worthwhile work

What’s the meant in Management?

December 9, 2011 by Rosa Say

When I look around me I notice: Management is everywhere.

It’s in a President deciding if he should go on vacation as scheduled, or keep working.
It’s in a European country deciding if it can handle bailing out another country.
It’s in a father and mother thinking about becoming car-less and walking more, moving their family where jobs may pay more (or be found at all).
It’s in a shopper wanting to celebrate the holidays with gift-giving, yet hesitating with the realization that ever-deepening debt is the real price paid… She’ll try to make something instead, using her own two hands.
And it’s in a high-school graduate who wonders how society can declare he is now an ‘adult’ when he should know better than anyone else if that’s true or not.

Management is something we all do, for we all need to.
We get drawn to it in spite of ourselves.
Sometimes we’ll plunge into it, sometimes we’ll fall into it, but we always find ourselves there, a place where we ask ourselves, “Now what?”

We manage by thinking, by weighing our options, and by making a myriad of daily decisions, big and small.
We manage by looking outside, by feeling inside, and then mixing the two, whether they mix like oil and water, like red blood cells and white ones, or in layers — like paint and primer.

The whole process can get fairly messy, but the time will come where we decide, and we do something (or we don’t, a “nope” word which isn’t really a “stop” word, for it has its own results as well).

Funny word, ‘management’ in the starchy formality of it.
You’d think we’d personalize it more than we do, as steeped into it as we are, and as pervasive as it is.
We talk about a whole plethora of what we manage: Work, budgets, resources, causes, values, ideas, and yes, others, when fact is, all those things are grouped under one umbrella — the one we know as our own life. All that other stuff make up a life and its moving parts.
It’s a case where the smaller moving parts constantly seem bigger than the whole because they are seen as more tangible. Weird.

Which is why we have to find (or figure out) those last four letters of management, the ‘ment’ part, somehow getting them to stop dangling there as an after thought, and get in front for a change.

I think, the ‘ment’ part has to do with intention — with our why, and the journey we each take to discover it, or to magnify it.
Our why is the part which ultimately, will make everything else (what, where, how and who) make sense, make worth, make good, make right.

Our why is what makes us feel everything else matters. When we feel our why is good and right for us, plugged into our spirit, we feel like decent human beings.
Our humanity is something we need.

Far as everyone else is concerned, they believe our why makes us more trustworthy: They want our why to get trumpeted louder, for they like when it’s clear — shiny and more transparent.

So I have a small fix to help: It can help in a big way.

Forget management in the old starchy formality of it, and begin to think of it as managemeant; managing meant that something connected to your why.

Give all those decisions you’ll be making your white magic.
Make managing meaning-full, and get self-managing to be self-managing meant something personally wonderful.
You can even plug managemeant into the auto-correct of your word processing, and have today’s digital wizardry help you, keeping you on track.

Turning management into managemeant will help you keep your managing intentional.

We’ll always just do the manage part, whether deliberately or instinctively.
We kinda have to, in the way we keep going with life.
However, it’s the meant part which will keep us human, and make us happier.

If you feel you’re ready to do even more, tackle this with me.

From In The Trenches, to #Occupy The World

October 16, 2011 by Rosa Say

The headline of our local paper’s Sunday edition was, “#Occupy The World: Wall Street Protests Go Global in Asia, Africa, Europe” and so the bold printing, coupled with the fact that he got a Sabbath’s leisurely day off, triggered the first time my working-in-the-trenches husband brought it up and into our conversation in any great detail. He was aware of the Occupy Wall Street protesting, but very off-handedly up to now, for he is more luddite in his habits, and prefers to keep it that way (he thought the # hashtag mark was a typo :).

However current affairs are hard to ignore when tipping points happen — the “hundreds of thousands” participating in the grassroots Occupy Wall Street protest is quite a movement. We both hope it can remain peaceful as passions continue to flare.

