Do you think Leonardo da Vinci would have achieved greatness, if he was working from home? Let’s explore.
There was no indication of genius during Leonardo’s childhood at Vinci but everything changed when he relocated to Florence and became an apprentice at Verrorochio’s workshop.
Diversity sparks creativity – eclectic mix of people, thoughts, art, architecture, science, music and literature. Florence was the epicentre of creativity - Silicon valley of 1400's. The Medici family dominated Florentine republic, extraordinary wealth was deployed to attract talent.
Imagine Leonardo walking along the high street as a teenager, the masters would have inspired him - Galileo (Astronomer & Physicist), Brunelleschi( Architect), Botticelli (Painter), Michelangelo (Sculptor), Francesco Redi (Physician), Machiavelli (political philosopher). The Medici's developed modern day double entry accounting to track accumulated wealth.
If Leonardo was remotely logging from his home at Vinci, he would have been one trick pony at best definitely not the polymath.
We have minimised serendipity and accidental inspiration during the past 18 months.
The biggest issues get resolved during unscheduled chat by the coffee machine or water cooler, colleagues from other functions spark creative solution.
Imagine Leonardo painting Mona Lisa looking into his laptop - Lisa Gherardini posing through Zoom, she would have switched off the camera after a while just like you and me. Leonardo would have painted MacBook instead of Mona Lisa.
Spoken and written language is man-made but body language
is nature's language, it is involuntary and not easy to hide.
Great leaders read the body language of their audience and inspire followers by adjusting their tone, gestures and agenda to drive the desirable outcome. It is lot harder in virtual meetings.
You still have doubt – fascinating story by Andre Agassi about beating Boris Becker by watching his tongue.
"I started to realize he had this weird tick with his tongue," Agassi said. "I'm not kidding. He would go into his rocking motion, his same routine, and just as he was about to toss the ball, he would stick his tongue out. And it would either be right in the middle of his lip, or it'd be to the left corner of his lip.
"If he's serving in the deuce court and he put his tongue in the middle of his lip, he was either serving up the middle or to
the body. But if he put it to the side, he was going to serve out wide. The hardest part wasn't returning his serve — it was not letting him know that I knew this".
When Agassi finally revealed this to Becker after few beers in
Oktoberfest, he fell off his chair. He said "I used to go home all the
time and just tell my wife, it's like he reads my mind".
The verdict - WFH/Hybrid working is here to stay,
technology will eventually catch up as it always does to sustain human creativity.
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