I often get asked for advice by students and young people in the industry who are curious about breaking into strategy/planning. One of the things I nearly always say to them is to study great ideas and learn what makes them great. Over the past few weeks, I've come across two interviews which touch upon this thought.
The first, and furthest back, was a segment on ESPN with LaDainian Tomlinson. The interview centered on his admiration and respect for Vince Lombardi. In explaining his interest in Lombardi, Tomlinson said:
"For somebody who wants to be great,you must first study greatness."
Immediately this statement struck me for both its truth and simplicity. To be the best at something, you have to work at it. Part of that work includes studying what has made others great in this same area.
I was reminded of this quote while watching Anderson Cooper's interview with Lady GaGa on 60 Minutes. Not only does she want to be great and believes that she is supposed to be great, but she has also put a lot of time towards studying "the art of fame" in addition to years of training in music.
Aside from the simplicity and truth in the idea of studying the best to be the best, there is another reason the pieces on GaGa and Tomlinson stood out to me.
The idea of studying the past runs counter to a growing sentiment in the advertising industry. In the recently popular post, "'future of advertisng' is utterly depressing," Amelia stated that one of the keys to the future of advertising is,"People who don't know (or dare I say, care) about Snow Plough or Saatchi & Saatchi in the 80s."
Now, I'm not sure if Amelia means this statement the way that I'm applying it here, but there are several people who feel this way. They believe that there is no use in looking at, or caring about, the great people and/or agencies of the past because the new era of advertising will look nothing like the old. While I agree that there is a bit of truth in the end of that statement, I think that ignoring the past is a mistake, as I've shared before.
If you want to be great at something, you have to know what greatness means and what it takes to get there. By studying past greats, you can learn a lot about both of those things. Not only how they rose to greatness, but also what led to their fall.
Yes, we're living in a time of massive change. There's no debating that fact. But that doesn't mean we can't learn from the era before us. The core of what we do hasn't changed. It's the means by which we do it that are shifting. If you don't understand that core and how others applied it before you to become great, you're only going to lengthen the time it takes you to get to being great.
Do yourself a favor; if you want to be the greatest at something, study the past greats.
Even as a young country, had our founding fathers failed to truly know about other forms of governance, and their successes and failures in other countries, I'm not sure they would have realized so much success sustaining a Democratic Republic with the foundation that they established. There's no way they could have possibly done this without thoroughly studying the past, and seeing what works and what doesn't work. Other countries were living breathing case studies in what not to do and what TO do differently.
Great post, Paul
Posted by: Howie | 24 February 2011 at 05:52 AM
That thought was something that I debated long and hard about and actually when I updated the blog post and turned it into an article for Campaign I ended up dropping it in favour of a point about "triple bottom line - people, planet, profits". I guess what I meant by it though is that there is so much reverence for eras gone by and so much rubbish sprouted generally that sometimes I find a lack of *hushed tones* when talking about key ads quite refreshing. But given that I studied History at university and am a huge exponent of learning from the past, in the end that point did have to go!
Posted by: Amelia T | 26 February 2011 at 01:33 PM