Let's consider our fundamental employment model: One group of people called "employers" has capital. Another group of people called "employees" has labor. The employees sell their labor to the employers for money. Whether we are talking about a mechanic, a doctor or a banker, this is the basic model.

 

By its very design, this model creates the problems we are trying to solve.

 

The model defines two groups of people in opposition to each other and then we wonder why interests are misaligned. The model exclusively endows the aims, desires, beliefs and ideas of employers with gravitas and urgency and we wonder why employees are disaffected and unfulfilled.

 

Do you like to be controlled? Do you believe a group of people called "managers" (a proxy for the employers) always knows better than you? Do you really need someone to tell you what to do? Do you want someone else to tell you who you should be working with? Wouldn't you rather spend your time working to support your own values, beliefs, aims and interests? Do you feel that spending your life trading your labor for money is a bad deal?

 

People yearn to have an impact on the world that accords with their own values, sense of purpose and skills. Yet they work for someone else and are supposed to be animated by the values, sense of purpose and aims of another. People yearn to develop themselves fully, yet their path and their pace are often determined by others based on exogenous factors.

 

We've been on a journey from a world where work was all about subsistence to a world where work is mostly about meaning. Yet, our expectations and desires have evolved more quickly than our employment models. And people are frustrated. Employee engagement at so many companies is abysmally low. Many of the better companies acknowledge this problem and engage in various initiatives to ameliorate the symptoms, but they do not address the disease. The disease is our fundamental model.

 

Our model establishes a boundary between employers and employees. This boundary creates and reinforces incentive differentials. The people inside the employer boundary have one set of incentives. The people inside the employee boundary have another. And we then have to expend a ridiculous amount of energy to align incentives within and across these borders. We expend resources trying to get thousands (or, even, hundreds of thousands) of employees, to think and act the same way. Why? We run all kinds of programs to create a sense of employee identity and cohesion. Why? Because what we're asking of employees is not natural. We're asking them to work with people they didn't get to choose on challenges they didn't get to choose.

 

We can do better.

What if instead of working for the company, the company works for me?

 

Instead of assembling a large group of people who have all sorts of different interests and desires and roping them into one group called "employees" where they are obligated to work for the interests of the company, let's do the opposite.

 

Why not have companies create IP and then share that with anyone who wants (for a fee of course)? This is a bit easier to imagine for knowledge-based companies. If you're in the consulting industry, you might have certain frameworks, methods or tools that are valuable. You might have some sense on how and where to apply those. But instead of hiring and "owning" employees, why not make the ideas available to anyone? Let the people figure out what they want to do with your knowledge. Let them figure out how they can make money with it. They might want to solve problems different from the ones you want to solve. They might want to work for different clients. They might not want to work in teams the way you think they should.

 

If they are paying you, then in a very real sense, you work for them. They are a customer rather than an employee. What would that shift in mindset do to how companies treat workers? What would it do to how we all feel about our work?

 

This is a bit harder to imagine for product-based industries but it could work. Imagine a furniture manufacturer. Instead of taking a bunch of designs and hiring people to crank them out, what if the manufacturer made its tools and techniques and materials available for a fee to anyone who was interested in making and selling furniture. I could pay some fee (maybe by the hour) to come and make furniture. The furniture would be mine and I could market and sell it however I chose. The company could sell me all sorts of services around the basic manufacturing. They could sell me design services, marketing support, a sales force...

This would help more people do work that they cared about, that they perceived was truly and intrinsically in their interest. It would help companies stop fighting nature in their efforts to create one unified monolithic workforce that works in the interests of others. This would allow companies to focus on creating amazing new ideas, products and services. It would allow people to do work they are passionate about without having to sign up for all the baggage that comes with being an employee.

This is a radical redefinition of the notion of employment. Radical redefinitions of anything are not easy to implement. Companies, for their part, have built up infrastructure that is all around building and managing employees. Recruiting, training, career development, benefits, performance management, etc. All of these are technologies developed for "owning" a workforce. Many people, for their part, are still wired to feel more safe when they have "full-time" roles.

 

These are not insignificant challenges.

 

I'm not advocating (necessarily) that we throw out the concept of a company. So if there is a company, presumably there will need to be at least a few employees even if the model shifts as I have proposed. Someone will have to develop the IP. Someone will have to write and enforce the contracts with this new army of freelancer / customers.

 

In short, this will require a massive overhaul of the employment infrastructure. There are cultural barriers. There are likely some legal barriers.

I think this should start with knowledge-based enterprises. Let McKinsey or some other large consulting firm lead the way. Perhaps McKinsey could offer a new track in addition to the more traditional one it currently offers prospects. Let them package up some training and tools and sell it to some newly graduating MBAs who want some more autonomy and flexibility in their career. Or to mid-career employees who are tired of the rat race. These people would pay for this training and would then go out and start their own freelance consulting business. McKinsey could structure this in so many different ways. They could deploy a franchise model. They could simply charge for training. They could take a percentage of profits...

 

To really test the power of this, perhaps they should start it in an area where they currently do not have a business at all. This would test their ability to create a robust business without a full workforce.

 

I also think it would be interesting to start this in a creative enterprise. Perhaps a company could offer people the tools (broadly defined) they need to design furniture or to make jewelry or home furnishings, etc. The model would be the same - the company works for the people by selling them know-how, infrastructure, services, etc. that they would use to start and maintain their own businesses.

My blog post on boundaries: http://adamschorr.com/2008/05/19/where-to-draw-the-line/