“In the trenches” has long meant “hands on”

Our conversation got me thinking about those I think of as “my peeps” too — in the trenches managers who do try to be aware of everything going on with “the big picture” and in “a global world” today, but who are much closer to having my husband’s habits than having mine. They are managers who I wish I could talk to on blogs, on Twitter, or on LinkedIn, but they aren’t there. They are managers who I wish I could reblog and tag on Tumblr as a better collection of our voices, but they aren’t there either. They are in their trenches, working by their Ho‘ohana, and managing with Aloha too, but in a more hands-on way than I do as a manager/ writer/ coach/ having the luxury of more knowledge work than physical work, and choosing virtual teams and tribes in addition to my geographic ones.

In reality though, ‘luxury’ is the wrong word. Each kind of work has its own pros and cons, its own pressure-cooker times, its own slow-down times. Each kind of work can be in the trenches. We are all Working in today’s ‘Knowledge Economy.’

Work happens wherever you are, and whenever you decide you’ll do it.

Work happens why you want it to, and why you need it to.

Work also happens in whatever you feel is your logical progression for it to happen. More often than not, it’s according to a personal hierarchy of needs (like Maslow articulated for us), but that’s my convenient point of reference, and my habitual one, and others may not think about it at all. They stay in their trenches, and they ho‘omau; they persist.

They concentrate on the work at hand. It’s the work of their own hand, and they concentrate on making it good. On making it both worthy (to the world) and worthwhile (to them).

You are the leader of your work

This is one of the up sides to Occupy Wall Street being a leaderless movement: Every single participant has a much greater freedom with defining what the best-case scenario of good followership is for them. Every single participant can be unencumbered, and can make a difference of some kind, so this very pervasive movement tips from frustration to worthy action.

When we consider work in larger context, it becomes easier to see how even protesting — the best single word I can think of for the Occupy Wall Street movement — can be a person’s chosen work too. I’d bet that every person who has chosen to letter a sign, march in one of the protests, or otherwise participate in one of the Occupy encampments, would say without hesitation, “I’m working in the trenches too.”

So when I think about all those “hundreds of thousands” participating in an ‘Occupy’ protest of some kind, my wish for them is the value alignment of Ho‘ohana — I hope the work they have presently chosen gets streamlined and focused in a very personal way for them, where it becomes a very clear intention for worthwhile work. This is one of those crucible times, where people can more clearly discern their purpose or calling.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

The Occupy Wall Street movement represents an amazing amount of human energy. It deserves the significance of Ho‘ohana.

Related Reading in the archives: Following is NOT a Passive Activity.

‘Occupy the Tundra’: One woman’s lonely vigil in bush Alaska. Click on the photo for the story at the LA Times.

Working in today’s ‘Knowledge Economy’

October 4, 2011 by Rosa Say

In “A Job of Any Merit: Your 3 Options” I asked you to get personally involved in job creation. I asked you to share my essay, and talk about it, so with this post, we continue the conversation.

The options we have now may not be that pretty, and they may not be easy to navigate, but giving up on them doesn’t make any sense. Let’s improve them.

My purpose in outlining them as I did, was to whittle away the overwhelm, and laser-focus current affairs to an individual’s path of action, starting from the situation you may currently be in:

Option 1 is for those who still seek a job with an ‘employer’
Option 2 is for those who prefer to create their own job, or collection of jobs as their work: They want to be their own employer
Option 3 is for those who already have a job of any kind: Now past the primary ‘get a job, any job’ hurdle of options 1 and 2, they have an advantage they can further leverage

It is totally possible for a person to feel all 3 options apply to them, maybe now, maybe later.

Let’s hō‘imi, and consider how a person may move through all 3 options a bit more purposefully.

1, 2, 3: Do all apply to you?

Those who pick option 1 prefer to get employed for the obvious advantages, like a predictable paycheck (you can’t call it a ‘steady’ paycheck anymore). They may be looking for other benefits beyond compensation, even if they’re partial benefits, such as with medical insurance or 401k matching. They thrive in the social and cultural environment of a workplace you physically go to, and they want the opportunity to learn from their employer, and from an industry’s disciplines and network of partnerships. Being employed is still a great option, and it’s not going away totally — nor do we want it to. We want to improve jobs in movements like my own, with Managing with Aloha, and Business Thinking with Aloha.

