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Need work? Trying making your own.
London Business School founder and Claremont Graduate University's Drucker School of Business Professor, Charles Handy.
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[This commentary originally aired on Marketplace, Nov. 6, 2009]
TEXT OF COMMENTARY
TESS VIGELAND: I know some of you will not agree with my assessment that if you still have a job in this economy you might want to put complaints about your work load on hold.
But here's another option: Find a way to work for yourself.
Commentator Charles Handy says we need to start thinking about jobs in a whole new light.
Charles Handy: Let's be realistic -- jobs are going to be in short supply for the next few years. Of course, it does depend on what you mean by a job.
The other day, I was having lunch with an advertising executive. He was bemoaning the fact that he had lost his job while still at the height of his powers, as he saw it. Just at that moment, the electrician who was working in his house put his head around the door. "I won't be back for a couple of days," he said. "I've got another job to fit in." In his world, a job meant a client; in my friend's world, it meant an employer.
There's no obvious limit to the number of electrician-type jobs that can exist. Or plumbers. Or accountants. The world is full of potential clients -- for something. The problem is that you have to create the something yourself, and most of us are not born entrepreneurs. Particularly if we have grown up and even grown old in institutions, moving from school to college to organization, places where work was shoved at you, yours only to pick up your shovel or pen and deal with it.
It's best to practice it young if you can. I said to my kids, "When you leave college don't get a job at first. Find someone who will pay you money for something you make or do for them. It will be good practice for life later on." But it's never too late to start, and more of us will have to, one day, now that life is longer and organizations much slimmer.
I did it. I became fed up with organizations -- grew out of them really -- and went on my own when I was 49. Cold-calling potential clients, learning to live a cash-flow life after a salaried one. It was hard at first. But I learnt to love the freedom, and the joy of working with people rather than for people. Besides, if you are your own boss, it's up to you how hard you work, or where, or when, or why.
Vigeland: Management consultant Charles Handy is a founder of the London Business School. His most recent book is called "Myself, and Other More Important Matters."
There are millions of people of all ages and from every corner of the USA who have chosen to work their passion and "life purpose" as entrepreneurs (I call them "ecopreneurs" since most also care for their community and the planet as a part of how they operate their enterprise; see: ecopreneuring.biz). These ecopreneurs freelance, operate bed & breakfasts (like my wife and I do at Inn Serendipity) or make useful things -- by hand, not in a factory. Many work from a home office. What Mr. Handy talks about is the emerging realization of a style of entrepreneurship: lifestyle entrepreneurship. A growing body of research suggests that only a minority of entrepreneurs strive to create an enterprise that might turn into the next Microsoft or Apple. Many entrepreneurs have created a wonderful life that prioritizes freedom, flexibility, quality of life and a sane approach to business that yields time for family, friends and, even, three meals a day.
I listened to the show while returning from our "corporate retreat" to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (for time hiking while brainstorming our strategic plan for our diversified business). America IS one of the best countries in the world for business (of any size). If only our culture respected more the butcher, baker and candlestick maker.
My wife listened to this article while I was on the road (managing my own business), and e-mailed the link to me. I have been self-employed for nearly 25 years, after abruptly leaving a medical career to become an artist. I was young, foolish, and absolutely on the right track. I am one of only a handful of my contemporaries who is truly happy with his career decision. (And I consider myself one of the "Normal" denizens of the nation's heartland.)
"Besides, if you are your own boss, it's up to you how hard you work, or where, or when, or why."
This sounds appealing, but it doesn't square with my experience. When I was self-employed (and single) I was certainly the one who made the decisions about my work, and it's true that I really didn't have to work... unless I wanted to eat.
Your surveys seem to contact people on the East or West coasts, try surveying the NORMAL people in the Midwest for reactions. They may be able to give you a better/normal perspective of how things really are, Unemployment, Health Care Insurance, people that live on less than $200,000.00/yr., government backed subsidies,Politicians that DO NOT GET THE MESSAGE-"less government in our lives".
