Generosity as a Strategy.
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Generosity as an approach to Life.
A CEO shared a story about how a poor family of immigrants stopped to help someone who had a flat tire in bad weather. After the tire was changed, the individual offered money to the family. They turned it down saying “Today it was you. Tomorrow it might be us.”
Sooner or later, everybody finds themselves needing help and depending on acts of generosity. It might be some form of aid, guidance, a person to talk to who will listen, a leg-up or sometimes gently delivered difficult to hear advice.
By being there and helping when someone is in need ensures good “Karma.”
If what goes around comes around it may make sense to send good stuff people’s way.
Generosity makes for a better life for not just the recipient but also to the giver.
Generosity as a differentiator and moat.
If strategy is future competitive advantage, generosity is smart for individual or company strategies.
Generosity builds good will which is both an asset and a moat.
It is an asset in that it can be tapped in the future.
It is a moat because when an individual or a company has been generous in times of trouble their employee or customer are less likely to switch to a different firm for a lower price or higher pay.
Generosity is also a key differentiator in that usually when a person or firm needs help there are few people willing to help someone out of power or in trouble. Those individuals and brands who do help stand out and their showing up and helping when others are not burns into the emotional and mental memory of the recipient.
Emotional connections are harder to sever or replace than financial connections.
Generosity as an emotional connector to brand building.
A story:
“Long ago, must be 30 years ago or more, I went into Tiffany’s to purchase one cufflink.
The night before I had attended a black-tie event and one cufflink must have worked itself free (it was the solid type, and was difficult to get on and off), and I lost it off my sleeve. Just wasn't there when I got home.
I said to the counter person that I just wanted to buy one cufflink to match the other one.
She left.
She returned with the typical Tiffany's blue box with the white ribbon. "Here you go...no charge," she said.
I couldn't believe it.
You must be -- at least -- the 400th person I have told this story to.”
It is the interaction, the experience and the feeling that truly resonates and builds a Brand.
These are often these are driven by surprise offerings, an over the top experience, an amazing solution to a problem.
Underlying all of these is generosity.
Generosity as Talent and Culture Strategy.
Brands today cannot succeed unless their employees are happy. It is the employees who after all provide the service to customers and clients. It is the employees who generate the ideas and solve the problems. It is often the employees who are most believed and can be the greatest ambassadors and advocates of a brand. Often employees are far more authentic ambassadors than a celebrity that companies give tens of millions too. Why not be generous in care, money, and attention to employees?
Culture is not just a place or a history but a way of being and behaving. Great cultures always have some form of generosity whether it is compensation, benefits, forgiveness of mistakes that encourage risk taking and more.
Generosity is a key to brand experiences and brand employees, but it is also a corner stone of brands purpose driven marketing. Smart companies recognize that purpose ensures not just attraction and retention of talent but also that ESG, DEI and other initiatives truly help the company economically.
Generously helping community, environment and others helps the brand.
For these among other reasons it is important to practice generosity.
Unleashed. Unfurled. Unbundled.
Art by tulika ladsariya
This is the last of a six part series of why a “company of one mindset” will be critical for career success.
The first five posts covered:
Observations.
a)We are entering a new phase of work where every job is being re-architected due to a combination of AI, changing demographics, new marketplaces, and new mindsets.
b) Knowledge is increasingly becoming free and so knowledge workers will have to change what they do and how they do it.
c) The challenges that companies face about culture post Covid are not only about the difficulty of managing people in distributed workspaces but also because in an age of “de-bossification” it is a fixed mindset of management versus a fixed location that is being rejected and therefore needs to be re-imagined. Old management styles are fading and new leadership styles are emerging.
d)Almost every middle-level to senior manager recognizes in their mind and heart that this is a time of transition in the workplace and are all looking for new signposts, new on ramps and new off ramps as they re-imagine their careers in a transformative time.
e) The future does not fit in the containers of the past and the concept of a “firm” is being re-invented.
A Mantra: Unleashed. Unfurled. Unbundled.
