The Prevailing Disrespect for Entrepreneurs


WriterGal

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In terms of that philosophy of action, I have to condemn the culture of the enterprise you worked for and warn you against sanctioning it. From my studies in sociology, it is too easy to say that group identifications are "human nature." I have to ask: Which humans? and: What nature? In my world, it does not matter how you get paid - contract, hourly, salaried, commission, wage plus bonus, etc., etc. One nice thing about Honda America and the Japanese in general: everyone wears the same uniform. No one can tell up front how you get paid. We are all team members.

Hi Michael...

I believe I understand what you are saying. However I can't fully agree with you. Not because you are mistaken; you're not. But because sometimes there simply are no bad guys. Sometimes things are just the way they are and you roll with them rather than fight them.

Let me see if I can explain...

First let me begin with certain premises that I hold. They are not necessarily "true;" they are, however, mine. Does this make sense?

Premise #1: I am a huge fan of the ability and right to create and execute per contracts arranged by adults under straight-up business conditions. That is, no duress; no fraud; no over-reaching; no sharp practices. Just straightforward negotiations with each side going for the best bargain s/he can arrive at. (Side story: I once had a head hunter ask me what my "salary range" was. I said, "I have a minimum: no maximum. If you want to pay me more, start shoveling - I'll let you know when it's enough.")

Premise #2: I also am a huge fan of the American 1st Amendment freedom of association. Again - amongst competent adults under straight-up business conditions. That would include the right of people to create a union and negotiate collectively.

Modulation of #2: At some point, unions have become quintessential bullies and barbarians (you can see it on TV nearly every day). This makes the modern union something other than a straight-up business negotiator. It creates the duress and over-reaching components and these remove many modern-day unions from the role of legitimate negotiators under Premise #2 - at least in some instances.

Back to my situation at the time...

When I hired on at the company, I was told the conditions of my contract. I was informed about how employees and contractors were generally retained during the low-points in business cycles. And I was told that contractors were on the low end of the totem pole. I did ask about this, saying, why wouldn't the company want to hold on to its most talented and best contributors, irrespective of the contractor/direct hire status? The answers were quite rational, IMO.

First - The retention system gave some of the most powerful minds and best contributors something that they dearly wanted: job security. They had families that they wanted to protect from financial difficulty. They wanted to make long-range plans that could be disrupted if they didn't have the job security. With this sense of security their creativity on behalf of the company, their loyalty to the company, etc. demonstrably increased. Sure there were some who became dead wood, but I personally know some of the people who reached "Technical Fellow" status, and can tell you that they worked hard and enjoyed it. I would say their sense of security and place had a great deal to do with it.

The company gave every direct hire a pathway to gain this vaunted status: Stay with the company long enough, produce high quality and high quantity in the areas that were of true value to the company, and you would achieve a more protected status. This generalized to all direct hires to a lesser extent, and those who were with the company for 25 years were postulated to be more loyal to the company, to be of greater value to the company.

Side note: After 911, the company revisited this policy a little bit, saying that it was going to stick with the retention policy - to the extent that it made sense. If someone had achieved a protected status but was no longer pulling his or her weight, the company would feel free to let that person go. I believe that this remains the policy today, though I haven't been there in more than 3 years, so don't know for sure.

Second - the contractor class was explicitly hired to reduce the peaks and valleys in the labor roles in terms of the benefits that the company would be on the hook for. Contractors didn't receive company benefits. Thus we cost the company less and their commitment to the contractors was less. It became a premium value to hire on directly. But some contractors who were offered, declined. Thus they knowingly chose to remain in the contractor class. Others, like me, were never offered the opportunity (there were times when an offer was all but made, but for whatever reason, the company never went through with it). Does not a company have a right to set the terms of employment? I think it does.

Out of all of this, a culture emerged. I think this is reasonable. When you have conditions that persist over decades, people become accustomed to them. They (and I) believe it reasonable to rely on them unless a new negotiation happens. (This is where the unions potentially get it wrong when they start thuggery and over-reaching.) So a culture had formed at the company wherein people reasonably believed that direct hires would be protected from economic hardship before the contractors. Everyone knew this to be part of the terms of the contracts between the company and direct hires and between the company and contractors.

