Category — Thoughts

I had a fun experience the other day that I thought I wanted to share as a grueling example of how many corporations are stuck in the past.

A good friend of mine forwarded me a job ad for a job, which he thought might be interesting to me. I’m not in the job market - the corporate one that is - as such, but I gave it a look, and it did seem somewhat interesting.

Not intend on becoming a part of corporate culture at this point in time, I decided to write an email to the hiring manager. I wrote that I did find the job interesting, but that I could only make myself available on a freelance basis, as my freedom as self-employed is rather important to me. I moved quickly to note that it shouldn’t cost the company any extra money (don’t want to be seen as a greedy consultant), and that I would bring my extensive experience to bear. Somewhat idealistic I sent the mail.

Today I got a mail back saying that they are indeed looking for a permanent position, so they don’t see themselves working with me. Period.

Of course its ok, and I wished them luck getting a great hire on board. And then I thought to myself how stuck they are in the past: It’s obviously still more important to get someone that fits into an ancient corporate architecture than getting someone with the right expertise (of course I know they will aim to combine the two, but really this is the message that they are sending).

It may be what we’re talking about changing times in the market place and jobs being a takers market. But some corporations obviously haven’t got that yet.

Corporate politics and BS. Just the thought of it make me relish the day, I decided to leave that behind and go on my own. Because it was a farewell to so many things that I just don’t get and which, frankly, I think is counterproductive towards achieving anything real and substantial in the end.

Take Yahoo! for instance. During the last 18 months, they have apparently lost 114 executives due to internal turmoil, lack of direction, tough competion and just plain better offers elsewhere. Execution and direction have suffered as a consequence. And now a bunch more of them is looking to leave when their stock options vest in a couple of weeks time. Does that sound like a fun place to be?

I’m thinking: Let these execs leave. If I was running the ship, the last thing I wanted my senior people to be motivated by was their stock options. I realize they might be necessary as part of an overall package. But when that becomes the primary reason for you to hold on to a position, its time to part ways.

Scott Smith over at Changeist suggests that Fedex Kingo should think about turning their business centers into places, where mobile workers could work instead of using gas and endless hours of transportation getting into the actual corporate offices of the companies, they work for.

I think the idea is brillant. In Denmark we don’t have Fedex Kingo (not really that way anyway), but we do have a lot of villages with long commutes to the city, where this idea would be brillant. Here’s a suggestion:

When the village school closes anyway, turn it into a hub for coworking. Make it a place for the community to come in, work, engage and bring life back to the village. The investment would be rather small, as property in these places are cheap, and municipalities are dying to get rid of the buildings they don’t use anymore. And I’m sure a lot of companies would fund reasonable rents for one or two long distance workers. Plus it would make people, ehhmm, happy…

You could of course ago that some companies would be uncomfortable with having their people work alongside others from other companies. However, I do think this is a dinosaur mentality destined for rapid decline. In other words, there should be no real hindrance for bringing this idea to life.

I myself would be a happy renter in such a place.

As self-employed one of the easiest things is to get caught up by all the interesting people with interesting ideas who want to meet up, discuss and then meet some more. Apart from the obvious risk of engaging in a lot of stuff where your brain is just being picked, there’s also the risk of never getting into real execution mode.

I’m not normally the person pushing for execution, but I have found that as self-employed I really have to. Because not only am I alone about this and responsible for the way I spend my time. It also kills me even more now (than when I was just a corporate guy) to see great ideas never materialize.

In a meeting with a potential client today they told about their difficulties with their CMS vendor. “They don’t ride the same day they saddle the horse”, “Nothing happens when we approach them”, “Their new system is only a teenager” etc etc.

Man, wonder what would happen if I put on that attitude towards my clients? Well, I know - or I’m pretty sure I do: I would get a boot the size of Mt Everest in my behind and fly out through the door head first. And rightly so.

Then why doesn’t this happen to bigger vendors? Why can they get away with crappy customer service?

Even though you’re self-employed there’s no reason to dismiss the thought of ever wanting to be a part of something bigger again. It may be that you look towards returning to an ordinary job, or you may in fact be looking towards starting something thats just a little bit bigger than what you can manage on your own.

These days I’m thinking a great deal about the latter option. Yes, I’m thinking about starting a new, innovative and creative company together with some like-minded spirits. We have had the first couple of meetings, and we’re all basically agreeing on the idea, focus and overall strategy of the company. On top of that we have great chemistry and seem to intuitively know where we’re coming from, when we discuss issues.

I can not say anything about the company or its focus yet. And I don’t know if we will be moving the company along towards inception. But I do know that even though you’re self-employed, it always makes sense to keep your mind open towards opportunities that may present themselves. After all you can always say no.

One of the big risks of being self-employed is to become complacent and embroiled in ones own little world. A world where everything is fantastic, opportunities are endless and the idiots are all the people, who don’t understand how brillant you are.

That’s exactly why it is so important to have an outside perspective on things. Not only on the more personal matters but also on work. Where you are going with what you’re doing and why?

Pat Thornton of The Journalism Iconoclast says it’s “good to have non-wired friends”. And I agree totally. Because amid the passion and excitement it’s always good to have someone asking the hard questions.

To me these are my wife and to a lesser extend my mother. They are really good at it. And I’m profoundly grateful that they do it.

Finding new talent is hard. Its a cumbersome proces, and after reading Valeria Maltonis suggestions about job search evolving, I thought I wanted to offer my two cents on the subject.

As I see it there are a number of issues with recruitment today. The worst is the pain of having to advertise a position, wait for people to see the ad, apply and then come by for interviews before you can ultimately pick the person, you pray is going to be right for the job. It’s time consuming, stressful - and yes, a lot of pain.

At the very same time you have people being hired through friends or the friends of friends based on the merits of what they have achieved so far in their careers and (often) a personality that fits into the new org.

Well, why not look towards combining the two? Why not turn the process around and let people advertise themselves not only towards their network and networks network but to anyone looking for raw talent? Let them use Facebook, Twitter or whatever tool to hawk their qualifications, personality and drive. And think of an alert mechanism that will trigger these companies looking for talent into identifying people, who might fit the profile. It should all be well and possible.

The other day a survey showed that about half of all people employed by various companies put up and act, when they go to work in order to fit in with the people, the culture, the tasks etc.

I was a bit surprised, and it got me thinking about how little surprising it is that there are so many bad managers around, when they are in effect dealing with people who are not portraying themselves in a true way.

Then I started thinking about that if on top of this you add all the people who would go to great lenghts to further their own career opportunities at the expense of others by being dishonest, backstapping, illoyal etc., the corporate environment can be a really toxic one.

I am not saying that all corporate environments are like this. Not at all. I’m just happy to be self-employed and thus not having to deal with this.

Late yesterday I got an email from somebody I have never met in real life but who I’m indirectly working on a project with. I had never really heard from him before, and we have never been formally introduced. Yet he seized the opportunity to completely criticize some work I had done in a tone that just struck me like a lightning.

I was amazed because I knew my work to be good enough, so it had to be him having a bad day or just being that kind of person. I was totally put off.

This highlights one of the most important and critical aspects of being self-employed: Dealing with customers, clients and partners - even when you don’t want to.

I am going to finish this product on as reasonable terms as can be imagined. But after that I will do, what good people like Stowe Boyd have always advised: Skip that person and never work with him again. It’s just not worth it, and there are plenty of other and better fish in the sea anyway.