In a transformative age it is not companies but people who will transform first.
Waiting for others or delegating one’s future to a firm is very risky.
Every individual regardless of industry, geography, location or company size may want to embrace a mantra of “Unleashed. Unfurled. Unbundled” to quantum jump into the emerging age by letting go of anything that chains their mind and possibilities.
Imagine starting again.
Let us realize that we are unleashed from any physical location and then one decides how much physical location and personal interaction is needed to excel versus trying to figure out how much freedom one can get from five days a week in the office. The steady state is not April 2019 but April 2020.
Many books have been written about how many jobs are mostly “bullshit” and in most companies a majority of time is spent in process and human soap opera drama vs getting work done.
Much of this is going to be swept away with the efficiencies of AI. The focus will be on outcome, output, competitive advantage and each of us will need to decide what are we really good at, what are we passionate about, and what drives us to constantly learn.
A time to unfurl our real selves versus settling or flying our flags at half mast.
Mediocre or medium is what machines will eat for mulch.
As explained in the Fractionalized Employee the full time or five days a week, the full day 9 to 5 career and having one employer will be account for a minority of jobs within three years.
Better get used to thinking of ourselves as modules unbundled from any one particular company or construct but ready to plug and play and manage a portfolio of gigs.
Many of these will be in one company but they will be tasks, gigs, work to be done vs jobs to be filled.
Two Exercises.
Exercise One: If you a part of senior management in a company or run a team try this exercise.
Imagine if you could launch your firm all over again with no constraints except the law, the rules of science and the need to make money within three years or less.
How would your firm look today?
It is likely one will come up with something far smaller, far more agile, far more plug and play and far more competitive.
Something unleashed, unfurled and unbundled.
Legacy is for yesterday and while roots of a company in the form of values and provenance matter a lot the reality is that much of what constrains us are not roots but anchors. It is time to take flight and keep some roots but also find wings.
The reality is many entrepreneurs and potential competitors are already doing so and visiting your customers with their new models.
Exercise Two: Imagine we have lost our job and we need to resurrect ourselves.
What would one do?
What companies would we join? Skills we would invest in? Roles we would take? Lifestyles and geography that we would re-imagine?
Imagine the future.
And then in the next few years leveraging the reality one has a job stop imagining it and making it real.
Begin by seeing if you can sculpt, hone and architect your current job or company into the imagined company or job.
Every company, leader and talent has the potential to re-invent.
Let us do it before it is done to us.
It’s time to live the imagined life.
Before it is too late.
It is time to get Unleashed. Unfurled. Unbundled.
The Next Wave: Fractionalized Employees.
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This is the fifth in a six part series of why a “company of one mindset” will be critical for career success.
The first four posts covered:
This post makes the case that companies will embrace and encourage a Company of One Mindset because it will be critical for the future of organizational redesign.
Before explaining why this might be so there are two other questions arise which are:
a) Will companies exist?
b) Will jobs exist?
Will Companies Exist?
Companies of various sizes will continue to exist both as key drivers of economic growth and the creators of jobs.
The late Ronald Coase of the University of Chicago wrote the firm exists because external friction is greater than internal friction which means whether it is from standing behind a Brand promise, to building and bundling expertise to re-allocating capital it is easier to do it as a firm versus a swarm of individuals.
Over the past two decades much of the external friction has been reduced due to the rise of the Internet and the coming of marketplaces for talent, access to buyers and sellers of anything from computing to finance as a service.
While these changes have significantly reduced external friction it is difficult for any significant product or service from packaged foods to entertainment to pharmaceuticals to chip making to be completely virtual.
However the architecture of companies and how they attract, retain and leverage talent will continue to morph dramatically in the next few years as both capital and labor, management and worker, and employer and talent work to find a mutually profitable win-win scenario.
Keys to this will be
a) focusing on work done versus jobs to be filled.
b) embracing flexibility and rapid re-tooling versus fixed processes and existing knowledge.
Will jobs exist?
