By Jack Cumming
Midway through my sophomore year in college, a classic book appeared describing the corporate experience. One observation was:
“Management has tried to adjust the scientist to the organization rather than the organization to the scientist. It can do this with the mediocre and still have a harmonious group. It cannot do it with the brilliant, only freedom will make them harmonious.” [William H. Whyte, The Organization Man]
That’s still true today of hierarchical organizations. Hierarchy is prevalent in senior living. No wonder that the industry lags others in technology and organization. Hierarchy often leads to job stagnation that leaves employees feeling vaguely dissatisfied. What was true all those years ago is still true today. It’s best to leave at home that which distinguishes you and, at work, adapt to the hierarchy.
Stay or Leave
Human nature remains human nature. We are individuals who are at our best when we come together naturally for a shared purpose. We have that when friends come together to build an innovative startup. We lose that when we are hired as subordinates to someone we don’t respect. Unfortunately, the latter happens more often than is generally recognized.
Innovative thinkers are inherently nonconformist, and they are not always pleasantly well-rounded. They may be the key to an organization’s future, but they may not fit into the sterile step-by-step advancement structure common in hierarchy. You may be one. If you feel unseen and unheard at work, it may be that you don’t belong there.
Now, a new book has just appeared that makes this point for today’s generation. Just as Whyte focused on “scientists” instead of brilliance generally, so this new book is narrowly focused on a single profession, even though its wisdom applies generally to people working in corporate structures. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose [meaning].
Be Your Best Self
If you are a regular reader of Senior Living Foresight, you likely are not a person who fits seamlessly into the mediocrity of corporate structure. SLF is uniquely focused on the future of senior living and on possibilities for positive change rather than defense of the status quo. For you, the message extracted from this new book may be just the push you need.
To get benefit from it, though, substitute “talent” for the author’s preoccupation with his own chosen profession. He’s an actuary, and the book is The Independent Actuary by Syed Raza, but it’s more than that. It could be titled The Independent Thinker,” and you can read it as that. In fact, you can act on its message without reading it. If you want to read it, though, you can without cost if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited.
This article is not to hawk a book but to share organizational and personal wisdom. I include the book just to ascribe credit where it is due. You may like the regularity of a recurring paycheck effortlessly deposited into your bank account, but that comes with a high-risk exposure.
Safety in Numbers
Mr. Raza’s insight is that you can be much more secure if you have multiple employers, and that you will also gain personal growth. With several clients, instead of a single employer, you can lose a client and still have a livelihood bridge to a replacement client. The stagnation of a hierarchical corporate career can stunt your growth. To quote Mr. Raza:
“Early in your career, risk is lower, recovery is easier, and optionality is wide. Later on, though, your lifestyle locks in, your mortgage grows, your identity hardens, and fear increases. The result? The cost of waiting rises.”
The antidote to job stagnation leading to career stagnation and a lackluster work life is to break free from corporate seduction and to treat your career as your primary business challenge. In short, Mr. Raza observes that you can become a business instead of working for a business. The one choice leads to independence and income security. The other leads to dependence and stagnation.
Mr. Raza writes of how easy it is to be lured into a false contentment with an excessive workload, sacrifice of your family, etc., all in the name of carrying a corporate position. The risk of false contentment, he adds, “often goes unnoticed until something forces you to confront it, like: a layoff, a restructuring, or a desire to leave.”
To help you understand if this fits you, he asks, “Is your compensation determined by the market or by a salary band?” Good question. Are you paid what you’re worth or by HR policies?
It Just Makes Sense
The answer Mr. Raza and logic offer is to go out on your own. You can be a consultant, a freelance worker, a gig worker, or a project worker. What determines your work status for the IRS, a key determination, is primarily control. The more direction and control a business has over a worker’s schedule, methods, and equipment, the more likely that worker is an employee. It’s likely that this artificial control is exactly what is making you dissatisfied.
The challenge is to find clients. It’s best to have several clients or many. Start with where you work. Your current employer can be your first client. Never burn bridges to your employer by unloading in your departure all the injustice you may feel you experienced. If you’re leaving, you know that your employer has an opening. If the company has the flexibility to use an independent contractor to get the work done, you may be the best person for that.
The alternative to constructive leaving might be to form a union. We can put that out of our minds right at the start. Unionization immediately sets up an employee organization at odds with the employer. Better is to help conform the employer toward a better business model.
As an aside relevant to SLF readers, some residents in senior living have suggested forming consumer “unions” to bargain with providers by using the paying of fees into escrow as equivalent to a strike. Labor unions, though, are protected by law and consumer unions are not. It’s better to work with others than to foster conflict.
Beyond seeking to support the employer you are leaving, finding clients is the same as finding a new job after losing the job you’ve had. You, though, will be in an enviable position of controlling your leaving instead of being laid off or, worse, being let go for cause. The important thing is to make your availability known. You do that by publishing, posting, and networking. LinkedIn is a good place for that, and industry publications are another. Mr. Raza offers other suggestions.
It’s Less Risky Than You Imagine
My own experience, which Mr. Raza indicates is his as well, is that clients come more readily than what you fear. I remember a friend who preceded me into working independently telling me when I was first on my own, “Don’t worry about clients. Once people know you’re available, work will just come in over the transom.”
If you’re a low-level employee, start a trash management and cleaning business. If you’re midlevel, say a maintenance or enrichment director, start a related service, demonstrating how clients like your last employer can get better service at a lower cost by retaining you. You have the major advantage of being able to spread the cost of services over several clients.
It’s Not Your Fault
Finally, don’t blame yourself if your career is languishing in stagnation. You may rationalize that you deserve the treatment you’ve been enduring. You don’t. If you work in a hierarchical company, your boss may feel threatened by your know-how, competence, and pace of delivering results. You can never know when your boss may be poisoning your reputation within the company for the self-serving purpose of framing circumstances for your dismissal.
As employers move to the flexible economy, the ingenuity unleashed by moving beyond hierarchy will benefit their businesses as well. By going out on your own, you’re not being disloyal to your employer. It may start a laggard business on a new course toward greater success. If you still need encouragement, click on this sentence for an anecdote from renowned business professor Seth Godin. Take the jump, open your parachute, and land safely. If that’s too academic, click here to listen to Tom Brady.
