge and experience in a particular area, while the top of the T refers to an ability to collaborate with experts in other disciplines and a willingness to use the knowledge gained from this collaboration.

As opposed to an expert in one thing (I-shaped) or a “jack of all trades, master of none” generalist, a “t-shaped person” is an expert in at least one thing but also somewhat capable in many other things.

How can it be helpful?

Let’s imagine we have an incomplete task that is blocking overall progress due to dependencies. In this case, the best person to work on the blocking task is the person who can complete it the fastest. The word we assign to people who can complete a particular type of task the fastest is “expert”. Experts are most valuable to clear bottlenecks.

In a recent McKinsey Global Survey, 87% of leaders acknowledged skill gaps in teir workforces — yet less than half of respondents had a clear plan for confronting this challenge. The COVID-19 crisis has only made this issue more urgent. From mastering new technologies at home to remotely managing sales relationships and collaborating virtually with colleagues, the need for upskilling employees is only increasing. T-shaped people means we can do more with the same number of people (or do the same with less people), special in teams are organized as delivery team.