Jobs as defined by full-time jobs in companies with well defined career ladders are likely to decline significantly as companies begin to prioritize work done, up to date skills needed and flexibility in transformative times.
Next year there will be fewer full time jobs than part time jobs.
And AI might reduce the need for full-time employees as will the need to quickly ramp up and ramp down resources to changing market circumstances.
Smart companies are now considering a new type of role for the future of jobs that combine the cultural strengths and experience of full-time employees with the flexibility of dialing up or down resources and ability to access different expertise of the outsourced worker.
If the worker thinks with a Company of One mindset the company will think with a Fractionalized Employee mindset.
The Fractionalized Employee.
Today most companies combine three types of work forces.
1) A full-time employee,
2) A full time or part time contracted employee from another firm (e.g., Wipro or Cap Gemini)
3) Free-lancers (directly or via an intermediate firm)
Full-time employees are usually the backbone of any company and its culture with contracted and free-lancers being mixed in to expand expertise and manage oscillating workloads in a cost-effective manner.
We may now want to think of a fourth type of worker to reflect the forces of technology, shifting demographics and new mindsets: The Fractionalized Employee.
Imagine if one could get both the continuity and loyalty of a long-term employee with the flexibility of cost management of a part time employee and the expertise of a free-lancer and do so in a way that both grows employees and retains them in the long run.
This is the Fractionalized Employee.
Every employee in the company is given a choice to work 100%, 75% or 50% ( or some other percentages of their time.)
They get to select this at the beginning of every year or can adjust to a different level when a life event occurs (health, birth of a child, need to take care of a parent, a passion that needs to be attended to or other life issues).
No longer does an employee have to choose between staying or going or being torn trying to do two things at one time. If they wish to try out a different type of non-competitive job (starting a gaming company –assuming they are not working at a gaming company--or being an artist or writing a book) it behooves their employer from letting them do so because retaining half or three quarters of a talented person is better than zero. As importantly these external skills or vocations will make the employee better rounded and probably more productive. And there will be cost savings from both reduced compensation but also eliminating the friction and cost of severance, re-hiring, and training.
Companies can dial down many peoples jobs by 20 percent for a while versus eliminating jobs completely and losing both talent but negatively impacting culture.
The more an employee thinks with a “Company of One Mindset” the more they are aligned and in-demand and can retain their job in changing times as a “Fractionalized Employee”
And as more folks begin to think with a “Company of One Mindset” wishing to spend some of their time learning, caring for loved ones or pursuing a hobby or passion that might become a career the “Fractionalized employee” probably attract a lot of talent who may want to work a significant amount but not all the time.
Including the more seasoned who might only want to work half their time. As countries grapple with aging and declining populations this is one way to address this issue.
As importantly with a base revenue stream and health care they can decide how to use the percent of time they have bought back or own including building new skills or working as a free-lancer or expert with many new communities of talent. For many people free-lance work alone does not work either because of lack of health care, unstable income, or lack of connection to a community (though there are many new models of communities working to offset these issues).
The Fractionalized Employee model will allow companies to retain talent, grow talent, mix, and match talent in ways that are truly win-win.
The company gets access to cost effective talent and a program to differentiate and attract talent. It has a stronger culture than one with lots of people who do not leave or lots of continuous dependence on free-lancers.
Talent gets to retain income streams and benefits and continuity and community or work while balancing life challenges or other passions and interests.
The compliment to a company of one mindset by talent is a fractionalized employee approach by companies and their synergy will turbo-charge the next generation firms.
Thrills and Perils of a Company of One.
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This is the fourth in a six part series on the importance of having a “Company of One” mindset.
The first three posts covered:
These posts clearly note that one does not have to be be a company of one but rather to have the mindset to thrive even in a company of thousands.
This post shares some key learnings if and when someone decides to go solo or create a side-hustle or side-gig.
Image by akiller_ratfink using Mid-Journey
It has never been easier to launch a company of one.
67 percent of Gen-Z who have a full time job have a side gig or side hustle and within two years more people will work solo than in a company in the US.
