Category: Career in the Collaborative Age

How You Should See Your Work As Your Craft

Robin Sharma writes “See your work as your craft. Sweat the tiniest of details and push yourself to produce outright magic. For there your greatness lives.”

This excellent quote reminds us that we need to make sure that we put our entire attention and intent in whatever we produce, every day.

That it is important to be attentive to details and try to improve our production every time so that it really becomes a craft that distinguishes us. A craft that satisfies us and contents us.

A craft that makes us great.

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How Startup Founders Should Not Work for Free

In his post ‘Pervasive Startup Myth: Don’t Work for Free’, Tim Berry explains why investors are generally not impressed by start-up founders working for free: “Investors want people committed to working their startups, and that usually takes getting them paid“.

From my perspective and experience, there are lots of good reasons for not working for free and a few caveats:

  • working for free or cheap will not demonstrate if your business model really works at the normal price it should command, and the market price of the contributors,
  • working for free or cheap does not favorably reflect on the value you provide to the client,
  • entrepreneurs still have to provide for their family, and even if their significant other can compensate for a while, it is not a sustainable proposition.

There are a few caveats from my experience and practice though:

  • In my companies we do account for what the founders or partners should get paid but we may postpone payment of part of it to protect cash flow, which is what really counts in startups growing rapidly (fixed salary would be typically be quite low, and ‘bonuses’ paid when cash flow is good),
  • There are instances where working cheap to establish oneself in a new market might be a conscious choice. It comes with the difficulty of raising prices later, so should rather be presented as a special discount against a normal price rather than a low price,
  • Sometimes working for a low price but being compensated on knowledge and exposure might be a good deal, but it needs to be strictly limited in time.

So, stop working for free when you deliver value to your clients: stop devaluating yourselves!

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How To Do Your Best and then Let Go

Robin Sharma writes “Do your best then let go—and let life do the rest“. This strikes a chord with me as I have notoriously difficulties to let go after I have done my best.

I struggle mainly on two issues.

First, there is always this difficulty of knowing how much doing your best is really doing your best. There is always the risk of stopping too early, and not really doing anything remarkable; and there is the risk of spending too much time and effort to optimise the last bit, which is not really effective. Where should we stop ‘making our best’?

Second, I have difficulties being patient and letting go, waiting for the world to notice and to respond. Generally the response is good, but how much effort should be made in broadcasting our work, showing how we have made our best?

For the first aspect – where should we stop- it is probably a question of experience and knowing what the average person delivers in this context. On the second aspect – how to let go, well, I have to learn to be patient and reap better what the world returns.

What about you? How good are you at deciding when you have done your best and then letting go?

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How Life Replies to the Quality of Your Character

Robin Sharma writes “Life replies to the quality of your character. As you rise, everything ascends with you“.

I like this quote because it reminds us that what happens to us in great part depends on us and how we can elevate our character.

It also reminds us how important it is to improve the quality of our character as we advance through life. This happens through lessons learnt and sheet contemplation of our human condition.

It might be important to concentrate more on elevating our character, focusing on how we could have responded differently to certain situations. In any case that’s something I am striving to achieve.

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Why You Need to Keep Flexible Time in Your Calendar

In large organisations I often find people who have an overflowing, busy schedule. It’s not possible to get any slot in the next 3 months. How can that be? In his post ‘managerial anorexia‘ (in French) Robert Branche explains how that is madness, and even more in our increasingly complex world.

In this situation, what happens when there is a delay, and unexpected event, a new priority to be implemented? How can new ways of working and innovation develop when there is no unassigned time available ?

When can people take quality time to think, develop strategies, respond instead of reacting?

Adaptability and responsiveness when facing the unknown requires availability and flexible time. It requires energy reserves.

Bottom line: I need to get better at preserving free slots in my calendar, as do many people I know in particular in high stakes positions in large organisations. And that really means booking free time from now on! When do you start as well?

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How Emotional Labor Unfortunately Became a Gender-Orientated Concept

I am personally using the term ’emotional labor’ to designate part of my activity when it comes to dealing with other people emotions, in coaching or consulting or private life. I was struck to find that at least in the US it appears that this expression has now taken a gender inequality meaning.

This Quartz post ‘The men’s guide to understanding emotional labor‘ explains this approach and the evolution of the meaning of this term over the years.

I do not understand why emotional labor is gender orientated. It means working on one own’s emotions to deal with other’s emotions. As a man, I am doing some of this work and I can identify those moments where I do this work. I do recognise that it is an essential part of my professional work even in consulting. People are more or less good at emotional labor irrespective of gender. Emotional labor is available to all of us.

In the future I will continue to use the term ’emotional labor’ as a gender-neutral concept to designate an essential skill of professional and KEENs.

