Amateurs (complete)

unimagined futures

Developing a work approach that is adequate to the challenges ahead
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Amateurs

from Leadership Jazz by Max De Pree. If this is helpful, you should buy his book. This is not strategically critical to society, economy, or polity, but he helps us focus on areas that may improve the quality of our lives.

A physician friend of mine once told me a story. As a young man, he had a patient, the owner of a small business, for whom he had performed beyond the call on more than one occasion. Physicians will often do that. The grateful patient invited the physician and his wife to the symphony and dinner as a small way of expressing his appreciation. At the concert, the conductor announced that the orchestra would perform for the first time a new composition by an American composer, and so it did. After the applause, much to my friend's surprise, the conductor looked at the young businessman, asked him to stand, and introduced him to the audience as the composer.

Was this young person an amateur composer and a professional businessman? Or was he a professional composer who ran a business for the love of it? Did his experience with balance sheets help his orchestration? Or did his knowledge of harmony enable him to listen for the music in a wellrun organization? (if you have read Leadership Is an Art, you will remember similar questions about the millwright.) The answers to these questions can dazzle you with the especially bright light of human worth and human diversity.

I had the good fortune to hear Daniel Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress, speak to a design conference about amateurs and professionals. He calls himself, by the way, an amateur. And he includes among the ranks of amateurs true leaders. "The leader," he said, "is by definition an amateur open to new vistas that training precludes from the professional." Perhaps he is right about leaders. I do know that leaders understand the important contributions that amateurs can make in organizations. Leaders make it possible for these sometimes difficult people to thrive and do their best.

Everyone relies on amateurs from time to time. When the official, professional channels clog up with bureaucratic sediment, people turn to amateurs for results. You go underground to get something done quickly and effectively. More often than not, if you go to the right amateur with the right problem, the action will be not only quick but effective.

For many reasons, some of them unarguable, organizations are by their nature antipathetic to amateurs. Only leaders can make it possible for amateurs to survive in organizations. They can do so by creating an attitude and environment that seeks out, empowers, and recognizes good ideas, no matter what the source. A leader makes it possible for a business person to be a composer. Leaders can make a college, a business, or any organization hospitable to the person without the usual credentials. The trick is simply to look at merit naked. Learn to hear the tune despite the noise.

To be an amateur means literally that you do something for the love of it. A love, a true love, of what you're doing results in real competence and real intimacy. An amateur is likely to forget about financial rewards; money for an amateur is more likely to be a result than a goal. In fact, money may even be an inappropriate reward. It's up to the real leaders in organizations to discover the right rewards for amateurs, an opportunity or a new challenge.

One characteristic of the amateurs I know is their curiosity. They like nothing better than learning something new. They are generally smart enough to recognize the limits of their knowledge and are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to expand those limits.

Some organizations take the word amateur to mean less than perfect. To perform consistently requires one to be a professional, say many people. And perhaps in our world, where knowledge and expertise have become so specialized and fragmented, they would often be right. Nobody would prefer to be treated by an amateur thoracic surgeon. I would say that organizations, like the old English cricket teams composed of "gentlemen and players," need both: Leaders would like to have some people who frequently exceed expectations and some people who never fall below them.

You'll find amateurs (though you may not call them that) at the heart of organizations already. By "heart," I don't mean "headquarters." Amateurs seem to be drawn to this frame of mind more easily than professionals. It's the gift of perception, not training.

Leaders make places for amateurs, for often amateurs have difficulty conforming even to the reasonable constraints of working in organizations. The strength of amateurs -- their ability to fashion fresh solutions out of a sometimes naive curiosity requires special nurturing, special teaching. The best leaders open themselves to the contributions of amateurs, though I must admit I have often worked hard to ignore or have simply tolerated the unorthodox methods of many good amateurs. It helps to remember that a group dominated by a leader will never exceed the talents of the leader.

Amateurs frequently contribute more when they don't join; they have a need to pledge a qualified allegiance. Far too many people are so addicted to organizations that they seldom question anything. Amateurs do not derive their security and identity from organizations but from their abilities; Sherlock Holmes is their patron saint. Though they are not afraid of losing their jobs, don't think of amateurs as disloyal. Amateurs are likely to be the most committed people around.

Their commitment may simply express itself in unusual ways.