Four factors feed this trend:
a) Unbundled and Distributed Work: The future of work for most white collar workers will be a combination of going into the office and working from anywhere with most companies eventually settling into 2 or 3 days in the office. This creates significant opportunity to pursue a second career.
b) Marketplaces: Whether it be Shopify or Etsy or Substack or You-Tube there are deep marketplaces that can support the individual by helping one create, partner, manage and generate revenue working by oneself because it is so easy to plug and play with buyers, suppliers, partners and resources.
c) Technology: AI will benefit individuals as much if not more than companies. Companies are under the mistaken belief that they will capture most of the productivity and efficiency increases brought about by AI. If one steps out of the Boardroom the conversations are very different among those who are now leveraging these tools. While AI will definitely increase productivity at companies it will significantly benefit individuals and smaller companies.
For about 100 dollars a month most individuals can have better and more updated technology than any company because of the declining cost of AI and the rate of change of technology. Most companies tech tend to be six months to a year behind the state of art that the individual can access. And the technology individuals use tend to be twice as good given the leapfrog in capabilities.
For instance most companies try to select a key partner for most technology but an individual can access state of the art from Google, Microsoft, Open AI, Mistral, Anthropic, Adobe, Eleven Labs, Runway ML for less than 20 dollars a month each with no muss or fuss. We can access huge bodies of knowledge which were usually only accessible by world class consulting companies for free or close to free.
If technology is a slingshot that enables David to play at the level of Goliath, AI turbocharges the slingshot into a cross-bow.
d) Accessible and Low Cost Infrastructure: It has never been easier to create a LLC ( a limited liability company) and set up a financial structure and basic legal frameworks. In most cases an investment of $500 to $1000 and two weeks of time is all one needs to launch oneself. The same platforms a huge company uses such as Meta or Google or Amazon or Tik-Tok is available to a company of one through their self serve models.
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The downsides of being solo or small.
Running a company of one alongside your existing job has limited risks as long as one does so with integrity (not competing with ones main job ) and without losing focus ( if one does not deliver on one’s main job one could lose it) .
Deciding to focus primarily on one’s entrepreneurial vision means being exposed to five significant risks.
1. Loss of identity: Many people’s identity are intertwined with their position and the reputation of their company.
2. Loss of community: Colleagues and supplier and partners are significant part of most peoples community and these tend to diminish quickly if one is solo.
3. Loss of benefits: The single biggest benefit loss in the US is that of health care which continues to be tightly intertwined with workplace though the Affordable Care Act and other new resources has alleviated this to a degree.
4. Uncertainty of Income: Not only does one lose income from a job but also the regular frequency of funds entering ones bank account. As a company of one income is highly variable from month to month while expenses tend to be fixed.
5. No cruise control mode: When one is working in a large company one can from time to time slack off due to health or stress or other reasons but clients and other people do not see the impact of this because other people are also working on the project. When one is on one’s own if one does not ship or deliver there is no product or service to sell. One cannot hide in a crowd.
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Ways to mitigate the challenge of a Company of One.
The best way to mitigate the challenge of a Company of One is launch it while you have a full time job and/or find ways to remain connected to the company you are leaving in a part time or advisor role if possible.
This solves for loss of identity, community, some loss of benefits and income.
For most people this is not possible today but my research for my next books suggests within three to five years most companies will offer fractionalized employment (half time or more work with full health care benefits and pro-rated equity and bonuses) because of aging and declining populations, the productivity of AI and the need to cost effectively and flexibly access a range of talents.
In the meanwhile here are five ways to minimize the perils:
1. Minimize Costs: There is no reason to spend money on office space or executive assistants or people to help you send out invoices and manage cash flow. Status does not pay the bills. It creates them. Its down and dirty time. The cost of a company of one should be just one individual. Minimizing costs provide a massive amount of optionality and runway.
2. Be Easy to Buy and Try: This is not the time to be very precious about who we work with, how much we charge or what needs to be done. Avoid insisting on minimum contract sizes, cancellation fees, advanced payments or anything that causes friction. First get bought to be sampled. Then the rest happens easily if one does a great job. Solo or small teams live and die on word of mouth so getting trial and over delivering builds a sustained business.