[On the chance you’re newly visiting my blog, our regular programming here on Talking Story, is for the person who wants a job as a manager: This is the person I wrote Managing with Aloha for, asking that they aspire to being Alaka‘i Managers. My books are listed on this page.]

The current challenge people have in economies globally, is simply that the good jobs which represent worthwhile work are hard to find, and then secure.

Thus, the person who prefers to get employed, may feel they’re forced into newly reckoning with option 2 as well; creating a job of their own. Compensation levels have been decreasing in new job vacancies, and securing employment, even full-time employment, may not be paying the bills. People find they need to earn more. Existing jobs (if they can get them) may pay them sustenance wise, but not so people can get out of debt, hone new skills, and grow toward developing additional income streams or championing other worthwhile causes.

The point I hoped to make with option 2 in writing “A Job of Any Merit: Your 3 Options,” was that there is more possibility within that option beyond entrepreneurship: “Building my own business” is something which can intimidate us in its complexity and risk. We have to expand our vocabulary with this option, and thus, expand our opportunity. Who knows? You may move from feeling forced into this option, to actually starting to want it — in exploring this option, you’ve made the shift from the half-empty to half-full viewpoint. There are benefits here too; they’re just different ones.

Option 3 presented a challenge: If you have a job of any kind at all, you have some degree of leverage, for that job represents an advantage. Now it is time to capitalize on what you have, build on it, and optimize it fully. Turn job into the work of your heart’s desire.

Then pay it forward: Option 3 reminds us of the Golden Rule, and asks you to do for others as you would have them do for you. Don’t make any assumptions in prejudging others who are unemployed; just help them however you can (Did you read this post? “They know how to lead — and be led.”]. Prosperity is a concept of abundance, and we can share the wealth of work dignity freely, knowing that good begets more good. In doing so, we will never negate our own standing; we’ll strengthen it.

Merit and the Ladder of Learning

So if two, or all three job options apply to you, choose your best stance, the one where you will start to concentrate your efforts. My coaching for you, is to focus on that context of merit within your available choices.

Merit is the quality of being particularly good or worthy of your efforts. Taking action where the merit is, becomes the best way we leave the overwhelm, hand-wringing, and frustration of having no agenda behind us.

Those who are starting to emerge as leaders within the Occupy Wall Street movement have recognized this: Public protest is largely a complaint, albeit one which has gotten chronic and cries to be better heard. But complaining only goes so far, and it irritates others along the way, diluting the message. To achieve any resolution we look to its root word, solution, and the leaders emerging have clearer voices: They are starting to articulate courses of definitive action beyond mere protest.

Realistically, you can only do your best work in one option at a time. [In Managing with Aloha we define ‘best work’ as the work of Ho‘ohana intention.]

When we speak of moving forward, and making progress from where you are to where you can be, I see the “Job of Any Merit” options as a kind of ladder you climb, where you can eventually skim the cream of Maslow’s Pyramid up at the top (achieving self-actualization; see the pyramid graphic below).

[In the archives: Consider reviewing Strengths, Values, and that Pyramid. I think Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” is a helpful way of looking at this too, further framing the conversation with your specific strengths and values.]

Let’s say you have an idea. You want to develop that idea in your near future, for it could be the idea that will generate a new income stream for you:

Option 1 is included in your plan because you want an insider’s view of the industry your idea relates to. You want the ‘real job/real work’ learning which exists there now in the present day, versus the academic learning you’ve done in school, or via books and such. In other words, why reinvent the wheel when it’s a perfectly decent, good wheel now? — start with it as savvy foundation, then improve upon it. Make it relevant to your idea, and tap into the advantages of workplace culture, and the leverage of industry networks while you’re there. I wrote Business Thinking with Aloha for this person in particular, to give them a framework for putting their learning into, versus taking the scattershot/happenstance approach.

