Professional development tips I learnt from Michelangelo
I recently visited the The Museo Di Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. It’s a stunning building but what sets it apart are the people who used it over 500 years ago.
Florence was the centre of the Renaissance or “enlightenment” movement. Technology and innovation was progressing at a rapid speed. It was a time not unlike our own period in history.
According to our guide, Michelangelo sculpted David, Galileo built one of the first telescopes and da Vinci sketched his flying machines in residence at the Museo Di Palazzo Vecchio. Flying machines and telescopes would have seemed fantastical, like the smartphones and VR of today.
Imagine Beyoncé writing Lemonade in the same building that Elon Musk worked on the first Telsa, while Steve Jobs finished the iPod down the hall!
Michelangelo alone sculpted David, painted the Sistine Chapel and architected St. Peter’s Basilica. Not a bad portfolio by anyone’s standard!
Here’s some lessons from how this Renaissance master approached his own professional development:
1. There’s no short cut for hard work
Michelangelo was a sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer. In each field he produced masterpieces that took years to complete. His sculpture of David took 3 years, the Sistine Chapel took 4 years.
Michelangelo lived to be 89, impressive in an era when the average age was 39! He never stopped his crafts, completing his last sculpture only 5 days before his death.
If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all. ~ Michelangelo
In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell explains that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. To quote great poets of our time:
“The great’s weren’t great because they could paint, the greats were great because they painted a lot” Ten Thousand Hours ~ Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
In our time of hyper-learning, information overload and constant rushing, it’s hard to imagine committing ten thousand hours to a single skill. We watch a 15 minute TED talk and believe we understand complex neuroscience theories. We often dip into a subject, rather than mastering it.
2. Look for unusual inspiration
Sculptures before the Renaissance often showed noblemen dressed in their finery. They were a little overweight, to show they had plenty of wealth and therefore food. Michelangelo’s David was different. David had a lean, muscular physique that changed the way we looked at the ideal male figure.
To craft David, Michelangelo spent a year at a hospital. He performed autopsies on bodies to understand how muscles and ligaments worked. This was knowledge he couldn’t learn from his direct peers.
We can get very close to our products and businesses. Stepping back (or sidewards) can provide inspiration or new techniques.
3. Surround yourself with smart people
Michelangelo wasn’t quick to compliment others. In response to one of his peer’s sculptures he remarked “what a beautiful piece of marble you have ruined”. Even so Michelangelo surrounded himself with other brilliant artists and thinkers of his time, including Leonardo da Vinci.
There must have been a tangible energy within the palace walls. Similar to innovation hubs and co-working spaces sprouting up in tech cities today.
Michelangelo and da Vinci were staunch rivals, and were once commissioned to complete murals on opposite walls of a great hall in the palace. With each trying to out-do the other, it must have sparked the competitive fires in both!
Leonardo pushed himself to win the challenge by using new painting techniques with oil-based paints. Unfortunately the paints didn’t dry and the colours trickled together. Frustrated, Leonardo abandoned the project (da Vinci was a notorious non-finisher of commissions).
Michelangelo’s mural was also abandoned, as he was called to the Vatican to work on the Sistine Chapel. While it’s a shame these works weren’t completed, both masters would have still learnt from competing against each other.
4. Have a vision
Modern business practices require us to embrace Agile. Start small, test and iterate. But having a vision is equally important. Agile helps us move forward and learn as we go, but it doesn’t tell us where we are heading. The vision acts as a compass, guiding your refinements, ensuring you reach your destination.
Michelangelo made no mocks or clay tests of David. He just started sculpting. From a single block of marble he created one of the most famous depictions of the male body today. He famously said:
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
As Michelangelo chipped away at the marble, he always knew he was creating a sculpture of David, and not a woman or a horse. His vision kept him heading in the right direction.
Being more like Michelangelo
Sadly we can’t all work in a palace of masters, but our colleagues and peers can still help us achieve our own greatness.
- Be a conscientious learner — think about the skills you want to master. Ten thousand hours is 5 years of 40 hour work-weeks, so choose carefully!
- Seek out people that challenge you —people who make you uncomfortable because they ask you hard questions or force you to look at things in difference ways. You learn more outside your comfort zone.
- Find smart people outside your own profession - the world of marketing is being changed by principles from software development so I often learn as much from project managers and developers as marketing peers
Genius is eternal patience. ~ Michelangelo
This article is cross-posted from my personal site the TechMarketer.org
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