During my research for a new post I’m working on, I read a 1995 Wired Magazine interview with artist Brian Eno. He said something in the article that’s stuck with me over the weekend. In response to the question, “what kind of advice would you give to a musician now starting off?,” he had this to say:
Oddly enough, I rarely talk to young musicians, but I talk to many young painters, because I teach in art schools. I ask them: Why do you think that what you do ends at the edges of this canvas? Think of the frame. What frame are you working in? Not just that bit of wood round the edge, but the room you’re in, the light you’re in, the time and place you’re in. How can you redesign it? I would say that to musicians, too.
As leaders, we can get bogged down in small frames, obsessing over the internal details. Eno talks about “positioning” what we’re doing, but doesn’t limit it to our occupation. He wants us to think about where it could go, what else it fits into. Nearly 15 years later, this challenge seems particularly relevant.
Taking Eno’s advice, we need to remember that the frame of our business is much larger than what we’re currently doing, particularly for those of us in the midst of an evolutionary jump. I for one am going take the time, sit down, and draw the frame. Not the small one, or even the medium sized one, but the really big one that makes whatever I’m doing look small. And then I will ask myself, how can we redesign this?
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