Master of the Process

There is a lesson nobody teaches at school, and that most people learn late — if at all: those who master the process do not necessarily have power over it. The power lies in the structure. And the structure almost always belongs to someone else.

I. Journeymen of Measurement

It was one of the earliest self-diagnoses: Messknecht — journeyman of measurement. A group of young engineers and technicians at a mechanical engineering company, responsible for measurement and control technology in the test department — technically competent, intellectually engaged, and yet in a position that left the essential to others. One measured and controlled. One served the process that others developed. One was not master of the process. One was its precise auxiliary tool.

The word Messknecht carries the pain of the situation within it. Not measurement expert, not measurement engineer — journeyman. It sounds like service without sovereignty, like competence without decision-making authority. And it describes an experience that extends far beyond a single professional biography. It is the experience of every person who can do something — and does it within a structure they do not control.

II. The Flow and Its Conditions

What makes the journeyman state bearable — sometimes even beautiful — is the flow. The moments when a group of people burns for a shared thing, when the competence of each individual combines with that of the others, when work is not work but discovery. Five people in a laboratory thinking through and solving a problem that had no solution path yesterday. A product development group turning a vague idea into a functioning process. A group of musicians working out a piece that does not yet exist.

The flow is real. It is one of the most intense experiences that human collaboration makes possible. It is also what keeps people in structures that do not belong to them — because the flow compensates for the absent ownership of the structure. One works for others, but works with enthusiasm. One is not master of the decision, but master of the moment.

And flow arises almost always from self-chosen tasks — or from tasks one has made so much one’s own that they feel self-chosen. The client may have defined the task. But the group that solves it has made it their own in the solving. That is the magic of good collaboration: it transforms foreign assignments into personal projects.

The flow compensates for much. But it does not dissolve the structure. And when the structure breaks, the flow breaks too — suddenly, without warning, because someone else has decided.

III. The Structure Decides

The lesson usually comes late and painfully. One is in the middle of a project that is working — technically, humanly, in substance. The flow is there. The group functions. The result is foreseeable. And then someone who stands outside the project decides that the project ends. Not because it is bad. But because priorities have shifted, because another assignment has become more important, because the budget is redirected, because management changes and the new person has different ideas.

That is the moment the illusion breaks. One was master of the process — technically, intellectually, in daily practice. But one was never master of the structure. And the structure decides about the process, not the other way around. Large sums were available — but it was never one’s own money. Great freedom of decision existed — but within limits others had drawn.

This is not a specifically German or industrial experience. It is the experience of the artist who depends on funding structures. The researcher who needs third-party funds. The theatre ensemble that is funded for twenty years — and then not, because the cultural policy of a federal state has changed. Precarious financing is not the problem of a specific sector. It is the structural characteristic of all work that arises from inner conviction and depends on external resources.

IV. Adaptation as Trap

The obvious response to dependence on the structure is adaptation. One aligns the task with the financing, not the financing with the task. One writes the grant application that will be approved — not the one that most precisely describes one’s own project. One develops the product the market demands — not the one one considers right. One plays the pieces for which there are programmes — not the ones one wants to play.

That is rational. And it is a trap. Because the adaptation happens gradually, barely perceptible, each individual decision small and defensible. At some point one looks back and realises one is no longer doing what one had the flow for. That the work is still there, but the enthusiasm is gone. That one has remained master of the process — but of a process that no longer means anything.

That is the subtlest form of loss: not that one fails, but that one successfully does something one no longer wanted.

V. The Alternative and Its Price

There is an alternative to adaptation. One builds one’s own structure. One insists on being master not only of the process but of the decisions. One accepts that one’s own money is smaller than the external money — and that one’s own structure is more fragile than the institutional one.

That has a price. One’s own structure is precarious in a different, sharper way: it carries only what one carries oneself. There is no institution stabilising in the background. No funding structure enabling operations for twenty years. No approval from above legitimising the project. One is free — and alone.

And the flow? It is different. It no longer arises from the group dynamics of a well-functioning department or a well-rehearsed ensemble. It arises from the absolute congruence of task and conviction. Nobody has set the task except oneself. Nobody can take it away except oneself. That is a quieter form of flow — but a deeper one.

VI. The Pattern and Its Variants

The inventor who licenses his process to licensees and then watches them use it or not use it — as they make the decision about his work without asking him. The artist whose work is selected or not selected by curators. The researcher whose hypotheses are evaluated by referees he does not know. The entrepreneur whose company depends on capital that others provide.

In all these cases the same applies: the substantive competence lies with those who do the work. The decision-making authority lies with those who control the resources. That is not an injustice — it is a structure. And it is only changeable when one is willing to forgo the external resources.

Most are not willing. Not because they are cowardly. But because the external resources enable the flow one would not have without them. Because the group dynamics of the ensemble, the department, the team produces something one cannot produce alone. Because the large sums one has available — even if they are not one’s own — make things possible one could never finance alone.

The choice between external structure and one’s own is not a choice between good and bad. It is a choice between two kinds of flow and two kinds of precarity. The external structure gives more means and more group dynamics — and can end everything from one day to the next. One’s own structure gives more freedom and more depth — and carries only what one carries oneself.

VII. When One Becomes Master

One’s own structure rarely arises from a plan. It usually arises from an exhaustion — the exhaustion of adaptation, the exhaustion of waiting for decisions that others make, the exhaustion of the process one masters but does not own.

At some point one says: enough. Not as a dramatic gesture, but as a quiet recognition. I was master of the process in structures that did not belong to me. Now I build the structure that belongs to me. It will be smaller. It will be more fragile. But it will be mine.

This can happen late in life. It may not happen at all. Some people find their flow permanently in external structures — because the group, the task, the means are right and belonging does not matter. That is not defeat. It is a different form of solution to the same problem.

But those who have once begun to build their own structure understand in retrospect what was missing before. Not the means, not the group, not the flow. But the certainty that nobody from outside can decide whether the process continues.

Being master of the process means in the end not: mastering the process best. It means: deciding its fate.