Intentional learning like this, whether from an industry-related job or by another means, helps you make important decisions about your future. You make those decisions based on a purpose which evolves (that purpose was probably driving your idea in the first place) but mostly because you have a steadily increasing bank of knowledge about it — you have more clarity. As we prefer saying in Managing with Aloha’s Alaka‘i style of managing, we don’t make decisions impulsively, we go about finding them: Can you see with your ears?

Turn intentional learning into a deliberate habit, and it becomes a skill of acquired wisdom: It is skills mastery at its finest.

You bring this skill with you as you proceed up the learning ladder toward options 2 or 3. As a reminder, option 2 was creating your own job – no employer or other middleman is necessary. Option 3 was creating better jobs and more jobs. Let’s slightly re-phrase those two options in terms of your idea:

Ideas are what will push you up the learning ladder, and up the pyramid of your own needs.

There might be several paths you can take while you evaluate the merits of option 2, which was creating your own jobs, or collection of jobs, via entrepreneurship, freelancing, novel partnerships or other means.

You sort out option 2 to develop additional income streams for yourself, each of which starts with another one of your ideas. “This one relates to outsourcing a service I can provide… this one relates to selling a product I’ve created” this one relates to a new relationship I’ve been cultivating with a possible partner”” etc. You begin to think about doing more creative work beyond anyone else’s definition of ‘job’ and in effect, you begin to break away from anyone else having to do it for you (that ‘middleman‘ I’ve referred to). In Managing with Aloha, this ongoing, lifetime sensibility with work creation, and with lifelong learning, is the value immersion of Ho‘ohana and ‘Imi ola.

As I’ve explained, you may be in the Option 3 effort for yourself at first — for your own job improvement, or to help your own team, department, division or company: You’ll radiate your efforts by building on your successes and increasing both your advantages and your leverage — much like the ripples in a pond, you widen your embrace of partnerships, because now you can. In Managing with Aloha this is the “Language of we” in Kākou, the teaming synergies of Lōkahi, and the community outreach of ‘Ohana and Mālama.

[If you are new to Talking Story, all those Hawaiian value indexes are listed in the right column of the blog.]

This learning ladder is our real Knowledge Economy

This ‘ladder of learning’ connected to the work we actively produce for income, is how I see the practical how-to sensibility of what many scholars, economists, anthropologists and assorted authors have called ‘the knowledge economy.’

YOUR knowledge leverages YOUR ideas too.

From Wikipedia:
The knowledge economy is a term that refers either to an economy of knowledge focused on the production and management of knowledge in the frame of economic constraints, or to a knowledge-based economy. In the second meaning, more frequently used, it refers to the use of knowledge technologies (such as knowledge engineering and knowledge management) to produce economic benefits as well as job creation. The essential difference is that in a knowledge economy, knowledge is a product, while in a knowledge-based economy, knowledge is a tool.

As a coach and a manager, I instinctively get drawn to that last phrase, that knowledge is a tool. Further, it’s a tool we all can have if only we choose to learn actively and not passively.

I’ve mentioned Richard Florida (as author of The Great Reset, my review is here), because I’ve been studying his economic views connected to the urban movement, wherein we work toward applying more ‘metro benefits’ to the suburban sprawl created before the housing crisis imploded, as we’re now realizing it would inevitably do — this study is currently on my own ladder of learning, relevant to an idea I have, which is connected to the work I do.

Florida is best known however, for his writing and speaking on the “creative class.” (Overview on his website.) He says that “this creative class is found in a variety of fields, from engineering to theater, biotech to education, architecture to small business” yet in his current writing he is expanding this more broadly. I think he runs into the same challenge I’d mentioned in regard to entrepreneurship: It’s far too easy for people to quickly say, “I’m not creative, that’s not me.”

As I see it, we’ve all got to dig deeper, give ourselves more credit, and understand just how creative we are, and can always be. Creativity plays out one idea at a time, and you do have ideas, I know you do.

Use the context of merit in worthwhile work to take your idea up the learning ladder. I hope this posting has helped you see your way forward.

