One of the greatest pleasures I’ve had over the past few months is that I’ve been able to hook good people up with jobs. Some were part-time gigs, others were full time, enabling someone the comfort and stability to hang their hat for awhile. Particularly in a recessionary moment, I feel like I am contributing. In fact, I’ve gotten people some very cool gigs, working for great companies with a lot of opportunity and exciting projects. In my position as a consultant to brands and business, I can very often see when a firm does not have the capability to carry out there ambitions.
Not that it is in my job description, but I end up head-hunting and vetting potential employees for my clients. I can’t tell them they need something and then NOT help them find that person right? It is a job I take seriously because not only do they have to be competent and reliable, I personally need them to be better than that. I want people who are awesome and excellent. I want people who are not threatened by serious challenges. I want people who are actively looking for such jobs, where they know they’ll have to go above and beyond, whether that means long hours, creative research, reportage, brainstorming.
I also need people to call me out on my occasional lunacies. I only want to work with people who are smarter than myself.
But Let’s Talk About My Favorite Subject
ME! Who do I want to work for? Well I am actively being lobbied by several firms to join them and add my services onto their existing palette of offerings. I am taking these ideas very seriously. I would prefer to remain independent for the time being as I would like to spend some more time learning on my own. But I won’t lie, the ability to link up with a larger firm does several things. It gives me access to an incredible amount of resources, talent and existing client base to pitch my social strategy services to as an add-on to existing services. It gives me a whole lot of stability in terms of money. I retain my freedom to work where, and how, I choose. This last point is actually the most important thing to me. Might sound funny coming from a former banker, but I left banking precisely because there are things that are more important to me than the simple raw tabulations.
So what am I going to do?
Not sure, but more than likely I’ll stay on my own for the time being. It’s too soon to join a bigger group, even if I was in a command and control position in the new firms, which I would be. As I said, I still have a lot to learn and I am in no rush to join up and take a big risk, even if the rewards might be bigger. The truth is I am interested in building something on my own, I want to construct a new kind of high-end bespoke consultancy. I want to collaborate and partner with people smarter than myself, whose skill sets complement my own. I want to work with people I am impressed by, who have passion in their lives and know how to exhume it when the need arises. I want to work with people who inspire me, who I look forward to talking with, fighting with, succeeding with.
I want to build a community, not a firm. We’ll be a firm anyway, but when people think of me, and the people I work with, I want them to see us and not our logo, or our website, our the clients we’ve worked with. I want to see the people, the figures, the ideas, the creativity, the execution, the excitement of working with people who can do things unconstrained.
The great thing about what I am doing now is that there really are no rules. I’ve been told lately about things I can’t do, or shouldn’t be doing. I love that! And they are right, these amorphous people. I can’t do certain things. If I play by their rules and with their boundaries! But you see, I am off over here, hanging out on the extremities, and over here, we don’t have those kind of boundaries. I don’t have to work or live or think or feel or move according to anyone else’s boundaries or limitations or values. I think I like it here. I’ll stay awhile.
Image Source: Laffy4k on Flickr
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