Category Archives: Change

Tolerance doesn’t do the trick

Posted on by
Reply

Times have changed, thank goodness. Sometimes we take a few steps forward, sometimes a few steps back, but all in all our world is becoming increasingly tolerant. In Finland same sex couples now finally have the legislated right to get married. A bit late in the game I have to say considering how progressive my country has been compared to others when it comes to issues like gender equality, to name one. Although also in that area we sometimes take steps forward and sometimes backward. But the general direction is still, thankfully, forward. In the US, however, we see threats of backsteps on many fronts, and although this is really worrying, not to mention scary, and something many of us are painfully aware of, that is not what I am going to write about today.

I’ve been reading a book about choice, namely The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar. Choice is an interesting thing. It is one of the concepts that defines the very fabric of being in our individualist society. How much choice we really have or whether we just think we have complete freedom of choice is constantly up for debate, but the rhetoric and idea of choice is, either way, central in contemporary society.

Choice gives us a sense of agency, a sense that we have control over our lives and how we live our lives, which according to Ivengar is important for our sense of wellbeing. Although it’s worth mentioning that research has also shown that too many choices can have the opposite effect. It can just be overwhelming and create anxiety over whether or not you’re making the right choice. But still, on a whole, the idea of free choice is something that appeals to most of us.

So how ironic isn’t it then, that so many people are still reluctant to let other people exercise this concept that many consider a fundamental right? I’m thinking about people in the HBTQ community for example. The message they often get is you can choose what you want as long as you make the same choice as everyone else. I hate to break this to you, but that’s not freedom of choice.

But as interesting as this book on choice is to me, there is one thing that Iyengar writes about tolerance that in all it’s simplicity was so profound to me that I had to underline it:

“While tolerance is certainly better than judging every other culture from the fixed point of one’s own, tolerance has severe limitations. Rather than promoting conversation and encouraging critical self-reflection, it often leads to disengagement: “You think your way, I’ll think mine, and we don’t have to interfere with one another.” … We cannot tolerate one another by shutting the doors because our spaces, real or virtual, intersect as never before.”

And isn’t that just the truth. All this talk about tolerance is good to a point, but it’s not enough. Tolerance is ‘you do what you want and I won’t bother you as long as I don’t have to be a part of it.’ Do you see the problem? It’s not going to make people get to know others who are different from them. It’s not going to help integrate people in the community. It’s not going to make sure everyone has the same fundamental rights. In short, it’s not going to help people understand, just tolerate.

Tolerance just won’t do.

 

 

Flexibility is the future, so what are we waiting for?

Posted on by
Reply

I read an article in the New York Times the other day, about how job flexibility is the answer to closing the gender gap. This was great for two reasons. The first reason is of course the fact that articles like this prove that there at least seems to be some interest in closing the gender gap. The other reason is that it makes me very pleased that people more and more seem to talk about – and argue for – increased flexibility in the work place. Flexibility makes it possible for people to have a life not just a job, and it provides them with a sense of coherence and control, which is essential for their sense of well-being. And this is exactly what the article argued: how people want and need to have more control over their time.

The problem, however, is that this need for flexibility is seen mostly as a women’s issue, and this article was also mostly about women. The argument was that if women had more flexibility they could better combine work with children, which, in turn, would mean that they could compete for the top jobs they previously may only have dreamed of.

But here’s the catch. If it is only women who are considered to need flexibility and if only they are provided with this possibility, they will continue to be seen as deviants, people who for whatever reason don’t live up to corporate expectations. As a result, most of them will most probably not be able to compete for those top jobs after all. Because let’s face it, there are still a lot of companies who do not offer flexible solutions, not to women and especially not to men. A real man will just do the job, right?

No, that’s not right, but that’s the norm. However, the article did also mention that 48% of fathers rate flexible work schedules as extremely important. That’s right, that’s almost half. Despite popular belief there are many fathers who want to be able to be with their children more, and many of them have wives or partners who expect no less. So you see the problem here. Many men value flexibility, but as long as we only speak of it as something women need, it will not be offered to men, at least not readily. And as long as we continue to create solutions only for women so that they can combine a career with children, we continue to set them apart from men – they will continue to be seen as an exception – and men will continue to work the long hours that do not really make it very easy for them to be more present in their children’s lives. And as long as we do that, the gender gap will certainly not be closed.

