It goes without saying that we are giving priority to cooperation with professionals, experts in their field. But any wisdom that is accepted as absolute can turn into foolishness. Therefore, sometimes it’s a good idea to think about what we mean by professionalism, and in what cases we need specialists in narrow field and when – universal people.
During the last economic recession, the publishing business suffered heavy losses – hundreds of newspapers and magazines were ceased, their advert sales circulation and revenue shrank. Business media suffered particularly severely. However, the magazine The Economist not only didn’t experience any particular difficulties, but even showed growth in all indicators. In the toughest year – in 2008 – its sales increased by 9%, but in 2009 by 6.4%, advertising revenue grew by 24% and also magazine’s total revenue and profit increased by 26%. Although the industry has not yet fully recovered (the economic crisis is over, but the structural crisis continues), last year The Economist gained 44 million pounds (€ 51 million) in net profit.
This magazine attracts attention from not only competitors, but also management specialists. Of course, it is impossible to highlight just one factor that has ensured such success. The magazine has been released for 172 years now – it has had plenty of time to conquer readers’ hearts and find its business model. One of the most important advantages of The Economist is considered its content – short texts in plain language that represent more or less significant weekly events. In contrast, one of the characteristics of The Economist, which distinguishes it from other publications – correspondents do not linger over one topic. Every three years everyone is rotated to another department. For example, a journalist can write about high technologies in the beginning, then about China, later about the banking business, and finally about anything that has a relationship with the state of Massachusetts in the US.
THE DEMAND IS GROWING AFTER PEOPLE WHO ARE COMPREHENSIVELY EDUCATED WITH A FLEXIBLE THINKING AND STEREOTYPE FREE, INSTEAD OF SPECIALISTS WHO ARE LIMITED BY A NARROW FIELD.
Staff rotation is a common practice in business, which is mainly used to increase the skills of employees who have a leader’s potential. It is also a good way to keep the job outlook for managers, who are already getting bored in one place, but their promotion is not possible at the time. Sometimes rotation is used to prevent corrupt communication between the seller or the collector and the contractors.
But these techniques differ from The Economist’s approach – for whom the rotation creates value. First of all, it causes a small, but productive stress to the reporter, which in turn means an additional impulse and energy. Secondly, let’s not forget that the readers are not specialists and they are disgusted by experts’ snobbery; but the author should try to understand the described object and explain it to the readers. Thirdly, such an approach provides a fresh perspective, as novices tend to ask the strangest questions and put forward the most bizarre ideas, but these ideas and questions are often fruitful.
Second and probably the most vivid example of a successful profane in business, of course, is Steve Jobs. He did not study in business schools, did not even graduate college, and, in the direct sense of the word, he was not a specialist in any field.
Maybe returning to Apple at the right time enabled him to turn everything upside down. How did the development of new products take place until the return of Jobs? According to best practices, engineers developed a technical solution, but then designers dealt with packaging. Jobs nominated company’s designer Jonathan Ive as his deputy, and as most important thing he featured the picture – the appearance of the product. All that was thin, Jobs considered beautiful, as Walter Isaacson writes in biography about Jobs, referring to the people who knew Jobs personally. He wanted Apple to make a thin notebook, a thin tablet, a thin phone. Objections from the professionals that this was not possible, was roughly rejected. By the way, this is exactly why the iPhone’s battery can only be replaced in factory; otherwise it would simply not fit into the frame. But the devices really came out pretty.
When Jobs imagined a phone that looked like a glass tablet, it was impossible from the perspective of the professionals – there was simply no suitable glass on the market. However, they managed to find a manufacturer who had the required chemical formula (there was no such glass on the market as there was no demand) and appropriate production conditions. And thus a phone that looked like a glass tablet was created. Of course, all of the above does not mean that we have to fall into extremes and urgently replace all professionals with beginners. In addition, in both cases, we talk about specific profanes.
The Economist correspondents are well-educated, energetic, brilliant people, great researchers and writers, but Steve Jobs is a unique exception. Personnel selection experts have already announced a new trend – in a situation where the world is so unpredictable and things change very rapidly, the demand is growing after people who are comprehensively educated with a flexible thinking and stereotype free, not after specialists who are limited by a narrow field.