When the French President Oliver Macron was starting the recent political revolution in France he told his fledgling supporters to get out of their bubble and talk to people who were not like them. 
 
I think that sometimes we are comforted by our “professional” bubbles and tend to stay in them because it is easier and safer. If you are a lawyer or accountant or financial adviser it is easier to talk to other lawyers, accountants or financial advisers and so on. 
 
In fact, whilst it is of course important to network with your professional peers you are in my experience just likely to learn something new by talking to people in other areas of expertise.
 
I work as a lawyer in industry as opposed to private practice and as such I am generally part of say a bid team with professional people from many other areas of expertise. I have, for example, learnt from project delivery managers how to plan really large implementations. Solution architects have given me multiple insights in how to understand and articulate a technical solution. Even salespeople, who some lawyers decry as risk takers with no appreciation of contracts, often know what makes a sales organisation and the customer tick and how to manage a complex sales opportunity. 
 
So as in sport cross training can improve performance the same is just a true in the professional world. Indeed, cross training is a recognised technique for improving employee skills. See, for example, this article which comments  Employees involved in cross-training programs become skilled at tasks outside the usual parameters of their jobs and thus become greater assets for the company while gaining knowledge and skills that benefit them personally.
 
I also like this Forbes article Cross-Training: Your Best Defense Against Indispensable Employees which cites the armed forces as an example In the military, cross-training is a part of everyday life. Our armed forces understand that duplication in the human system is one of the best ways to mitigate risk and ensure success.
 
This is not easy. In my own field of the law we have a distinct tendency to assume we cannot learn form others. This article from the Canadian Lawyer What we can learn from other professions which sets out the challenges and benefits concluding:
 
Next time a lawyer says, “But we’re different,” don’t believe him. He’s either lazy, or wilfully blind. The common law is a system grounded in the experience of the ages. The premise of the precedent system is that the wheel need not be reinvented with each new case. Why shouldn’t that apply to our professional lives as well?
 
One of the main characters in Raymond Feist’s epic fantasy series The Riftwar Cycle, which starts with The Magician book, is an enigmatic person called Nakor who though he has exceptional abilities sums this subject up nicely “Every person you encounter, whom you interact with, is there to teach you something.”

Somebody said something at a talk I attended recently which struck a chord. As technology takes over the administrative and increasingly more complex professional tasks, robotic surgery or automated contract drafting by way of example, professionals, as they of necessity move up the value chain, may become less specialised.
 
For example, although I am broadly an IT lawyer my main focus is on non-contentious complex service contracts. I have advised on corporate deals and on litigation and on various compliance issues, but I have built my reputation primarily as an outsourcing lawyer.
 
If technology makes my job easier by helping me draft contracts at the same time as it helps my IT litigation colleagues by using automated discovery software maybe our true underlying skill set in technology law will mean we can do both jobs – something that to date would be frowned on in major law firms, except possibly in intellectual property practices.
 
Renaissance person means a person who is "enlightened" in all subject matter including arts, math, athletics, philosophy, music, history, and any other cultural aspect of society. The phrase as the name suggests originated during the Renaissance Period which lasted from about 1400 to about 1600 and was used to describe famous people like Leonardo da Vinci, who whilst he was most famous as a painter, was also a scientist, engineer and mathematician. 
 
Some have predicted that the age of artificial intelligence will ultimately spell the end of the professions as we know them. Richard Susskind in The Future of the Professions persuasively explains how 'increasingly capable systems' - from telepresence to artificial intelligence - will bring fundamental change in the way that the 'practical expertise' of specialists is made available in society. He challenges 
the 'grand bargain' - the arrangement that grants various monopolies to today's professionals and argues that our current professions are antiquated, opaque and no longer affordable, and that the expertise of the best is enjoyed only by a few. 
 
I agree we will all need to change but I think maybe this is a huge opportunity to get away from the professional drudgery of tasks that can be automated, whilst still providing our expertise. 
 
As Sebastian Thrun, computer science professor at Stanford University said I am infinitely excited about artificial intelligence and not worried at all. Not in the slightest. AI will free us humans from highly repetitive mindless repetitive office work, and give us much more time to be truly creative. I can't wait.
 
And as Steven Pinker, psychology professor at Harvard University cautions us We should worry a lot about climate change, nuclear weapons, antibiotic-resistant pathogens, and reactionary and neo-fascist political movements. We should worry some about the displacement of workers in an automating economy. We should not worry about artificial intelligence enslaving us. 
 
Maybe although it seems at first counter intuitive, we will be enlightened not enslaved by technology and able to bring our expertise to bear like renaissance man across a variety of different subjects.
 
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com sums it up nicely I predict that, because of artificial intelligence and its ability to automate certain tasks that in the past were impossible to automate, not only will we have a much wealthier civilization, but the quality of work will go up very significantly and a higher fraction of people will have callings and careers relative to today.

 History accustoms us to leaders being charismatic and aristocratic providing inspired guidance and making all of the decisions for their countries or businesses whatever the outcome. They are individuals like Winston Churchill or Jack Welch who are set up on pedestals that the rest of us humbler folk can barely aspire to. That may not be how these people actually behaved but it is often how they are portrayed.
 