3. Partner Aggressively: Because one is a company of one does not mean one has to work solo. Find ways to plug into larger companies but also partner with other entrepreneurs where your skills can enhance, complement or become part of their full-service offerings. It is remarkable how many people support a company of one if one reaches out.
4. Maximize Optionality: Try to have as many different revenue streams from as many different companies or different services as you can. This enables that cash flow while wavering never goes to zero and no single client or couple of clients or jobs drive your mood and end up controlling you. Being a company of one working for just one or two people is not truly empowering. Get to a place where one can walk away from any job at any time. This way one is likely to persevere because one is not cornered or dependent.
5. Create and maintain a Reputation for Excellence: When we are a company of one we do not have the great halo of a company we may be working for. People are buying us and not a firm. This requires a reputation for excellence and delivery of excellence. Importantly one also has to invest to stay at the state of the art. At least a quarter of one’s time ends up in learning and building new skills to remain relevant and supporting one’s reputation through helping others, networking and creating a marketing presence. It is no longer about just doing great work but investing in making sure that one is capable of doing great work and people know about the great work.
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The Thrills of Company of One
While there are big risks to a Company of One and it requires significant sacrifices it does lead to four amazing benefits:
1. Control over the product and service: No longer do we have to apologize for something that went wrong in our firm that was done by someone else or struggle to fix the situation. The product and service and buck stops with one person.
2. Unleashed Freedom: Once the business begins to have momentum we can decide who we work with, what work we do and when we do it. If success is freedom to spend time in ways that gives us joy this is far more possible without the drama of bosses and P&L pressures, or clients who can control us or fussy talent that sometimes require the maintenance of high priced orchids.
3. Confidence: Talent is deep everywhere but often talent is made to feel uncertain and insecure. If one succeeds on one’s own it really buttresses ones confidence. In fact often people leave a large company and start their own business and after some success return to a corporation with far more skills and confidence than ever before. Companies will increasing look for people who have shown their ability to have built and enhanced their capabilities in new ways.
4. Future Aligned: By 2026 more people will be working for themselves in many countries then for a company. Changing demographics, completely new mindsets about life/work and amazing technology will turbo-charge smaller companies and companies of one. While there will continue to be many large companies and amazing careers at them, the container of the future of a company will be smaller, faster, more agile and more plug and play.
There will fewer whales (many of them will be slimmed down) and much more plankton.
Being a company of one is not for many people for the reasons shared above but a company of one mindset is something we should all embrace especially if we are mid level or senior in a company because the job disruptions are coming for us first as new era calls for new mindsets and the value of stores of knowledge and many forms of expertise become commodified.
For many people is time to unlearn. To unleash. To unfurl our flags.
Feel the future.
Chase it.
Future Proofing Careers.
Photography by Michael Clark
This is the third in a series of why adopting “A Company of One Mindset” can help every individual thrive irrespective of the size of company, location or type of industry one works in.
When one adopts “ A Company of One Mindset” it means incorporating three behaviors which include:
a) Being in charge of your own career by being your own Human Resources and Learning and Development Manager ( in addition to any your company provides.)
b) Building a reputation for GENEROSITY internally and externally that signals expertise, depth of relevant skills and ability to work well with others and most importantly as someone who helps others get ahead versus just being focussed on oneself.
c) Investing in 3 key skills that will continue to matter regardless and in spite of what the next generation of technologies or global shocks might bring.
By being a company of one and focussing on controlling your own career, building a world class reputation buttressed by generosity and honing the skills that will endure regardless of technological upheaval ensures that you will future proof your career.
Photography by Michael Clark
Being in Charge of Our Own Career.
Today most people will work for 50 years while most companies last fewer than fifteen.
Even if your company has been around for a hundred years the talent team in any company is focussed on serving the company you work for first versus you. They need to hire to their strategy, retain talent in some areas and exit talent in others, invest in skills the company needs now and for the future which might be not consistent with your career strategy, your continued need for income and different than the skills you need for now and the future.