Our big ideas don’t have to change the world.
They just have to move it along.
Expect more from your own energies.
— KÄ“ia lā ~ What Your Big Ideas Do Best

A Job of any Merit: Your 3 Options in Worthwhile Work

October 3, 2011 by Rosa Say

This blog post turned into a longer essay, but I hope you’ll still read it, and that you’ll share it, for it’s important: If you haven’t yet done so, it’s time to ask, “What can I do?” about securing worthwhile jobs and stemming rampant unemployment.

Everyone can do something. Everyone.

I ended my last post with this:

I am increasingly of the opinion that the void we have to fill is about having the right jobs in place, and not just jobs as a number. As a business person, you have to decide what the jobs of your future are, and then put those jobs into production: You cannot fill vacancies for jobs you haven’t designed yet. You design them because you are confident about the work those jobs produce — that’s the unfilled capacity economist Paul Krugman refers to.

— Whose Confidence Should We Be Talking About?
[In The Phony Fear Factor, Krugman had asked, “After all, why should businesses expand when they’re not using the capacity they already have?”]

As I read it again, I want to strike that ‘as a business person’ caveat, for deciding on the jobs of our future is something we ALL must be involved in now as good citizens — and as good people. Standing by, watching events unfold, and waiting for someone else to change the world isn’t an option, for the hurt has become chronic. If you have any doubt about that at all, quickly scroll through a few of the stories on this new Tumblr, then come back: We are the 99 Percent. Our economic woes affect all of us in some way, even the ‘lucky ones’ silently suffering with the pain of survivor guilt.

In figuring out what we can do, let’s explore this notion of having the ‘right’ job a bit more.

What are the brass tacks these days — the basics of having a job of any merit?

Occupy Wall Street — People protesting the economic system walk on a financial district sidewalk as office workers head to work on September 19, 2011 in New York City. (Michael Nagle/Getty Images)

Option 1, their vacancy. Option 2, your vacancy.

As far as jobs go, those who seek work have the same two options they’ve always had: Either they apply for posted job vacancies, or they create a job of their own and fill that one.

The first option has been the easier one in times of prosperity, but we all know it’s gotten much tougher in recent years, and no one sees it getting better anytime soon: There is a Great Reset happening in the ways we choose to both work and live, as economist Richard Florida explains so well (I highly recommend you read his book). Meanwhile, many of our long-term unemployed have simply given up on option 1 altogether — that’s how tough our reset has become.

Part of the present unemployment problem (recapped here), is that people are looking for jobs which no longer exist: They have to change with the times, and they haven’t done so yet. Their old job isn’t coming back, and much as it might hurt to hear it, that might be a good thing — it’s called progress. We know we’ve been shifting from agricultural work, to industrial work, to knowledge work for over a century now. New skills (associated with new jobs) must replace our old skills (that were associated with eliminated jobs), and we’ve got to let go of the old or get left behind.

Related Reading: Thomas Friedman did a good job summing up the changes which have occurred in the last 7 years alone in the Op-ed he wrote for The New York Times this past Saturday: How Did the Robot End Up With My Job? He focuses on the effects of technology, but he also points out how our vocabulary is changing.

Option 2 isn’t limited to entrepreneurship

Used to be that the second option — creating a job of your own — largely meant entrepreneurship, and going into business for yourself. We tend to jump toward that entrepreneurial assumption when we think of creating jobs ourselves, and many will all-too-quickly eliminate it, stating, “That’s just not me” without thinking it through more carefully.

The most enterprising and confident among us are going that route, to be sure. They are becoming entrepreneurs because they see the new possibilities market shifts will reveal — they find consumer confidence where it does in fact, exist. They’re better than the average person in corralling whatever resources they need to get started on an idea, and they continue to build on their dreams, reinventing wherever necessary. They have a talent for seeing possibility in downtimes; they see voids as opportunities they can fill, and thus, serve the rest of us. Most important of all, they are willing to do what it takes to succeed, fully knowing there’s no side-stepping hard work, however good an idea may be.