My experience of professional teams and businesses is that the best leaders are often very different. They do provide direction and inspiration, but they do so from within the team, not as some detached god like figure. They are what is increasingly recognised as servant leaders.
 
The phrase “servant leadership” was first coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in The Servant as Leader, an essay published in 1970. His concept as explained inthis articlewas that: 
 
A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the “top of the pyramid,” servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.

It is not actually a new subject. It is a concept recognised in ancient philosophy, with advocates such as Lao Tzu (philosopher of ancient China, author of Tao Te Ching) and Chanakya (great philosopher, teacher, and economist of ancient India, adviser to Emperor Chandragupta). However, servant leadership seems to have gained a new lease of life in recent decades.
 
It is the subject of a book The Servant Leader: How to Build a Creative Team, Develop Great Morale, and Improve Bottom-Line Performance by James A. Autry which is summarised on Amazon as Practiced by one-third of the companies on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list, servant leadership is a thriving philosophy. Ultimately, Autry explores how it can be a valuable, refreshing, and rewarding approach to leading others in business life.
 
There is even a Center for Servant Leadership whose objectives include supporting a holistic approach to work, promoting a sense of community and the wider sharing of power in decision-making in the workplace.
 
The philosophy behind servant leadership is well articulated by Stephen R. Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People  where he says in the context of  the 8th Habit: from Effectiveness to Greatness:
 
"The only way to lead when you don’t have control is you lead through the power of your relationships. You can deal with the unknown only if you have enormous levels of trust, and if you’re working together and bringing out the best in people. I don’t know of any other model that can truly work in the world right now except servant-leadership."
 
I also like this article 'Servant Leadership' and How Its 6 Main Principles Can Boost the Success of Your Startupwhich says So what's the best model for leadership in a startup environment? The old one -- of the authoritarian boss -- is rapidly being replaced with leading by example.
 
The best teams I have worked with negotiating contracts or running professional firms have been led by individuals displaying at least some of the characteristics of servant leaders. They have not sat in ivory towers but been members of the team, ready to listen and sometimes let others take a leadership role, but somehow without giving up the reins and still being in charge.
 
As U.S. Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr said  "A person who is worthy of being a leader wants power not for himself, but in order to be of service."
 
And returning to Stephen R Covey for the last word It has generally been my experience that the very top people of truly great organizations are servant-leaders.
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I don’t know who said this, but I heard it a few years ago – there are no statues of teams. Well there may be a few but not many – if you Google “statues of teams” not much comes up. It seems that as a society we are better able to recognise and honour in this long-lasting way talented or famous individuals rather than teams.
 
I know sporting teams are recognised and revered by their fan base and the best football and basket players are highly rewarded, but if you think more historically in terms of lasting memories, it is individuals rather than teams that seem to stand out.
 
Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson is famously remembered at the naval Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, sending his famous signal before the engagement ‘England expects every man to do his duty’. And he duly has a grand statue at the top of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square built between 1840 and 1843. He also made a key tactical decision splitting his numerically inferior fleet in two and sailing straight at the French and Spanish fleets. His deputy Vice Admiral Collingwood who led one part of the divided fleet also has a giant statue overlooking the mouth of the River Tyne.
 
However, what of the officers and men of the British navy, the crews of each of the 27 ships who executed the complex manoeuvres necessary to give effect to this tactic in sailing ships and then fight in the battle? They are mostly forgotten and lost in the tides of history. They certainly don’t have statues though I suppose Trafalgar Square is a sort of tribute to all of them.
 
I have been part of several great teams bidding for and negotiating outsourcing contracts over the last couple of years. In each of them every person in the team has played a part and at times has provided leadership and direction and valuable contributions. More combinations of different disciplines have arrived at solutions and dealt with tasks and issues in a way no individual on their own could have done. Often now the senior players encourage the best in others and welcome contributions rather than insisting they know what’s right.
 
But still over time whilst leaders are remembered the team players and the teqam itself are not really. They may have a bit of a moment in the sun perhaps reflected in a bonus at the time, but the true lasting values of these teams and their interworking is not always appreciated.
 
I suggest it is important that teams as a whole are recognised during and after their work. See, for example, this article on Teams: Rewards and Recognitions which says Leaders who recognized the good work of a team—as a team—contributed greatly to the motivation levels and cohesion of that team. And teams that were ignored or devalued expended far too much energy having to build each other up, attempting to move beyond negative emotions like frustration and hurt, and looking for recognition from peers.
 
There’s also a book by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton called The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance which has been recently updated for the UK. They suggest that when your team as a whole achieves goals, recognizing its accomplishments is perfectly appropriate. And don’t wait until the particular project is near completion.
 
“In sports, we don’t wait for the team to win before we applaud; we celebrate each incremental step toward victory. Yet in business there’s this tendency to wait until the project is clearly working well before we celebrate anything.”
 
And industry leaders past and present have all valued teams – see the following great quotes - even though each of them was a powerful figure worthy of a statue in their own right.
 
1 Henry Ford “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”
 
2 Lee Iacocca "I've always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team." 
 
3 Steve Jobs "Great things in business are never done by one person. They're done by a team of people."
 
Even Lord Nelson cared about and recognised the value of his sailors. Even though he must have had a lot else on his mind, he wrote a letter which has recently come to light to a supply vessel asking for more raisins and suet one week before the big day in 1805!