Career Multiplicity

By Leslie Amangala

Why can one not be a banker, chef, and poet? Why must careers only be in a single field at a time? And if it can be in as many as three simultaneously, why must the fields relate? Why do employers and clients feel safer with single-field professionals? Why is career multiplicity shunned if multitasking is a skill admired by employees? 

Scientists have now been able to prove that multitasking is not even a thing. The brain can literally not ‘multitask’; it does not operate that way. Rather, what we call ‘multitasking’ is the brain’s unique ability to skip from task to task quite swiftly. Even though the learning curve surrounding this phenomenon has begun to rise, more needs to be done – and is being done regarding public awareness about both cognitive behavior and brain function. This is the focus here: the need to heighten the experimentation of solutions for carrying out a series of completely unrelated tasks. 

So whenever you see the word ‘multitask’ in this article or elsewhere, it really is just ‘one thing happening at a time -‘ except for certain situations where the brain merely delegates (like eating). Haven established that the brain does not function simultaneously but sequentially, we can now tackle the main issues.

How humans perceive knowledge and capacity is such an irony because it has been marred by double standards. On the one hand, people expect you to be a good multitasker. You are seen as more proficient if you can respond to e-mails on your phone while walking with your boss into a meeting, explaining the main points of that meeting on your way in, and munching on brunch. It helps if others know it too, so displaying your multitasking ability in the workplace might help set you apart from colleagues. I once read a reference letter in which the first paragraph predominantly discussed how good a multitasker the candidate was.

On the other hand, this proficiency surrounding multitasking and multiskilling must not exceed a certain level. Once it cuts across fields, they call you ‘unprofessional’. Interviewers on several occasions have said to me, “I see that you do this and that but what exactly do you do?” Those who actually work multiple jobs in different fields never reveal as much on their work profile or resume for each job application.

In fact, career coaches would warn you to always streamline your LinkedIn content to make yourself more marketable. Your resume must send in a single message. You are all these things, but you must shrink yourself. For you to get more, you have to be less. Resumes and profiles are more tailored to the job description than the candidate’s uniqueness. Ironically, the subjectivity of the individual is what recruitment processes should be about, but amplifying candidates to their full glory weakens their chances.

Many believe that single-field professionals are always better because they apportion more time to the dynamics within a particular field, and the resulting experience helps innovation and problem-solving. This is not necessarily accurate. Studies have shown that the brain’s capacity is exponential, and its performance will improve at the rate at which it exercises regardless of the terrain. Also, just like the thinking that birthed artificial intelligence (AI), the diversity the brain is exposed to gives it the needed intelligence to permutate more possible scenarios and solutions. These two facts are necessary for building my case.

Even though experience and professionalism require time, their direct proportionality has nuance. Professionalism only has appeal if results are churned out, and results stem from knowledge. A ‘career multitasker’ – for lack of a better word, is not necessarily less knowledgeable than a professional just because the latter stuck to a single field. 

In fact, it is not out of place to deduce that multiplicity would give an individual a wider spectrum of knowledge about specific processes. Multiskilling makes them more likely to be seasoned at achieving unique deliverables when tackling specific problems in any one of the multiple fields they belong to. Consequently, innovation has a better chance here because the problems are viewed from multiple lenses.

Time management is also more likely to be applied at extreme levels, and since the quality of work is determined by knowledge, and knowledge by learning, learning processes that are optimized by exceptional time management always stand a better chance. According to the sequential process that the brain operates with, each task is then done after another but across fields and interests of the specific human. Planning and organizing time for leisure, rest, work, learning, and family can produce unimaginable gains if schedules are strictly adhered to.

Humans deciding that they must present themselves in only one version stifles the possibility of what humanity can achieve. Entrepreneurs emerge every day and some run multiple businesses. Why can these same humans not be allowed to flex their ambidexterity in the career space?  

Career multiplicity needs to be discussed more, critically studied, and projected. It will open the door for improved performance of the human brain, and the inherent versatility associated with it will create more awareness about optimized processes for learning. At least, this will suffice for now until such a time as the field of AI begins to plug the brain at a commercial scale, to directly feed it information – at which point I will update this article.

In the future, Mr. John – working five hours every day, could very well work as a banker for three days a week, a chef for two days, relax with poem-writing at weekends and still be a mysteriously ever-present family member. The important thing in a career is the deliverables, not the time expended. Family is what demands time. Career multiplicity can gain momentum; the prospects are promising.

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