Organizations have trouble evaluating the contributions of amateurs and placing them within the hierarchy. I don't find this surprising. In corporations functioning in a capitalist system, it is difficult to discard the yardstick of short-term financial gain. Profit, after all, is absolutely necessary for survival in a capitalist system. Profit gives us the chance to make a difference in the world, but profit is never more than a by-product. Peter Drucker calls profit the "cost of your future." I would like to consider motives and a broader view of performance. I happen to think that there is proof enough to convince even a cynic that amateurs working for the simple joy of it produce some pretty good results.

The unexpected result certainly comes from amateurs -- the beneficial surprise. The unexpected has become anathema in a great many organizations. In some cases, rightly so. But think how often the odd juxtaposition, the unusual point of view, produces a stunningly elegant solution.

A few amateurs in the organization help such insights happen. I'm certain that at Herman Miller we came up with new ways of looking at things by trying hard to be hospitable as an organization to the unusual person and the offbeat point of view. At least we tried to give amateurs a chance to be heard.

How can we think about amateurs and places for them in organizations?
How can leaders, especially, open their organizations to the influence of amateurs?
How can leaders recognize the amateurs in their organizations and put them to good use?

I have a few ideas. Together with yours, we may have something.

Amateurs defy definition. They are often neither fish nor fowl. If Leonardo da Vinci, for example, were required to file a tax return, could he? What would he list as his occupation? Painter? Engineer? Scientist? In a large organization, where would he work? Graphic design? Development engineering? Research and design? Yet what leader would not wish to have a Leonardo somewhere on the team?

Being curious, amateurs sometimes run afoul of the organizational hierarchy . A leader will make it possible for a person occasionally to work outside the hierarchy. Colleges and universities do this through what they call "joint appointments." In fact, I would say that the effectiveness of amateurs is heightened when they are encouraged to cross traditional organizational boundaries.

A leader understands the importance of roving leaders, those indispensable people in our lives who take charge when we need them . Roving leaders fill vacuums. Amateurs often become roving leaders; their lack of fear allows them to step in and take charge. Amateurs simply don't know what they can't do. The familiar taboos of life in organizations don't frighten them. It is possible, however, for an organization to stifle the drive for accountability and good performance among amateurs.

Ideas, not authority, motivate amateurs. Authority truly motivates almost no one these days. It's really more accurate to view employees as volunteers. Amateurs, especially, are mobile workers. it's up to leaders to keep the ideas coming, to prepare the ground where new ideas can grow.

And as you know, predictable answers grow in most organizations like weeds, often choking out an original idea. Amateurs don't automatically respect the predictable solutions to organizational dilemmas. Their ignorance of the formula is of great value.

People must be able to pursue their potential. Amateurs pursue their potential even under difficult circumstances. Their work-in all its forms-expresses this pursuit. If an organization is wise enough to attract amateurs and lucky enough to keep them, creating an atmosphere where amateurs flourish becomes an important part of an organization's life and values.

For leaders, carving out the room for people to pursue their potential has many implications. In my own life in business and in my attempts to become a better leader, I have asked myself the following questions:

* People have more than one dimension to their lives. Will my company allow people the freedom to express themselves in more than one way? Does my company help me find and use my gifts?

* Does the organization I work for allow people to build a relationship more positive than a simple contract? Are we free to make a covenant?

* Does my company place a higher value on ideas and deeds than on rank and reports?

* Are producers or presenters promoted? Are specialists and generalists recognized?

* Do the leaders in my organization pay more attention to the possibilities of the future than the honest mistakes of the past?

* Is it possible for the people who work here to have a hand in determining their future and their priorities?

* Does my organization honor what it cultivates?

Working in groups gives us a chance to deepen our lives and enlighten society . It gives us no chance, however, if we allow ourselves to build barriers that exclude more and more people as one looks at higher and higher echelons. As necessary as they are, the hierarchies of organizations are not the only ways to structure relationships or accountabilities. As vital as she is to the operation of institutions, the well-credentialed professional is not the only source of wisdom and insight.

Amateurs do not make life easy for leaders. And, of course, amateurs by themselves are not the only way to keep an organization vital or even merely functioning. Yet their willingness to object to the norm, learn frantically, and contribute in unexpected ways makes amateurs essential parts of organizations.

Make a place for them.

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