Ardith Daly: Generalist Creative Maker
Some people are wired to make things from scratch. You might find them baking, engineering, or strategizing.
They question things:
“I wonder what would happen if I combined XX and YY?”
or
“If I want to achieve ZZ outcome, what can I pull out of my bag of tricks to get there?”
Ardith’s tendency to make shows up every day.
Sometimes it is in the kitchen as she ponders how to combine what she knows about flavors and cooking to turn her vanilla ice cream into a purple ube treat.
When facing a (not-ice-cream-related) problem at work, she stocks her maker toolkit by consolidating what she has learned, discovering what has been tried in the past, and evaluating what worked or didn’t work.
Ardith was working at a startup in customer success when she noticed a distinct gap in the company’s onboarding program.
Although this wasn’t in her direct purview, she happened to mention her previous experience in education and learning - and of course, her desire to help.
This set off a chain of events.
contributing to a task force that developed v 1.0 onboarding
upgrading the materials by moving to a new platform
managing and revising the curriculum
spearheading mentorship for onboarding
training managers to lead their new hires through onboarding
Although she wasn’t an expert in learning and development (and at the time she didn’t even realize that L&D was a career track!), she knew enough of the foundational pieces from her previous experience to build something new.
And, in true generalist fashion, while all this was going on in the ‘make onboarding awesome’ space, Ardith also kept the train rolling in customer success.
She balanced client meetings, reporting, strategic planning, vendor summits, and executive briefings along with coaching, project managing, and learning new tools/platforms.
She succeeded by quickly figuring out how to fill her knowledge gaps while also knowing when to lean into a subset of her generalist skillset.
Meet Ardith Daly, Ed.M. Advisor | Explorer | Creator
She offers this advice for Generalists:
“We should be able to articulate our journeys and adapt that narrative in a way that fits the context or the need. Knowing my theme and my story has been empowering and liberating (as has connecting with other generalists!). “
Her career has spanned business, technology, and education, and she has worked as an academic advisor, customer success manager, and even strength coach.
When she tells her story, she can look back and clearly see that these different experiences were all tied together with a theme of relationship-building and being able to identify how the available tools or services could set others up for success.
She is passionate about using tech for good and social impact - drop her a note if you want to explore the intersection of data analytics and AI education or corporate, community and academic partnerships.
Join us in Breaking the Mold: Generalists Who Thrive in a Specialist's World as we explore real-life examples of generalists connecting dots, innovating, and solving problems.