Again - I don't see any bad guys in this. I don't even see a bad culture in this.

Could the culture be better? Perhaps. It would be interesting to see what an alternative structure in a national-size company that was more to your ideal would look like.

Do you know of any?

- Bal

Edited by IamBalSimon
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It would be interesting to see what an alternative structure in a national-size company that was more to your ideal would look like. Do you know of any? - Bal

I don't know of any or what that would look like. I enjoy the freedom and flexibility of contract work. But I ran into that resentment of contractors more than once. I even had my work sabotaged. Usually, especially among engineers, the relationship is smooth, flexible, supportive and beneficial to all.

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It would be interesting to see what an alternative structure in a national-size company that was more to your ideal would look like. Do you know of any? - Bal

I don't know of any or what that would look like. I enjoy the freedom and flexibility of contract work. But I ran into that resentment of contractors more than once. I even had my work sabotaged. Usually, especially among engineers, the relationship is smooth, flexible, supportive and beneficial to all.

Interesting - I can't even imagine the people I worked with at this company trying something like that. I would find myself almost as surprised as if I saw a waterfall flowing uphill.

I note (and perhaps didn't make clear) that the people in my group were not the ones complaining. There was just a general perception from those who would see a contractor's badge among a sea of direct hire badges that something was "odd." And when they found out why, they wondered about it aloud, often enough to concern management. I have nothing disparaging to say about them, either, because of all what I described in my previous post.

I am quite insistent in maintaining: "no bad guys" in what I experienced.

- Bal

Edited by IamBalSimon
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I even had my work sabotaged.

Interesting - I can't even imagine the people I worked with at this company trying something like that. I would find myself almost as surprised as if I saw a waterfall flowing uphill.

It was at a state government office. Data files kept disappearing. I finally got fed up and left, which is what they wanted: the Atlas Shrugged solution leaving them to their incompetence.

Perhaps. It would be interesting to see what an alternative structure in a national-size company that was more to your ideal would look like. Do you know of any?

What it would "look like" is that everyone would consider themselves entrepreneurs. We try that in business, speaking of internal and external customers. The buzzword "intrepreneur" was meant to convey that. But my experience with that was just the opposite: it was something top managers dreamed up to keep middle managers off guard. Like "quality circles" it was not serious, but only a smokescreen for downsizing - which was sold to investors as "right sizing." This was in the mid-90s to late 90s. I was writing profiles for business magazines. I've done about 300 articles in all, maybe 50 of them biographical or case studies of entrepreneurs and their businesses. Some were quite successful - both the companies and the articles, reprinted and off-printed. But in every case the true bottom line of corporate life is tribalism. If you want to get along, you have to go along. So, I work as a contractor.

The people in Atlas Shrugged - Owen Kellogg, Eddie Willers, Gwen Ives - all no less than Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden and Hugh Akston - all had that attitude that they were in business and they meant business. Gwen Ives did not expect a job for life so that she could provide stability to her family. She expected a job for life because she was good at her job. If Readen Steel folded - something over which she had no control, as neither did your co-workers at that company - she expected to find the next job based on her credentials and her projection of self. You know that as soon as you meet someone.

In John DeLoren's book, On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, he said that his father was a tool and die maker in the 1920s, who never feared for lack of work because his skills (and his tools) were his ticket. Men would quit if they did not like the foreman. Workding people got respect before the unions took all of that away with the indentured servitude of a "job for life."

That is what I mean about everyone being an entrepreneur. Bill Gates and Donald Trump own nothing except the same thing you and I own. We each of us own the primary tools of production: intelligence, will, and self-esteem.

That we have to point this out - and have it be rejected - is a consequence of the intellectual bankruptcy of our age. In the coming future most people in most places will mostly accept without question that we are all in business to make a profit.

Edited by Michael E. Marotta
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