Introduction
John Ruskin’s motto was: “To-day, to-day, to-day”, and he also said “things are either possible or impossible. If things are impossible, you need not trouble yourself about it: if possible, try for it!”. These do indeed seem to be central leadership principles for today’s organizations and for its successful leaders. John Ruskin died in 1900, but he was an artist, rather than a business leader. It is remarkable however, how relevant much of his thinking still is, now almost a century and a half after his contributions were formulated.
Andrew Hill, an associate editor of Financial Times and a world-leading expert on leadership in business organizations, has written a superb book, where he clearly demonstrates how John Ruskin’s influence remains strong even today, when it comes to many aspects of society. And, to explore how a thought leader from the 19th century might be an inspiration for today’s actors, is undoubtedly a key reason why the author has embarked on this book. He has been brilliantly successful in this!
To be frank, this reviewer did not have much of a comprehension about John Ruskin and what he stood for before reading this book. And, as the author also explains, Mr. Ruskin seems to have been largely forgotten, even though he was the most influential thinker in UK’s 19th century world. So, this reviewer is not alone in his ignorance regarding Ruskin!
Who was John Ruskin? His primary ambition was to be a leading art critic, combined with being an important artist himself (drawings above all). But he spanned over a much broader area of influence than this, being a prolific writer (39 books, thousands of articles and letters) as well as a teacher/speaker (Oxford; Working Men’s College).
Face to face classes were key! Hands on! And, mingling the inspirational with the practical. He was both eclectic and eccentric! And, he was comfortable with teaching adults, of various races, both genders and different social status, but generally without much formal education before coming to the Working Men’s College. Ruskin encouraged his students, both at Oxford and at Working Men’s College, to build links between different items, so as to get a broader knowledge not only of art, but also other disciplines, say geology, see item 6 on networks below. He expertly covered art, history, science, economics, politics, biology, and you name it! He was an educationist!
For this reviewer, the similarities with another artist who lived more than a century later, the world-famous Danish painter Asger Jorn, comes to mind. I shall point to similarities between the two throughout this review. But, the most striking similarity is that eclecticism, broad interests, characterized them both. And both were radical: Ruskin was philosophically radical, Jorn was politically radical, indeed a devoted communist. While Ruskin was not radically outspoken politically, his thinking had, at least indirectly, an inspirational impact on the British Labour movement, including the first Labour MP in the British Parliament – Ken Hardie, as well as Clement Atlee. Ruskin was, no doubt, an early inspirer for the welfare state concept.
There are many positive ways to live a better life alluded to in this book and from which we can draw lessons for our own lives today, both professional and personal:
Seeing, observing and understanding. Both Ruskin and Jorn tried to see things clearly, so that they would understand better. They were both keen observers and were good at seeing relationships between often seemingly rather different phenomena, thus coming up with new insights. Both were focused on “small data”, minutely observed, understood and linked together (see item 6). Both Ruskin and Jorn paid great attention to detail in their works of art.
Reflection. Both were proponents of “slow” living, typically away from the big metropolises (London, Copenhagen), and taking the time to “understand”. Both were highly disciplined when it came to how they spent their time and energy. Both were exceptionally hard working. But they were not driven by what otherwise may have been seen as dysfunctional hectic agendas.
Provenance. Both were “local”, in focusing on what was unique from a local perspective; Ruskin – the UK, Switzerland, France, Italy; Jorn – Denmark, France, Italy. While respecting the “local”, both were in fact what we would today call “global”. (Both Ruskin and Jorn did indeed spend more than 50% of their lives outside of their home countries.) Yet to them, provenance, their origins and connections, remained important.
Humans and their environments. Strong interest in conserving buildings, and certainly in Ruskin’s case, conserving the environment. The key was to preserve the original human context, dictated by physical architectural layouts and the nature the way it was. Ruskin may indeed be seen as the driver behind the UK’s first national park, the Peak District, in the Lake District region, and a forerunner for UK’s national park system.
Ethical leadership and meaningful work. Both Ruskin and Jorn were totally driven by this.
Connectedness. To “connect the dots” among many people, representing different fields was seen as key by both. Today we label this as a ‘network’. To cultivate links in their network was critical. This is the way leading organizations work today. What we might see as focusing on multiple connections was important: society politics, art, and design.
Quality and quantity. Both Ruskin as well as Jorn were indeed highly prolific, but we may say, with a clear direction towards quality and insightfulness, rather than on quantity, even sloppiness. Perhaps we might characterize both as having anthropological mindsets, with a focus on “having done it” with a clear understanding, confident but not arrogant. Both Ruskin and Jorn were indeed celebrities for much of their lives. But they did not act that way. Perhaps this might be contrasted with a sociological mindset – talking about things, in the way many consultants and academicians do, but without sufficient hands-on understanding, and often with a lot of arrogance!
Economics. When it comes to criticizing traditional economics, Ruskin was indeed clear here. It is, however, not clear where Jorn stood on this point, beyond the fact that he must have shared Ruskin’s aversion with “laissez-faire”, being a believing commitment. Both were social critics. Both objected to when they experienced, that some had received ill-acquired gains. Both had a somewhat negative, but not fanatically negative relationship with wealth. Ruskin felt that wealth could influence positively the lives of others. He inherited a large amount of money from his father, a successful wine merchant, but gave most of it away, along the above lines.
“A little too many irons in the fire”. Overwork eventually started to drive both Ruskin and Jorn to the edge of sanity. Ruskin by the late 1870’s and Jorn by the 1960’s. Both had minds that bubbled over with so many ideas that it might have required several lifetimes to adequately follow up on all of them.
What came afterwards? Both Ruskin and Jorn, giants that they were in their lifetimes, basically seem to have faded away relatively fast after their deaths. There is a Ruskin College at Oxford, and a permanent Ruskin collection at Sheffield Art Museum, as well as a city in Florida named after him. But there is little left among his thoughts today. Indirectly, he did inspire a lot in many areas, however, hence the name of the book – Ruskinland. And, Jorn, while still highly appreciated as a painter, but probably with a somewhat more limited reputation now than before, has a museum dedicated to him in Silkeborg, Denmark. There is not much more!
Conclusions
There is time to reiterate, now, at the end of this review how much I like this book. The author has done an excellent job, both when it comes to background research, analysis and writing. Chapeau!
Also, as amply illustrated, a networking approach, is hard to pull off but powerful in terms of potentially leading to outstanding results. This way of working is clearly drawing key actors’ energy, as we saw. Excellence is coming before health!
Finally, we saw how fast lifetime greatness might fade away later on. It is indeed a matter of practicing “to-day, to-day, to-day”!
REFERENCE
Andersen, T., (1994) Asger Jorn, En Biografi, Sohn, Silkeborg.
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