Self-driving people
Photo by Ivan Ragozin on Unsplash
There shall be only one tai-pan at one time and he hath total, absolute authority over the Company, power to employ or remove from employment all others, authority over all our captains and our ships and companies wherever they may be. The tai-pan is always alone, that being the joy and the hurt of it.
—James Clavell, “Noble House”
Are you woken every morning in a luxurious four-poster bed, by a butler bearing a huge bag of gold? If not, Master of Your Domain is the book for you, and here’s a sneak preview of the first chapter.
So, if you’re still reading, you’re apparently not lucky enough to just have money come to you by the sackful. Most of us, indeed, or at least those of us without butlers, have to make a living for ourselves one way or another.
When asked, most people would prefer to work for themselves, but in practice, they don’t. So why not? If we all want independence, autonomy, and freedom, what’s stopping us? Why are we all letting other people tell us what to do?
Well, it’s probably because it’s just easier. Becoming an employee is the path of least resistance, and unless we take some kind of radical action, most of us are likely to remain someone else’s employee for the rest of our lives.
If you’re okay with that, fine, but if you dream of one day achieving independence, keep reading.
There shall be only one
There’s a certain type of person who likes to run their own affairs. Perhaps you know this person. Maybe you are this person.
A person like this doesn’t care to be told what to do by someone else. It’s not so much that they want to tell others what to do, necessarily, just that they like making their own decisions and carrying them out.
They like to rely on themselves, and they enjoy being equal to any situation. In a crisis, they’re the kind of person that others turn to for calm and reassurance, as well as practical help. They’re not reckless, but they’re willing to take a risk. And when others waver and hesitate, a tai-pan (Chinese for “supreme boss”) can make a tough decision and live with the outcome, good or bad.
People like this tend to thrive in less structured environments, where they have autonomy and freedom of action. On the other hand, they often struggle in rigid, hierarchical organisations, where decisions tend to be made by the most senior people, rather than the most competent.
Independent-minded people often do their own work very well, but find collaboration with others more challenging. They tend to be focused on facts, not feelings: what’s best for the project, not what makes other people feel good about themselves.
Hitting the roof
Such people often reach a ceiling in any organisation where their impatience with politics and power games blocks them from rising any higher. They’re primarily motivated by wanting to do good work and get things done, not by having a fancy title and a coveted parking space.
The paradox, then, is that the very people who would make the best and most effective leaders tend to get stuck somewhere around the middle of the hierarchy. They reach a point where being good at their job ceases to be an asset and becomes a liability, because it embarrasses the less capable people above them.
Being stuck in a job you no longer enjoy and where your efforts aren’t rewarded is a pretty miserable position. I’ve been there, and I dare say you have, too.
Now, take this rather unpleasant-sounding cocktail and add a generous dash of stress, insecurity, and worry, thanks to the constant threat of layoffs, a volatile industry, and an unrelentingly grim job market. Garnish with an increasingly ridiculous and unsustainable hiring and interview process, and serve with a side order of time pressure and low salaries for those few who do make it through all the hoops.
Not an appetising prospect, I think you’ll agree. Given all this, who’d want to be an employee? And even if it’s an acceptable option at the moment, there will come a time when you’ll start to look around for alternatives.
If you want to make your own decisions at work, rely on yourself, keep all the rewards, and take responsibility for the failures, then your career should be leading to some kind of independence. But what kinds of independent working are realistically an option, and which is right for you? Also, how do you make the leap from employment to independence and, importantly, when should you make that leap?
Is independence for you?
The first thing to say is that, attractive as it may sound, independent working is not for everyone. Many people appreciate structure and guidance in their work, and they don’t necessarily want to take on all the other stuff that’s involved in running a business: accounts, marketing, sales, and so on.
For some people I know, work isn’t the central feature of their lives. It’s just something they do for part of the day, and they’re not really interested in thinking too much about it. They’re not on a lifelong journey of craft mastery, they don’t chafe at sitting in boring status meetings every week, and they don’t mind that a lot of what they do is, objectively, pointless.
They don’t get into arguments with their co-workers over the right way to do things, because fundamentally they don’t particularly care whether things are done right or not. It’s not their company, they probably don’t own stock, and they’ll get paid the same whether the products are any good or not.
All they want from a career is to turn up at a certain time every day, be told what to do, and execute those tasks to the minimum standard necessary to avoid being fired. Cool. If you’re happy phoning it in for the rest of your career, that’s totally okay. Independent working is probably not the right choice for you.
Running your own business certainly is not, since you’ll be working harder and earning less than at practically any other job you could be doing. And a lot of the work will be things you’re not interested in and probably aren’t very good at yet, especially if you haven’t run a business before.
You’ll need certain qualities to succeed at independent working. You’ll have to be disciplined enough to master your craft, dedicated enough to pursue it alone, and determined enough to stick it out when the going gets tough.
It’s risky, too. Success is not guaranteed, and while total failure is unlikely, it may take time to build up your business to the point where it can sustain you by itself. Some people can’t or won’t wait long enough for this to happen, and end up going back—or being forced back by circumstances—to salaried work.
Setting sail for the future
So, fair warning. It’s only worth pursuing an independent career path if that’s something you really want, and even if it is, I’m not promising that it’ll make you rich. Probably the reverse. For all the billionaire startup founders we read about, I can introduce you to dozens of people who, as a result of starting their own business, are the poorest they’ve ever been.
But also in many cases the happiest, because they have a freedom that most people don’t get to experience in their work. Undocking from the mothership and sailing your own course is exciting, challenging, transformative, all-consuming. It will give you skills and self-confidence that you can only get from living by your wits.
When you run your own firm, you’ll do only the work you want to do. You’ll set your own hours, decide your own way of working, and answer to no one. The outcome of your work will be directly correlated with the time, energy, and skill that you put into it: the harder you work, the more the rewards.
You’ll never again have to do another job application, interview, phone screen, or take-home test. No more commuting, time-wasting meetings, one-to-ones, performance reviews, or perfunctory training courses.
You will no longer serve at the fickle pleasure of far-off managers; you won’t fear reorganisations, layoffs, or acquisitions. You can take as much vacation as you choose, or can afford. You can’t be put on a performance improvement plan, you can’t be stack ranked, and you can’t be fired.
So, even with all the caveats we’ve talked about, independent working is perfect for those with the tai-pan gene, who want to succeed on their own terms and by their own efforts.
From the moment you declare independence, the future is in your hands. The countdown starts now.
In the next post, we’ll talk about how to prepare for your self-driving future, and what you can do today to stack the odds of success as much as possible in your favour. Meet you there!