But we’re in the 21st century. We need to break out of a mold that was created decades ago in a time long past. Creating more possibilities for flexibility, for combining work with other areas of life (because you know what they say about all work and no play), and making it possible for people to create their own individual solutions for how they can do that, is something we need to make available to everyone – men and women. If we do that, we create the possibility for men to be more involved in their children’s lives without the risk of seeming unmanly or not serious about their jobs. Like Anne-Marie Slaughter says, it is only if men also start doing more non-paid care work, will we stop devaluing it so much, and only then will the amount of men and women doing different kinds of work in the public and private spheres be more balanced.

A few months ago I participated in a seminar where a representative of DNA, a Finnish telecommunications company, presented their new HR solutions. They had turned conventional rules regarding time and place of work upside down. They had given their employees complete freedom in deciding where they wanted to work. They did not have to come in to the office at all if they didn’t want to.

This is quite unusual because many people I’ve talked to in the business world say that this is something you just cannot do. You can’t give employees complete freedom when it comes to where they work, because then no one would ever come in to the office. But this is not what happened in the case of DNA. You see, most people, despite not being forced to, really do want to come in to the office to work several days a week. Some might appreciate keeping work separate from their private life, some want to come in to meet colleagues, and then there are things like meetings that tend to gather people anyway. It is just that most people really appreciate the ability to choose, to have the option to spend some of their time working offsite, wherever that may be, when they want or need to.

This new arrangement naturally meant that the managers of DNA also needed to develop new management routines. After all, if all your employees aren’t physically in front of you at all times, you need to adjust to that. And they had the technology, but more importantly they had the will.

Another argument I often hear from companies is that if you have people working offsite, how do you know that they are actually working? Well, to be honest, how do you know that they are working when they are in the office? Just because they are there physically does not mean that they are working. Besides, I once heard someone say, if you can’t trust them, why did you hire them in the first place?

The ironic thing is that what seems to be a giant leap of faith for organizations, doesn’t necessarily mean that dramatic a change in practice, as most people will continue to come in to work regularly anyway. Although it will mean some new routines, the main difference is that this freedom provides employees with a sense of control, and a possibility of combining their work with the other areas of life that people invariable have, whether their employers like it or not.

Research has shown this is what a lot of people want, and that it is especially true for Millennials. Flexibility and individual solutions are the future, people. So come on, what are we waiting for?

Changing the world one blog post at a time

Posted on by
Reply

I have been asked a lot lately about crisis as a catalyst for change. In my research on opting out, this is something I have seen across the board. Everyone I have interviewed or talked to who has opted out and adopted a new lifestyle has experienced some sort of crisis that pushed them to make a change. It could be anything from an identity crisis or something at work that went against their values, to sickness or even a death in the family. The nature of the crisis varies, but all of them experienced something that made them realize that they just couldn’t go on the way they had; something that provided them with a sense of urgency.

As I talk about this idea of crisis as a catalyst for change, a question I sometimes get is, if people experience a crisis that pushes them to opt out, is their lifestyle change really an active choice or did they have no choice but to opt out? Well, choice is complicated and there are always both push and pull factors. Just because one is pushed to make a choice, or a choice is made from a number of less that optimal alternatives, it doesn’t mean it isn’t a choice.

What we’re looking at is actually just the nature of change. Whether we’re talking about individual lives or implementing change on an organizational level, a sense of urgency is what is needed. Change can be daunting. Stepping out of one’s comfort zone and into the unknown is uncomfortable, which is why people don’t usually change their behavior until they’ve had that light bulb moment that provides them with the sense that something just has to be done, now.

This is what my colleagues and I used to do when I worked as a consultant. We would help our clients implement organizational change by providing everyone in the organization with the opportunity to have a light bulb moment of their own, and it worked like a charm. Only after having this light bulb moment, did they also feel that sense of urgency and understand that change is necessary. And only if they changed their own behavior was change on an organizational level possible, because an organization is made up of its employees and their actions.

So the fact that people who opt out experience a crisis before making a lifestyle change is only natural. It provides them with the sense of urgency. But opting out and adopting a new lifestyle can be quite a radical. Changes can also be made on a smaller scale, and sometimes it is only a small change that is needed in order to greatly improve one’s sense of wellbeing.

This is what a good friend of mine did a while ago. Those of you who regularly read my blog will know just how much I love working from home. I often write about the advantages of having real flexibility and more control over when, where, and how you work. However, my friend is employed by an organization where working offsite is unheard of, and she often mentions how she wishes she could too. Well, get this. One day she decided she would ask anyway if she could work from home for one day, and grudgingly she was given permission. It just made me so happy. It made me feel that my research is really making a difference. Maybe, just maybe, my friend is the start of something new in that particular organization. Maybe more of her colleagues will now start asking for more flexibility and maybe it will even lead to changes in company policy. Who knows?

