# 42: My Story as a Bystander
Story behind the Passage
Peter Drucker is my hero. I told you before when I discussed a passage from one of his other books (“Management by Objectives”). Do we need heroes? Sure! We all do. Humans love heroes. From childhood onwards, we keep looking for heroes. It is just that we do not notice or admit it anymore when we are adults. Instead, people read stories of heroes in secret and then have sophisticated intellectual bullshit talk about them. These conversations would be a lot more fun if they simply talked about how they admire their hero and how much they would like to experience some of the adventures the hero gets to live through.
At least, this is my perspective.
It is probably a weird one again…
To me, a hero does not have to look like super(wo)man.
Heroes are people that share their energy and motivation.
They share their “genius,” one might say, to help others.
It is so funny that I am using this word “genius” again today because I just used it yesterday in my post “Courage Is More Important than Genius.” Today, I am mentioning the term again because I talked to a former colleague of mine who sent me a text about finding one’s genius. I enjoyed reading it because it was issued by an institution that I had not known anything about before. I think, there are so many ways of how people talk about finding their “genius” in different cultures, industries, and social spheres. In business, it is called the sweet spot, in personal/spiritual development the same thing is Ikigai (Japanese), in Buddhism it is called the path to enlightenment and truth, the Stoics would have called it duty, coaches call it self-fulfillment, other people call it self-actualization, yet others call it purpose or calling…
Whatever you want to call it, I was happy about our conversation today and I always appreciate when people send me stuff. What I just do not get is why our professional worlds are so separated still; why there is such a huge gap between people who work in different fields and how much that does to their understanding of the world — and of themselves. And the gap between university and business, between education and practice, is just one example. And I am not saying that my colleague and I cannot talk about this gap. Borders that separate people are drawn by institutions, not by people. This is why you have to start with the people if you want to get rid of them.
My colleague today said that it is pretty unique that someone is jumping around in so many different spheres like myself. But I am not sure this is true. Actually, all my “heroes,” the people that I like to hang out with and learn from — also via reading their stories — are all like this. These are people who like building companies, reading and writing books, giving talks, building software, building houses, climbing mountains, riding horses, playing music, playing poker, betting on money, investing in stocks, doing skydiving… all these cool things that turn your life into an amazing adventure.
This is where Drucker comes in, of course. I do not know if he ever did any skydiving or rode a horse, but he did many other things and he knew many things because he was trained in many fields and he applied his knowledge and skills in university, industry, and journalism. But the book, Adventures of a Bystander is not just any of his many books, it is his autobiography. I love it and whenever I open the book again, I enjoy reading through the passages that I marked. Right at the beginning, Drucker hints at his ‘genius’ expressed in all his writings — even though he does not call it this way.
“It is this belief in diversity, pluralism, and the uniqueness of each person that underlies all my writings, beginning with my first book more than 60 years ago.” — Drucker vii
Given that he wrote close to 40 books in his life and hundreds of articles and essays, that message of the diversity of human beings has been woven into many written testimonials of his philosophy. It is just so sad that still today, our society is not getting it — at least in Germany. Diversity for most self-declared “activists” is still about race, class, and gender. Well, dear “diversity” spokespeople, just one homework assignment for YOU today:
1) Go on Amazon or any bookstore alternative of your choice.
2) Order Peter Drucker’s Adventures of a Bystander.
3) Read it.
You will then have an idea of what intellectual diversity is all about. But that is not the only reason why I feel so close to Drucker. It is, of course, the burden and the pleasure of being a bystander that is part of my identity as well — of my “genius,” if you want. Drucker explains his moment of epiphany in the Prologue. He found out about his bystander life in 1923 in Vienna, at the age of 14. I am not going to recite the entire circumstances (if you do your homework, you can read it yourself). I am just giving you the major lines here by means of definition. It starts with a reply he gives to his parents when they ask him about the strange look on his face one day:
“’I only found out that I don’t belong.” But of course, I only found out that I was a bystander on that cold blustery November day. Bystanders are born rather than made. At least I was well on the way of becoming one by the time I was eight, at a children’s Christmas party during World War I.” — Drucker 4
Obviously, I have never lived through a World War, just through some personal wars, losses, and Covid now (with the latter not feeling like a crisis to me personally). But the point is: I know exactly what he is talking about. I never really participated in a children’s birthday party like all other kids. Still, I am not saying this is so exceptional. I think, many of us have this feeling of not belonging anywhere. Or maybe ‘we’ do not. I do not know. I do not even care anymore. It is already a challenge to know yourself. How would you even know what ‘we’ means?
