Better Without Bosses?
Maybe some situations would be better without managers, but not necessarily Better Without Bosses. Most of us are better off if we look to "hire" a boss to do things that, frankly, most people are bad at, and don't want to do. A boss exists to reliably transform your work into your money, and take part of it for the service. This is better than doing a lot of work and getting little or nothing in return.
A boss task:
Be your own boss but don't possess boss skills:
Figure out what people would pay for.
Hope against hope that there is a market for your skills by themselves, not incorporated into some larger product.
Figure out who can do that work well and would actually get it done.
Hire a freelancer who never actually completes the job; or squabble over whether the result is worth paying for.
Tell the world your work exists and persuade them to choose it.
Have no clients.
Find out who has both the need and the money.
Get clients who could only pay you a fraction of your rate.
Make the client pay what they owe.
Spend time nagging for your invoices to be fulfilled, time that would be better spent using your skills to earn more money.
From the outside, these tasks look like magic, as if only certain mages can perform the incomprehensible rituals to channel the eldritch forces outside the ken of mortals. If you can do all that for yourself successfully, and not die of boredom, then you're better without bosses. If what you really want to do with your time is to do work and not worry about getting paid for it, "hire" a boss to provide you with that brokering service.
Comments
tlatoani on Jun. 23, 2009 5:03 PM
I think you're making the mistake of taking all the skills you find mysterious and dumping them in one bucket, based on four faulty assumptions:
1. They're related skills (only some of them are)
2. They're a skill set that has anything to do with being a "boss" (again, only some of them are)
3. They're likely to reside in the same person (varies widely)
4. Your idea of what a boss is for is the whole picture (it's situational)
Having said that, I agree with your general conclusion that people who don't have these skills probably need to link up with someone who does if they want to earn money. But if you're going to do that, you need to know what you're looking for.
Marketing, Product Management
Figure out what people would pay for.
Marketing
Find out who has both the need and the money.
Tell the world your work exists and persuade them to choose it.
This one's tough: recruiters, other entrepreneurs, really good HR people (which are rare), sometimes "Bosses"
Figure out who can do that work well and would actually get it done.
Accounts Payable people, sometimes you can hire accountants who do this for you
Make the client pay what they owe.
Actual "bosses" also do other things, such as coordinating the efforts of multiple people on a project (this can also be called "project management"), managing budgets and timelines, etc.
Sometimes you'll see a number of these in the same person, but not always.
matt-arnold on Jun. 23, 2009 5:22 PM
I'm happy to discard all four assumptions, and it creates no new options among which to choose. The options, as I see them, are "have a boss" or "be your own boss". The reason we seek jobs at a company as an employee, is to get the benefit of marketers, project managers, HR, and accounts payable arranged by that company. The boss coordinates their efforts with mine, as you say. That goes to my point.
tlatoani on Jun. 23, 2009 5:28 PM
Yes, but you can also "be your own boss" and hire people to do things like marketing and accounts payable. You can even do it on a contract basis, if you don't want to start your own company.
users on Jun. 23, 2009 6:02 PM
True this. When we started Event Metrics, it only hired 6 people... and we couldn't see hiring an hr person to do payroll, etc. We farmed a LOT of that stuff out... you can get your accounting done on a contract basis, your payroll, your accounts payable and even receivable. You can pay someone to do your marketing, etc. Being your own boss and being a one-man-show (one-person-show?) is not synonymous. In fact, anymore, it's a pretty rare business that can be done entirely solo for very long.
matt-arnold on Jun. 23, 2009 6:19 PM
Wow, that's game-changing.
tlatoani on Jun. 23, 2009 6:52 PM
That's what I was trying to explain. And these options have been around for some time.
earthenwood on Jun. 24, 2009 12:50 AM
As a one-person show, and "my own boss" I tend to agree with Jer, its not something that is really wise for a "boss" to do everything, all the time. I am not entirely sure how I am able to do all the things I do for my business with relative success and as little training as I have had, but I began to do it out of necessity, and have been fortunate to be able to continue. There are jobs that I do that I absolutely hate (anything with numbers and accounting, some marketing, etc.)but I have to balance them throughout my days with the things I enjoy doing. I see clearly though, that I would find more success and growth if I was able to farm out a lot of my tasks to others who have more expertise and skill in those areas.
I tend to see the Boss/Worker relationship in less black and white terms as you seem to, though, Matt. There are times when I feel like my clients and customers are sort of my bosses (they pay me, for one thing, and make requests, which i sometimes fulfill in order to keep them as clients) and that people who I might hire to do work for me would be both client and boss to me (particularly clients that I might hire in an advisory type of position).
I can relate to not wanting to do all the traditional "boss" duties (like managing people) and also not wanting to do the boring things that people get hired to do. But in the end, I had to learn to do them all with a certain amount if skill because I lacked the funds to change from the one person show and hire out. In the end, I suffer through these various tasks and business issues, because the main thing I do have is the drive and dream to make my art and business my only source of income, and that is sort of what gets me through all the crap.
I would love to talk business stuff like this in real time, with Jer and tlatoni and some of our other business minded friends. I think I would learn a lot from it.
matt-arnold on Jun. 24, 2009 2:08 AM
I hear a disagreement between you and them. Are you saying "no, one has to do these things one's self"? They say you don't have to, but as you have said, you yourself have not contracted with freelancers.
Also, so far as I can tell, you didn't start out by trying to figure out whether a sustainable number of people want to buy ceramic beads. You started with ceramic beads as a given, didn't you?
earthenwood on Jun. 24, 2009 2:18 AM
a disagreement with me and who? I agree with what Jer said, especially that one cannot sustain being a one person show for very long and that outsourcing is probably a good idea for growth and sanity.
I am saying that *I* had to do these things for myself, but that it is probably not really the ideal situation. I am at the point of starting to want to seek out people who will be able to help me now. Does that make more sense?
I do think that while a Boss does not necessarily need to do everything themselves, they should at least know how to do the tasks in question, and know when and how to let go of those tasks and outsource when it would be more efficient. That's where I am at now.
Hmm, did I start as ceramic beads as a given. I suppose I did, in a way. I knew that I wanted to be an artist, and so much more of my time has spent on the business stuff (marketing, accounting, blah blah blah) trying to figure out HOW to do it, and finding the people to sustain it, than actually making art.
matt-arnold on Jun. 24, 2009 3:13 AM
That makes your position more clear. Thank you.
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