Human Resource and Learning and Development teams are critical and important and can be a huge benefit to everyone but the individual must decide how to utilize, leverage and strategically incorporate the resources of these teams.
Too many people end up not being prepared when their company downsizes or their career stalls and they find that they do not have the skills that make them marketable and their reputation and network is deeply limited and often over indexing in their own industry which might be in secular decline.
Do not out source your future to your company.
To be in charge of your own career is to have the optionality of leaving your existing company at any time with a high likelihood of improving your position and income.
Paradoxically when you do this you can focus on your job, stay long in your company and even adapt to soap opera drama at work because you know you have options.
And your company by knowing that will also treat you well.
Photography by Michael Clark
Build a Personal Reputation while helping others generously .
a) Every individual should Google or ChatGPT themselves )and work to improve the results by developing their own web presence, by being active on social channels, and participate in industry activities ( Many industry events from Cannes to CES to Davos double as networking and personal brand positioning events as much as generating leads and connecting with Clients.)
b) Ask people who lost jobs what they learned and did to get their new job. You are likely to learn that :
1) being good to people who need help when we had a job will help us when we are in need
2) we should not make the mistake of conflating our company and position with our own reputation. People are genuflecting to our role not us , so we need to build our own expertise and brand in addition to the halo of our company.
3) If one focuses only on oneself without building one’s company’s brand or helping others build theirs it will backfire. We work for companies and if we do not keep them in focus they will note it. And our reputation is built on the quality of our work and relationships not just our postings.
c) Begin another career while you are working on an existing career: There are many parallel careers one can run which are not in anyway conflicted with or need to be hidden from your management.
These include writing, teaching, public speaking, advising non-profits or being active in industry or personal passion boards such as art, music and other civil or charitable events.
These help one build skills, create goodwill by helping others and giving back, expose oneself to new people and thinking which can help one’s current job and much more.
Do the things you would do if one lost a job and had to find one.
Don’t wait.
Till it is too late.
Photography by Michael Clark
Investing in three key skills.
Five major forces from technology to demographic change to the launch of marketplaces to the rewiring of work due to Covid and the rise of an economy of gig work will impact every job. Just one component of one of these areas, technology, which is AI is likely to impact all our jobs significantly in less than three years.
Regardless of what the future will bring including amazing AI here are key skills to future proof ourselves
a) Communication Skills: Get our company to or invest ourselves in building our writing and speaking skills. We will need to be great writers to differentiate from the adequate writing of AI and when everybody has the same knowledge due to AI our ability to take this knowledge and data and add something more to what the machine emits will be key. Forget learning Mandarin or Coding learn how to hone writing skills and become a great presenter in one’s native language. If the future is AI +HI a big part of HI will be world class communication skills. It can be learned and it will make a difference.
b) Making/Creating/Imagining/Building: Sooner rather than later all knowledge will be free so much of our existing expertise will matter less. Also anything that has to do with allocating, compiling, researching , measuring and computing will be be done 100 X faster and 10X cheaper by technology.
So we should ask how much of our time are we spending making and creating things or asking questions to re-imagine our business and ourselves or building other people or our Clients business versus processing stuff and sitting in meetings watching the same powerpoint updated with new numbers every month!
c) Continuous Re-Invention: The day one believes one is a Master is the day one begins the road to disaster.
A key skill will not just be learning constantly but also unlearning and detaching from some past ways or beliefs. There is no going back but only moving ahead and if you came out of school today would we act and behave the way we do or are we doing what we do because we believe 1)) we will retire before change hits us, 2))we cannot learn new things because they are complicated or 3)) because we do not have time.
We should not sell ourselves short.
Everybody regardless of age can re-invent. The ability to learn is cheap and there are many real world and online resources to tap.
Finally growth and learning is key to life since the day we stop learning is the day we start dying.
Unless we plan to end our career in a year or less we will have to begin future proofing right away whether we like it or not.