Earlier this month there was an event called the Ohio Growth Summit, "a celebration of your entrepreneurial spirit and "make it happen" attitude". A number of folks I'm following on Twitter attended, so I saw a pretty steady stream of updates from the event. One quote in particular from Chris Brogan's speech was re-tweeted a lot:
People who don't take risks are called "Employees".
I had a strong negative reaction to this comment when I first saw it, and I've thought about it quite a bit in the weeks since. I know that this event was for entrepreneurs trying to start their own businesses, so the remark was probably intended to make the entrepreneurs feel pumped up about themselves; but it's this kind of attitude that I think perpetuates a lot of the bad blood between employees and bosses. Brogan's remark is disparaging to the hard work and effort put forth by employees every day, and sells short a lot of the risk taking that does take place.
I've been fortunate in my employment history to have worked with a number of great bosses who have supported me, nurtured me, and created environments in which I could succeed. As I reflect back upon the successes I've had, a great many of them were specifically the result of a risk I took as an employee. I have no illusions that most of my work is behind the scenes, but there's a tremendous amount that I do that is not just plugging away, playing it safe.
I was discussing some of this with Owen today, and he shared with me Zed Shaw's keynote from CUSEC 2008. The take-away line, for both of us, from this presentation was:
Management demands all of your creativity, but trusts none of your judgments.
Hearing that, in light of Brogan's comments, paints a pretty clear picture that many entrepreneurs and "executive" business people feel they're the only ones permitted to take risks, even in domains in which they have zero expertise. As though somehow being an entrepreneur gives them special powers to make effective decisions. I've seen this first-hand too many times, whether in my bosses's bosses, or the bosses of my friends.
Shaw jokingly advocates setting a trash can on fire when your boss enters the room, so that it'll look like you're doing stuff -- dealing with emergencies and being productive -- because so much of the effort required by programmers, system administrators, and other technologists isn't overtly visible. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I've had similar thoughts over the years. It's a common joke that sysadmins should occasionally "break" things in a spectacular way so that they can then heroically "fix" it, and save the day. I disklike this attitude as much as I dislike Brogan's: it's the wrong way to approach the problem.
Shaw's remarks rang extra true for me in the context of my employment at OSU. I'm responsible for supporting faculty, many of whom have tenure and are therefore veritable kings on campus. Some of them demand that I support them as they pursue bad or inefficient practices, and actively discount the years of professional experience and insight that I've earned. They feel that they're the boss, and may dictate how I do my job. To be fair, not all faculty members are like this, as there are a couple who genuinely seek to learn from me, and to collaborate with me in order to make their jobs more productive. Unfortunately, these are the minority.
It's the curse of IT employees that the better we do our jobs, the less anyone knows what we do. It's unfortunate that many employers and coworkers make the assumption that we're not doing anything, and that our successes are diminished. I don't assume it's easy to be a boss, an executive, or an entrepreneur just because I don't know what, exactly, it is that these people do. It would be nice to see these people extend some respect for the worker bees that keep their operations going.
There are many professions in which the better you do your job, the less likely it is to be noticed. And there are many people who don't have the fundamental personality traits that make them good at being an entrepreneur, or even to have the desire to be one. I think good employers look for employees who know when taking risks is appropriate, and will do that.
Entrepreneurship is great for innovation and smaller scale projects, but large, sustained efforts require teamwork and people to do the grunt labor. Every building needs an architect, but it's the employees that turn the drawings into a useful space.
People who don't take risks are called "Employees".
I would think that the risk that is talked about is the financial risk that is taken when anyone decides not to be an employee and do their own thing. The big risks are not having a steady income, not having retirement and health benefits, also investing ones own capital to start a business, and failure. This in my opinion are personal risks that most people would not want to take. People that do not take these risks are typically employed by other businesses.
Of course a person can take the same risks and not be an employee if they are self employed. A good example would be a consultant, craftsman, painter, etc. Self employed people have to pay more in taxes than employed people since they have to pay the employers share of taxes too.
At risk of flame-baiting, I must say I take a dim view of most entrepreneurs I've met. Far and away, in my experience, they lack the sort of people skills and patience that would allow them to succeed in an organization, so they invent their own dystopia, modeled around their own obsessions; and moreover they afflict their employees and customers with their world-view.
As for employees, if left to our own devices, we will take huge liberties to create a weird self-serving culture within our companies. So management practices structured around deliverables with measurement--like Agile, for instance--can serve nicely to keep those destructive impulses in check.
Managers will always be stupid and vain. They will always try to take the credit for employees work and ideas. But they protect employees from having to own the decisions they influence...a good thing from a risk-mitigation perspective.
One can stand being an employee. One is "compensated" for the dignity one loses drip by drip each day. But often, one can just walk away. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, must live in the hell of their own making.
I would suggest you read Tom Peters "In Search of Excellence" and "A Passion for Excellence" as well as "Woody" Hayes "You Win With People" if you want to see how some companies deal with employees and an alternate view of "employees".
I would interpret the quote at the beginning of the post in the same way as Ed did, though depending on the tone of voice and the intent behind it, it could have a more negative view of emplyees than it should. As you so well describe in the posts, employees take risks of a different type.
To take Bob's bait, he seems to have a dim view of everyone all around. Remember, though, managers are employees, too, just a bit higher in the chain.
I can't remember where I first heard this, but I've always enjoyed the line that goes something like: "Managers are people who have been promoted so they can do less damage." There does seem to be some truth to that. If someone's a bad teacher, make them an administrator. If they aren't the best sales guy, make them Sale Manager, and so on. It is sad, but at least half of the bosses I've had in my life fit this description. Interestingly, one of them was an entrepreneur, but so was one of the best bosses I've had.
Chris used some very colorful language during his speech that was just as worthy, if not more worthy, of debate. If you are deeply religious, from the South and also call yourself an employee you would be 3 times as upset with his speech as you are now. :)
Well said. I've always found myself in the position of a "middle man", dealing (in my line of design work) with idea people and production people alike. In so many cases, I've had to defend one to the other...but the biggest hurdle by far is trying to explain to someone that although good ideas and good solutions are not easy to come by...the work it takes to follow through with those ideas...takes tedious amounts of attention to detail, finely attuned skill and sometimes grueling physical effort.
No one would be able to take "risks" in this world if there weren't other more detail-oriented, carefully plotting people laying a stable foundation to run on. And conversely, there would be no purpose in careful, detailed, hard work if there were no grand ideas to work towards. We all need each other. :)