That’s why going into business for oneself isn’t for everyone, even though we might accept that work of our own design will be thoroughly worthwhile no matter the difficulty. Other variables may be in play, such as family members who end up assuming entrepreneurial risk with you. (By the way, teaming up with others and getting good partners is the smartest route to take — you pool more ideas as you share the risk, and needn’t take the leap into business creation all alone.) Still, entrepreneurship is only part of that second option, and this is a time to explore what else it can mean: You can’t just give up on working because you’ve given up on finding a job.

If you limit Option 2 to the entrepreneurial label, well, that’s a limit you impose on yourself.

If ‘entrepreneurship’ scares you, call it something else.

Don’t let the word scare you off: If you don’t want to be an entrepreneur, call yourself a free agent, or a ‘work creator’ instead. Talk about your efforts as gainful employment, and focus on what that should do for you. As long-time readers know, I like that better anyway, for the Ho‘ohana associations with good work. Shift to your own language of intention.

For instance, creating a job of your own can also mean freelancing: You are able and willing to be the person that other businesses will outsource their work to. Many are making this choice, and turning bundles of ‘odd jobs’ into the mainstay of the work they do. It may not be that lucrative to start, but it’s definitely a place to grow from. Freelancing can pay the bills, keep people active and involved, and more optimistic and energetic. They’re in the game enough to play it instead of warming the bench, or worse, just watching from outside the chain link fence.

Freelancing is simply independent work, done for several people instead of just for one. Said another way, the other part of the ‘create a job of your own’ option has been to give up on the thought of being a full-time employee with benefits. They’re steadily decreasing benefits anyway, with things like pensions going the way of the dinosaur, and this shift in thinking may not be that hard to do anymore. Shore up your financial education in constructing a personal, ‘business of my life’ kind of business plan, so the economics become clearer to you. Ignore the rules (and business managers) other people will blindly and obediently follow, and then forge your own way. You step back to the simpler, basic economic rule of working, living, and playing within your means — as our grandparents may have said, you earn your own keep.

I like to think of this ‘I’ve got no employer’ status as the choice to eventually cut out the middleman (and it’s also the premise of Business Thinking with Aloha). You don’t sign up for the work that someone else has designed, accepting whatever the baggage that comes with it. You opt for the work which best fits into the design of your life instead, whatever job-shape that work might turn out to be. It’s good work, because it’s your work. Work fits into your life, not the other way around.

You know you’re too big for most jobs anyway — your capacity for greatness is way bigger than any single job.

Turn struggle into new learning. You’ll make the effort exciting again.

Many people feel forced into this now, but when you really think about it, it’s much easier to follow the purpose and clarity in your own rules — as long as you do it the smart way, and do learn the ‘dollars and sense’ of personal economics as a societal creature.

We think of this as willpower and discipline, but it’s more about open-minded learning: There are concrete strategies here, such as the practice many are newly learning to follow of eliminating the debt in their life. They are eliminating their use of credit, taking specific actions from cutting up credit cards and using public transit, to getting rid of mortgages in favor of renting. We have experienced how too much credit = longer term debt = stuck in life rather than living it fully. We are newly learning how debt has represented liability on our personal balance sheets.

You needn’t go as far as adopting frugality or austerity in learning more about today’s economics. For instance, there’s great innovation within downsizing movements, and others regarding urbanity, greening, permaculture and eco-living, and you can learn your own best way forward. ‘Ike loa, and the value of learning is the golden ticket to exploring your most desirable options.

But back to jobs” there’s one more option to cover in our brass tacks of the basics.

Option 3, work with the middleman, then help him change his game.

Option 3 is the one I personally find I’m thinking about most these days, in my own work’s passion with value-alignment, and in other industries, like banking and housing, fully cognizant of how we can effect change as consumers, and not just as employees (those who follow my Tumblr have witnessed my explorations).

Like the other two job options I have covered, Option 3 has always been an employment option too, but it differs in that it applies to the people who already have a job. It can also apply to those who presently do volunteer work, but hope to be paid for it one day – they help shift the existing business model, to make future compensation possible.

