The Employee Is Dead
Employees vs. Co-Creators

A father’s well meant advise to his children not too long ago sounded somewhat like this:

‘Get a good education, graduate with decent grades and find a good employer. If you don’t rock the boat too much and are diligent at your job your loyalty shall be rewarded with promotions and, more importantly, with a steady income’

This paradigm is still very much in evidence across large swathes of businesses. A re-active, you-tell-me-what-to-do employee mindset that abdicates responsibility and creativity in exchange for a stable income.

The time for this way of living has come and gone. The new reality will be owned by individuals who see themselves as ‘one-man-consultant’ operations who rent their time and knowledge to other operations in order to achieve specific targets: the Co-Creator.

Categories like ‘loyalty’ and ‘hard work’ if unaided by inventiveness, contribution and co-creation are losing their shine faster than a new dime in the salty water of the Pacific Ocean.

Simply put: if you do not have new ideas to contribute you are virtually useless to a company…. You are just another mouth to feed (also known as headcount… can you hear the bleating of the sheep?)

The Big Hurdle – Is Anyone Listening?

The biggest hurdle is not that people may have nothing to contribute. It’s the fear of their ideas not being heard (or outright ignored) that has many a team member keeping their mouth shut.

This is the main culture challenge for old/established organizations: how do we open our cultures, become transparent and not merely pay lip service to the top management’s exhortations about being open and creative from the bottom up.

Bring On Jeremy Sevush

Never heard the name? Perk up your ears, Jeremy is the sign of things to come for companies who will make a difference.

Best Buy is a household name in the USA for price conscious electronics buyers. What started as a powerful idea (go into critical mass bulk business and offer the best price in town) ran it’s course, ending up in an ever downward pointing spiral. Cheap begat cheaper and this begat dwindling bottom lines.

It was time for a change.

This is when Best Buy did something very clever. It tapped into the very people who were the nexus between the company and the consumer: the everyday Joes who worked the floors of their mega-shops. Normal people who understood the company and at the same time lived the lives of the people who would actually consume the products the sold.

Best Buy took a few of their best & brightest younger floor and outlet managers, locked them up in 4 teams for 10 weeks with 1 mission: think of a viable business model that can be implemented in a short time.

The result was Studio D. A design and shopping concept focusing on women, allowing them to design the home of their dreams… all ideated by Jeremy Sevush, who is now the boss of this new organization1

Create The Unasked For Presentation

Don’t wait for your company to lock you up at an internal Big Brother think tank party. Take that idea you have been having for a long time. Manifest it into a tightly focused powerpoint presentation, create your own business case and send it to the top management. Yes, I said: top management. Don’t waste your time slashing your way through the middle management BS jungle.

No Idea How To Start? – Here Is A Hint

Of course you may be all excited about the idea of finally uncorking all that know-how you have and gelling it into a tangible presentation that will impress top management. But how to start? When was the last time you wrote a pitch… ? Possibly never…

Here is a hint: the internet is full of free resources. Type in ‘business case’, ‘power point presentation’, etc and you will find other people’s materials, use their formats as templates, it will give you great ideas on how to make your content palatable and understand which are the key questions you need to answer.

What If They Don’t Listen?

There are 2 reasons why people will not listen:

a)     Your idea missed the point. So what, we all learn from mistakes. Have the guts to invite the top manager who rejected the idea for coffee and ask him/her precisely what was off with the idea. Thus will achieve two great things: you will learn a lot from a good corporate leader and you will become very visible to this leader. Leaders are always on the lookout for innovative thinkers… even if they make some mistakes.

b)    The management missed the point. After interviewing the manager in question over a cuppa you realize that he/she lives behind the times and has not caught up with current realities. Well then there is only one thing to do, escalate your ideas to the top of the mountain and if the old man with the white beard in the Mahogany paneled room also doesn’t want to listen to what you have to say it’s time to vote with your feet. Take your box of tricks to someone who will want to listen.

As we said last time, don’t wait for permission to be brilliant and cooperative to be granted. Winners give themselves permission.

Waiting For Permission…..
Until You Die

Most people tiptoe through life to arrive safely at death’s door! As I look around me in every session, talk and workshop I am always struck by the sheer amount of people who are living unfulfilled destinies. Human beings who act like automatons: they wear the ‘right clothes’, talk the ‘right talk’, go to the ‘right job’ and yet never reach the pinnacle of what the universe had sent them to this planet to achieve. They are just play-acting at wanting their job, at wanting to serve client, at wanting to have their careers…

They tiptoe from their mortgage-financed condo in their credit-card-bought designer outfits into their bank-financed car to arrive safely to their workplace where they plug straight into the ‘right mindset’: they check the ‘weather report” (how’s the boss today) and launch into politically correct ‘corporate speak’.

