The Myth of the T-Shaped Professional

The "T-shaped innovator" has been a celebrated ideal in business circles since the 1980’s, when IDEO and McKinsey & Company championed the idea. T-Shaped individuals combine deep expertise in a specific area (the vertical stroke of the “T”) with broad interdisciplinary knowledge (the horizontal stroke), making them highly adaptable problem solvers. They are collaborative linchpins, bridging silos and driving transformative solutions. The business world has been so taken with the idea over the last four decades that variants like Mu, Gamma, Phi, X and alphabet soup, have popped up.

Like most myths, the value of T-shaped people makes for a great story, but the reality is that organizations fail to identify, elevate and reward T-shaped professionals—and they announce this in everything from organizational behavior, hiring practices and people management training.

The Ultimate T-Shaped Skill: People Management

The T-shaped myth begins with ignoring a critical skill: people management.

People management requires a combination of deep expertise in specific areas (managing priorities, metrics, or processes) and broad, nuanced capabilities like empathy, communication, and conflict resolution. Skilled managers navigate diverse personalities, align cross-functional teams, and inspire collaboration, making them critical to organizational success. That organizations fail to train, or measure, people management skills speaks to the perceived value of broad skills.

Companies prioritize technical or task-based skills, promoting high performers without ensuring they’re equipped—or, often, even interested—to manage others. Training programs, if they exist, focus on compliance rather than the interpersonal nuances that make people management a trainable skill. Informal coaching and mentoring can cover this lapse, but the individual cost—in time, risk and discomfort—is rarely valued organizationally. Instead, organizations expect managers to "figure it out" while juggling their own deliverables.

Which begins the cycle anew: a new manager, uncomfortable with people management and unsure of their skill, retreat to what they know: whatever skill set got them the management role! That organization’s allow, or even laud, managers acting as individual contributors belies the myth of T-shaped skills.

This neglect diminishes the horizontal stroke of the T, leaving managers siloed in their technical expertise. Organizations miss a vital opportunity to foster holistic leadership, perpetuating a cycle where management feels like an afterthought rather than a strategic advantage. To truly value people management, companies must invest in teaching it—not as an incidental skill, but as a foundational pillar of organizational success.

The Need to Shine: Problem-Solving as a Spotlight

The foundational professional currency isn’t solving problems: it is being seen solving problems. This pushes people toward areas where they can deliver noticeable, impactful results. Venturing outside areas of expertise risks failure or mediocrity, causing reputational harm.

For instance, a marketing expert might feel confident addressing campaign strategies but hesitate to weigh in on product design. Even if their interdisciplinary knowledge offers valuable insights, the risk of misstepping can outweigh the potential rewards. The pressure to deliver visible results reinforces the vertical stroke of the T while sidelining the horizontal.

Comfort Zones: The Pull of Expertise

Deep expertise isn’t just a skill; it’s an identity. People invest years mastering a domain, and this expertise becomes their comfort zone. The horizontal stroke of the T—broadening into unfamiliar areas—requires time, effort, and vulnerability. Despite organizations claiming they value broad skills, but individuals are reluctant to embrace what many view as a dilution of their valuable abilities.

When faced with interdisciplinary challenges, people retreat into strength. It’s easier and safer to rely on proven skills than to risk appearing less competent in broader, less familiar fields. Presented with a challenge, if one solution solves 50% of the problem and comes from an area of personal strength, and the other solution options stand to solve 40%-90% of the problem, but come from areas of indeterminant personal ability, the default is lesser solution.

This tendency undermines the ideal of the T-shaped innovator, as most people focus on excelling where they feel most confident.

The Politics of Credit and Blame: No One Wants to Be “The Problem”

In cross-functional problem-solving, no one wants their department to be labeled the issue. Imagine Finance, Service Delivery, and Customer Success (CS) collaborating to address an operational challenge. If the solution requires 10 changes in Finance, 2 in Service Delivery, and none in CS, the inherent narrative paints Finance as the problematic bottleneck.

Even if the changes are necessary and non-fault-based, this perception creates resistance. Teams may focus more on defending their position than on addressing the root problem. T-shaped professionals, theoretically equipped to mediate such dynamics, often find themselves caught in the same trap—using their breadth of knowledge to raise their hands defensively rather than collaboratively.

Collaboration in organizations isn’t always about solving problems; it’s also about being seen solving them. Even when one team implements the bulk of a solution, others often claim equal credit to avoid being overshadowed. Conversely, finger-pointing over the root cause is common.

This performative collaboration undermines the ideal of the T-shaped innovator. While their breadth of knowledge could theoretically bring clarity to such dynamics, it often makes them a target for blame or diminishes their perceived contributions. The politics of credit and blame discourage the very collaboration the T-shape is supposed to foster.

Specialists Win: The Reality of Hiring and Rewards

Managers are judged on their team’s performance, not organizational success. Managers, aware of this and hiring at the individual level, want capital-I shaped people: deep skills with tiny wings to either side.

Given three candidates—one with 10 years of deep, focused experience in a specific role, one with 8 years of experience plus 2 years of broader, related skills and a third with 6 years of focused experienced and 4 with broader, related skills—hiring managers overwhelmingly choose the specialist.

Specialists are safer bets. They deliver immediate results with minimal onboarding, making them more attractive to managers under pressure to perform. While a T-shaped candidate might offer long-term value to the organization, they often lose out in the short-term calculus of hiring decisions.

The Agile T-Shaped Developer: An I in Disguise

While Agile & Scrum software project methodologies specifically call for T-shaped developers, it’s a cute but inaccurate repurposing of the term. T-shaped developers code and work across a full-stack. It usually means working in different code languages, purposes and interactions. But it is fundamentally the same skill.

Compare two major league baseball pitchers. One can throw a fastball, a slider and cutter. The other throws the same three pitches plus a curve ball.  Neither is T-shaped: they are performing the same role, the same task, and one has deeper expertise at performing that one role. That isn’t T-shaped; it is Capital-I-shaped. The knowledge is deeper, but with vestigial wings to either side.

The T-Shape in Practice: A Defensive Tool

The T-Shape in Practice

Defensive posturing

T-shaped individuals exist, but their experiences often diverge from the idealized narrative. Instead of fostering collaboration, they may use their breadth of knowledge to protect their own domain or push back against external pressures. Their horizontal stroke becomes less about reaching out to bridge silos and more about raising hands in a defensive “stop” posture.

Even when T-shaped professionals thrive, they often occupy niche roles—consulting, startups, or specific innovation leadership positions—where their unique skill set is explicitly valued. However, such opportunities are exceptions rather than the norm, making the T-shape more aspirational than attainable in most organizations.

Reimagining Collaboration: Valuing People Management

The T-shaped innovator represents an inspiring vision of what professionals could be: deeply skilled yet broadly knowledgeable, collaborative yet independent. But the vision stands at odds with reality.

Organizations value T-shaped professionals, but individual managers, corporate politics and human nature reward specialization. Organizations want to solve problems with diverse, interdisciplinary insights, but human nature drives individuals to stay in their comfort zones, seek recognition, and avoid blame. Organizational systems prioritize in-depth knowledge and quick outcomes, reinforcing the dominance of I-shaped professionals.

Walking the walk means recognizing people management as a strategic capability essential to innovation and growth.

Effective management reduces churn, increases efficiency and productivity, bridges silos, fosters collaboration, and rewards individuals for solving big problems. Management training that emphasizes emotional intelligence, communication, and teamwork, rather than just compliance and tasks, cultivate leaders who think across different fields. When companies empower leaders to manage people effectively, companies unlock potential.