What I just want to say is that bystanders like me can only be happy if they embrace their bystander identity. As long as you still try to be like everybody else, nothing will work out. And I mean it. You will end up like everybody else, trying to do your stupid little job, worrying about some stupid little details. And no, details are not stupid in and of themselves. But for people like “us,” details become stupid quite quickly because they are boring as soon as you have grasped their meaning. And then you are facing the challenge of expressing this meaning. Drucker also talks about this. He recalls the advice of his friend’s dad from childhood days:
“”To watch and think for yourself is highly commendable. But to shock people by shouting strange views from the rooftops is not.’
This is the admonition the bystander always hears, for it is his lot to see things differently. The admonition is well taken. But I have rarely heeded it…” — Drucker 6
I think, if Drucker had lived in our age, he would be a famous blogger. Well, I guess, this is too general. Of course, we can all only be successful and ‘famous’ in our tiny niche. Whatever, in any case, I bet he would be a blogger. At least I am quite happy that blogs exist. I am totally misusing the Medium blog because people do not read long pieces like mine. They are looking for quick “how to…” fixes for their daily problems.
Maybe not all of them.
Again, I am a bystander. I do not know. I just observe.
I see the blog differently. And I am enjoying writing.
What bothers me about all these rational approaches to finding your genius is that they are so impractical. The shortest way to learning anything is by asking people whom you trust and who have a certain level of brain capacity. You can ask them about things you want to learn about but you can also ask them about what you want to learn about yourself. And there you go — they will tell you, at least, if they are not completely afraid of you. And the image they give you about yourself will help you gain clarity about who you are. And I am not saying they get it “right.” Even if they get it wrong (there is no right or wrong in this case anyways). The stuff they say about you that bothers you is usually related to your core, your unique identity; the thing your heart already knows deep down.
My housemate in Philly once told me right in the face (and we had only known each other for a few months then): “You are a nomad, Silke, that is it.” I love Tati for telling me this. Well, in fact, not only because she said that. She was one of the most wonderful housemates I ever had and she has turned into one of my closest friends in my life, even though we live on different sides of the Atlantic.
I later turned this finding into art — on the other side of the Atlantic. By now, I have two tattoos on my arms which I got in Ann Arbor: One says “Hurreya” (Arabic for freedom) and the other one says “TirHaal” (Arabic for wandering through life, traveling). I guess, that is pretty accurate so far. Go figure…
So, let’s finally come to the passage I picked for today. First, I only wanted to show one paragraph of the page but I simply cannot do this to the text. I would dissect it completely. I cannot do that. I love the book too much and I want you to read more of Drucker’s stuff today than of my stuff. That is why I am going to make a compromise: I will only talk about my thoughts on one sentence from the passages above, that is it. And as you know, my thoughts on just one sentence can already fill pages…
My Learnings
“We have rediscovered that learning is built into us.” On the phone with my colleague today, we also talked about different types of learners. You know, the generalists and the specialists. The generalists suck in knowledge about anything and anybody while the specialists need a clear focus, something that really goes along with what they are interested in. And then they do deep diving. I, as you can imagine, have no idea how this works for the latter group because I am the first type. But I am not judging specialists, that is not the point. Probably, it is not even true that I am not a specialist. I do not identify with this but I can be one — sometimes.
Actually, during my academic life, especially when I wrote the PhD thesis and the habilitation, I had to focus on this one topic that I had chosen for a few months at least. It really made me sick because it runs against my nature. But I knew that it would have made me even more sick if I had spent more time on this. So, I focused quite well and got done with it quickly, so I could deal with everything else I am interested in as soon as possible. But there is one thing that I could not resist doing on the side: writing. This is how I wrote my first novel back in Ann Arbor during my PhD thesis writing phase. It has never been published but it saved my life. It was the only thing I allowed myself to do outside the self-erected prison of this one topic that I was writing my dissertation about.