Option 3 is about being willing to change the game of job definition when you’re already somewhere in the system. You have a job, but you know it can be better, and you actively work to help make that happen. You see where other jobs could, and should be in place, and you help your employer see the light, whether they be the business person, entrepreneur, or boss in charge as ‘middleman.’ You lend whatever support you can, so they will feel more comfortable with taking their leap of faith in new job creation.

This might be something you do for yourself because the job isn’t totally right for you yet either, however know this: Improving the way the game is played in business helps everyone. Those who are happy with their situation, have to call upon their sense of decency and share the wealth — and I don’t just mean monetarily, but by sharing their well-being: Wealth is a Value. People are hurting now, and those who have a job — any job at all — can’t sit back and not empathize with that hurt elsewhere in their communities.

“One of life’s greatest laws is that you cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening your own as well.”
From: The Core 21 Beliefs of Managing with Aloha

Jobs of any merit, deliver personal dignity.

We call it Ho‘ohanohano in Managing with Aloha, the value wherein people feel they can conduct themselves with distinction — that’s what employment does for people; it gives them a means of putting a professional signature on the work they produce.

That’s an incredible gift to give someone.

If you have a job right now, how can you influence your employer? How can you help him or her design and create more work? How can you reshape old jobs that were eliminated into newly relevant ones, and increase the size of your team? Are you speaking up instead of sitting back?

Honestly folks? Option 3 is about being better than you are, and getting involved like you’ve never done so before. Don’t just call yourself lucky to have a job: Start working to get others to enjoy what you might be enjoying, and do whatever you can to help the unemployed from your present circle of influence — share the dignity of work with your fellow human beings.

Dig deep. Ask yourself how you personally can turn the tide of mass unemployment from wherever you now sit. If nothing else, know that we are still in a time of great change and readjustment, and you can’t make any assumptions about your own job either — your anchor.

“In the [prosperity of the] nineties, we saw that a rising tide lifts all boats. Now we see that a changing tide tests the strength of your anchor. What you stand for is as important as what you sell.”
— Roy Spence, CEO of GSD&M Idea City

There are far too many businesses going through the motions now, and resting on their laurels simply because they have held on, not because they have gotten better. That’s just not acceptable any more, nor should it ever be.

Here’s another quote from Roy Spence:

“The thrill of life, at least in my experience, is to create something that was not there before. An article that has never been written, a painting that’s never been painted, a business that’s never been done… I think the thing that always got me through was the belief that, in some moment, I never had a job. I always had work to do. I know that sounds a little bit trite, but not to me. I think you go get a job to make money, I think you go to work to make a difference.”

Let’s go for that thrill, that work we have to do to make a difference. Often, as we constantly talk about here with our Managing with Aloha sensibility for work, creating something that was not there before means putting values in place where they belong.

“The logic of competition has evolved from the imitative world of products versus products, to the revolutionary fervor of business models versus business models, to now, the promising realm of value systems versus value systems.”
— William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre in Mavericks at Work, explain “strategy as advocacy.”

Finally! You can’t just have a company anymore and automatically be successful. You have to have a cause, and one where your values are at work along with your ideas.

So to sum up: Brass tack options in jobs of any merit:

Apply for posted job vacancies. Even if this works for you, know that skills are changing and still in flux. Continue to work on relevant skills-mastery. If you get your foot in the door somewhere, jump down to option 3.
[This strategy might help: Job-hunting? Don’t apply and fill, create and pitch]
Create your own work. Be more creative and open-minded to your possibilities. Learn more and choose good partners, but no more middleman of any kind: You be the designer of your personal economic rules.
Change the game from within the system. Stop warming the bench. Be an inventor and re-inventor and get actively involved in helping your community as a whole. Use your insider’s position and access to in-play resources to full advantage. Leverage whatever you have, wherever you are, and be a maverick.

Where are you, and what will you choose? Choose so you can take action.

Please talk about this with each other. As I said in the beginning, everyone can do something. Everyone. And that includes you.

Credit for both images: In Focus with Alan Taylor for The Atlantic.