The Simple Question
If you’d stop most any of these corporate illusionists who live a life by proxy and ask them: “Tell me George, what is it that you’d really want to be doing?” the answers would startle you: “If I only could, I would become an orchid farmer!” he would whisper conspiratorially into your ear while furtively checking all around if his innermost secret had been exposed to too many people.

If you now ask George in a loud, clear voice: “SO, WHAT’S KEEPING YOU FROM FOLLOWING YOUR DREAM AND BECOMING AN ORCHID FARMER!” something amazing will happen!
George, in his smart, starched shirt and the impeccably pressed trousers will change color and shape in the most staggering ways, turning from a deathly white to a deep purple that finally fades into an ever so pleasant mauve, while his body deflates, his shoulders sag and he slinks out of your presence at the speed of light.

What Happened?
Simple, really… what happened is that your brought George face to face with his true desires vs his current reality. The current reality is one of dissimulation, of hiding his true desires to pay the bills on time, to keep the illusion alive that his life is peachy in the glitzy condo and in the shiny car when he actually, truly, deeply knows that he is in the wrong place and job to fulfill his innermost wishes and dreams: to fulfill his true destiny.

By asking this simple question you have just revealed to George that he may be living a lie. That he is playing it safe, that if he just doesn’t rock the corporate boat he may slip through his life and be able to pay off his condo and car(s) before they slam the lid of the pine box shut on him.

Permission Is Not Given By Anyone But YOU!
The reason why millions of people never get to live their true inner dream is that society at large takes a big branding iron and puts a searing hot mark on our brains:

Who are you to decide anything!? You are here to wait for instructions, follow them, and if you have any ideas that do not fit the norm you will have to come and ask for permission. Got it?!

The process starts at home, continues in school and then into adult working life, by which time most people have become black belts at not having a real opinion and waiting for permission.

Permission Is A Muscle: Train It!
Here is the rub: giving yourself permission is like a muscle. It has atrophied over time from lack of use. As a matter of fact: you may even experience pangs of guilt and little nagging thoughts when you grant yourself the power of making decisions (‘Oh, c’mon, who am I to think that I am that important… it’s OK , I can handle what others want, I am after all mature and not some needy child…’).

Observe this inner psycho-babble carefully, it will dis-empower you every single time you want to take a decision, a decision to please yourself, to honor yourself and to empower yourself.
Make a commitment to make at least one decision a week that shatters your normal modus operandi and allows you to get something you truly want, desire or need.

Decision Making Calisthenics:
Lets start with something simple:
Go to a restaurant and look at the menu: that steak looks really excellent! But the mashed potatoes don’t really do it for you. You’d rather have some fresh rocket salad with it. Get the waiter over and just decide for him, do not ask him if changing the mash for the salad is possible:

‘I’ll have the T-Bone, I always have it medium rare and instead of the mashed potatoes I will have rocket salad with balsamic vinaigrette, than you!’

The very simplicity of your decision being expressed gives you the Power of Intention, you will see how the seas part in front of you, how things starting moving the way you want them to be.

Now that you are comfortable practicing your decision making muscle in situations in which you are in control (in a restaurant you are always in control, after all: who’s holding the cash? You are!)

Fast forward to the office:
You have been invited to partake at the 15th meeting of the day. In your head you are counting the amount of reports and e-mails you still have to write in the last 2 hours before the sun disappears over the horizon and dreading the prospect of another senseless, unfocused blab-fest. It’s time to show your decision making muscle:

Decide exactly how much time you can devote to this meeting. Decide exactly what results you want from this meeting.

Enter the meeting and declare loudly and politely:

‘Thank you for inviting me to this meeting, I have exactly 20 minutes to devote to this session, please let me know how I can support you, which questions you needs me to answer and I will do my best to support you.’

Magic will happen right in front of your eyes: you will see the seas part in front of you! The very clarity of your decision to invest 20 minutes of your life in the meeting will focus the rest of the participants to make the best of the time you have allocated to them. Their thoughts will sharpen, their questions will be intelligent, sharp and focused, the results will be measurably better.

After 20 minutes you get up, politely point out that your time is up and leave the room. As you close the door the meeting will deteriorate into the usual bullshit bingo session where the posers take over and the rest of the crew pretends to be interested… but that is not your concern anymore… you have a path to walk, a destiny to fulfill.

The Mother Of All Decisions
Having taken your power back, and trained your decision making muscle to a nice, firm tone it’s time to make the biggest decision of them all:

What is it that you REALLY want to do with the rest of your life?!

You have a fulfilling destiny to live, we all have! The first step to getting there is to decide to have the guts to go all out to get what you truly want.

It may be that you are in the right profession: good, then go and really give it your all.

It may be that you actually really want to be an orchid farmer: then decide to take the first step to achieving this goal, go and buy the right books, flower pots and tools to start your first mini test farm on your balcony… It’s the small steps that lead to big things, they took Hillary & Tensing all the way up Mount Everest…