There is this other problem that goes along with this academic obsession with specialization: Scholars and other “experts” always think that you can only gain mastery in one field and then be very superficial in all others. This is bullshit. There are so many people I know (apart from Drucker) who are excellent in at least three academic subjects and even more fields of personal interest. If you want to know more about this broad and deep distribution of knowledge, one which counters the T-model of expertise, look here. I just googled and found a pretty good overview in a Medium article “Beyond the T-Shaped Person.”
What I do not like is this arrogance that mostly academics but many other “specialists” bring to the table when talking about learning. Many of them still live in this world in which you go to school, you like one thing, you study that thing in university, and then you spend the rest of your lifetime deepening your so-called “expertise” on this one thing. Again, I am talking about it in a partly amused, partly derogatory manner because this way of thinking simply does not work for me. But the other reason why I want to speak up for other models of knowledge acquisition has nothing to do with me, it is related to our time — the digital age. And it is related to human nature, as Drucker explains above.
Everybody should have heard the terms “knowledge worker” and “lifelong learning” by now (Drucker shaped the former one). So, it is completely natural that we all continue learning and our school and university degrees are just entry points into this life occupation of learning. Formal education institutions give us the necessary tools of learning how to learn. That is it. If they even manage to do this… After that, there is no single institution that takes you by the hand. You have to do it yourself and you even have most resources for learning — your personal “homeschooling” materials (even in post-Covid times) — available for free on the internet.
This is one of the reasons why I feel so comfortable in the entrepreneurial environment. Entrepreneurs are always — with very few exceptions— obsessed with learning. You cannot survive as an entrepreneur without learning quickly. But the way entrepreneurs learn is usually by self-teaching, even if they start on an advanced academic level. There are several reasons for this but two important ones are: time and money — in this order. You need to learn quickly because you have to fix problems with the new knowledge you gain. And I mean real problems that are usually crucial for the survival of your company. And you never have any money to waste as an entrepreneur. Even if you have much money, you invest it in your company and the resources therein, including the people.
Just this week I had an interview with a software entrepreneur and we talked about his major career steps. He always followed the same pattern when he still worked as an employee at major companies. He saw a cool job ad, read a book or two before the interviews, aced the interview, landed the job. Of course, his success was not only due to the books but he still needed that special knowledge to take the next step. And he made sure he learned it with complete focus and within the shortest amount of time possible.
Most entrepreneurs and many managers that I know are heavy readers. In contrast to many people in the academy (yes, I am underlining the dichotomy between business and academia here on purpose), they have long taken learning to be the essential ingredient of their business and their fulfilled personal life. This is also why they do not talk about it all the time; their egos do not depend on academic titles. It is simply self-evident for them, no big deal. They also know that the real learning follows only after you close the book; when you start applying your newly gained knowledge and sharing it with others.
As far as the sharing is concerned, you probably know already what I am going to end with. Yes, sharing knowledge is most effective if done in stories. Again, many entrepreneurs and business people intuitively know how to do this because personal stories are the cheapest and most accessible means for offering examples to learners. And humans need specific examples to learn. It is only that our Western education system — at least in universities — has somehow trashed this most natural and effective approach to experiential learning. I have already written about this elsewhere (e.g., “Seeing the Element Inside”)
In any case, Drucker definitely knew how big picture thinking and small picture specialization go hand in hand. Especially for a bystander, there is no alternative to this, I think. You just have to make sure that you fully embrace this to start chasing all the adventures life has to offer. I think, this is something I did get right from the start. I always went for the most exciting stories and while I was in the middle of them — as a character, sometimes even as a hero — I also watched myself and all other protagonists. And this you can only enjoy if you embrace your identity as a bystander who ends up with many stories to write about. This is what Drucker does in his book. As he announces at the beginning:
“Together, I believe, they [the stories] show that society is, after all, made up of individuals and their stories.” — Drucker viii
Reflection Questions
1) Read the passages by Drucker again. Which lines strike you? Why?
2) What do you like about being a specialist or a generalist? In either case, how do you help others with your knowledge and your methods of learning?
3) If you have never read anything by/about Drucker — why?