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How Manufacturing Jobs Won’t Come Back, and We’d Better Look into Collaborative Age Occupations

There is an increasing number of papers, particularly in the US, on the fact that developed countries lose manufacturing jobs due to globalisation and trade rather than automation, such as this Quartz paper ‘The epic mistake about manufacturing that’s cost Americans millions of jobs‘. This is particularly trendy, of course, in view of the need to justify Donald Trump stance on the need for protectionism.

My view is that those papers raise an obsolete debate. They are missing the most important point: the economy transforms and the future is not in manufacturing jobs. We’ll never get them back. What’s the point in wishing those jobs to return? Of course in the previous century those were high value added, safe jobs for the middle class. But in the Collaborative Age, manufacturing jobs will become like what farm jobs have become in the Industrial Age: low value jobs.

The economy is changing, fast, and it might look like a “manufacturing job implosion” like the paper says. And this is certainly dramatic for many people. But those jobs won’t come back, even with some backward policies around protectionism. Their value is evaporating. Governments should better help people find new, high value added occupations into the Collaborative Age.

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How Your Business Needs to Become Your Mission

Robin Sharma writes “until your business becomes your mission, your business will never become a movement“.

This statement is interesting and inspiring because it puts back on the table the question of why we are entrepreneurs. Why are we giving so much of our time and attention to our entrepreneurial endeavor?

We are doing it because we have an internal impetus to give out our energy to something we believe in, a mission we believe will improve something in the world around us. And because we are doing this sacrifice, it has to be for something we believe in.

If the mission is really useful for people out there, then yes, maybe it will also become a movement. But first, let’s work to realise our mission.

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How to Deal With Rejection-Prone Processes

In his post ‘Effort in the face of near-certain rejection‘, Seth Godin shows that there are two fundamental strategies to deal with processes that involve rejection (such as for example, submitting resumes, book drafts, commercial proposals…).

  • The first approach is statistical: go for volume, there will be some acceptance along the way;
  • the second approach is to invest in the relationships; instead of volume, go for quality and emotional connection.

The second approach is harder, requires emotional work, but probably more effective on the long term. And by using the first approach you are more likely to disrupt people and create bad feelings. Finally it may not take more time to apply the second approach either.

“The thing is, people can tell. And they’re significantly more likely to give you an interview, make a donation, answer your question or do that other thing you’re hoping for if you’ve signalled that you’re actually a caring, focused, generous human.”

So, let’s try to create connections instead of sending our resume or our book draft blindly expecting someone to respond positively!

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How We Constantly Underestimate the Role of Luck in Our Lives

Another demonstration of the decisive role of luck in our lives is given in this excellent article from the MIT: ‘If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance‘. The initial research question is quite interesting: since capabilities like intelligence are spread according to a normal distribution, and so is work time capability, how come wealth is spread like a power curve?

A computer model has been setup that accurately predicts this effect. “The results are something of an eye-opener. Their simulations accurately reproduce the wealth distribution in the real world. But the wealthiest individuals are not the most talented (although they must have a certain level of talent). They are the luckiest. And this has significant implications for the way societies can optimize the returns they get for investments in everything from business to science.”

The model is then extended to determine what are the best strategies for spreading support for e.g. research funds for researchers. The model shows some counter-intuitive results: since past success is not predictive for future success and mostly caused by luck, spreading funds equally between all is the most effective strategy. But that’s clearly not what happens in life where successful people tend to get more.

Work out to be more lucky!

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How the End of the Dilberts is coming

This is a striking expression from the head of the Bank of England, as reported by Bloomberg. He even mentions “the Massacre of the Dilberts“, meaning that many bureaucratic intermediate positions will be uprooted by the technology revolution.

Is bureaucracy going to disappear in the Collaborative Age? Probably not quite. Although it was a form of organisation made to manage large quantities of information at a time where there were no computers, bureaucracy will probably still exist even if many basic tasks will be carried out by computers and AI. Nevertheless, there is a question mark as to the many people currently employed by bureaucraties in intermediate jobs that may lose their job with the technology revolution. It may be that the issue would be even more acute in banks and in the finance industry, traditionally large bureaucraties.

The traditional office worker of the 20th century will have to re-invent himself or herself. On particular important job will be to deal with those cases which will be poorly treated by automated programs. But in general, middle-level jobs may disappear in proportion compared to low-level and higher-level jobs, causing a deep change in our societies.

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How Avoiding Failure is Much Easier Than Trying to be Successful

I found this sentence deep in a post by Valeria Maltoni, in a quote: “Avoiding failure is a heck of a lot easier than trying to be successful“. That’s quite a powerful and far-ranging statement! And the more I consider it the more powerful I find it.

People that seek to avoid failure at all cost won’t progress in life. It is only by embracing failure as a by-product of trying new things that progress can be achieved on a personal and professional level.

And there are quite many people that avoid failure as a way of life, embracing what appears to be the surest way in terms of employment of personal life.

Trying to be successful entails failure, and many failures. It is not a wish; in action this means getting a lot of hits.

Failure is messy, sometimes bloody. However it is the way to grow. Which one do you choose?

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