But one thing I do know is that if you want to do something differently at work, the first step is to ask. If you never ask, the answer will always be no. And asking may just make all the difference.

Exciting news!

Posted on by
2

I received exciting news last week. I’ve been applying for funding for my research on men opting out and on the new meanings of work, and finally funding has been granted! Not only that, I got the mother of all funding: three years full-time funding from the Academy of Finland, which in Finland is a really big deal. In fact, it’s only just starting to sink in.

To be able to focus full-time on research is a dream for any academic, and for me it’s especially amazing since this is what I’ve been planning ever since I started working on my PhD several years ago. I want to research opting out as a societal phenomenon, not just a women’s phenomenon, I want to be the first (as far as I know) to include men in the discussion on opting out, and I want to be involved in uncovering and creating new definitions and solutions for work. This is the future and it’s happening now!

I think one of the things that worked in my favor in this round of applications was that I have already started this research. I was frustrated last year when I couldn’t seem to convince funders of the importance of this topic, so I decided to start interviewing men on their opting out experiences anyway without funding because I knew this is what I wanted to do. As a result I’ve already conducted about 10 pilot interviews and could share preliminary impressions and results in my application.

So if there is one learning to take away from this, it is that if there is something you really want to do, don’t wait for permission, just do it!

I’m going to miss teaching though, I was just getting into it and I really liked it. But you win some and you lose some, and in this case the win is pretty amazing. Post-doc research project, here I come!

Oh right, and I also need more men to interview. So if you are a man who has opted out to adopt a new lifestyle or way of working, or if you know of someone who is and who would be willing to be interviewed, please contact me: theoptingoutblog@gmail.com

All emails are confidential and will be treated as such.

Confessions of a meeting hater

Posted on by
Reply

It was at my first job after graduating from business school – very many years ago – that I realized how much I hate meetings. I was part of the marketing team at this company and although my colleagues were the nicest people to work with, our meetings were an absolute pain in the rear end. Figuratively and literally – we would sit around for hours and although I really didn’t have a lot of experience of corporate cultures and meetings at the time, something told me that this just can’t be right. I felt like I was wasting hours of my life being bored to death while work was piling up on my desk in my absence. Now, many years later, I have a better idea of what exactly the problem was. There was no proper agenda, things that weren’t relevant to everyone in the room and that everyone really didn’t need to be involved in were discussed at great length. It was just bad meeting culture.

Well, I’ve pretty much hated meetings ever since, although I haven’t been able to admit it until a few years ago (around the time I opted out and decided I don’t want or have to do things in a certain way just because it’s what is expected). I guess one reason I didn’t dare declare my negative feelings about meetings was because I was a part of a working culture where meetings seemed to be the backbone around which everyone’s days and weeks were organized. I suppose I kind of didn’t want to criticize the hand that fed me. But the truth is I do hate meetings. I find they generally get scheduled too often, for too long, with too many people. The discussion is slow and much of it is irrelevant to many of the people there and it makes me feel antsy because instead of being productive, these meetings are mostly time away from things that I need (and want) to be doing instead. And last but not least, they are often just excruciatingly boring.

Well, yesterday morning as I was checking my Facebook newsfeed, I saw an article published in New York Times Magazine titled ‘Meet is Murder’, which of course was very satisfying reading for me. Articles like this give me hope. I feel like there is a growing awareness about the toxicity of bad meeting culture as I increasingly see articles like this. Although based on the meeting behavior I continue to see around me, I’m starting to suspect that what we’re dealing with is not so much a cultural revolution, rather just Facebook being very good at knowing what kinds of things I like and putting them in my newsfeed. But either way, there seems to be some sort of discussion about this going on and that is good!

I once read a very intriguing suggestion for conducting meetings in Wired. It was a couple of years ago and unfortunately I didn’t keep it, but it really stuck with me. The idea was to treat team meetings as sports huddles. Do not book a meeting room. Meet in the corridor standing up. Each team member briefly updates the others on: (1) what they are working on at the moment, (2) how it is going, and (3) what they are planning to do next. The huddle should take no more than 10-15 minutes and then everyone continues on their way. If someone has a problem that he or she needs help with, then book a time and place to solve that particular problem with the relevant people.

I really liked that. Meeting for 10 minutes standing up in the corridor for a quick status update. That I can do.

So, is there anyone else out there who hates traditional meetings as much as I do? Let’s do something about it then. Let’s make meeting culture meaningful. Because you know what? Meet really shouldn’t have to be murder.

 

Uncovering so-called ‘truths’

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been two weeks since I last published a post. All I can say is I’ve been very busy, I feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day. But I’m not going to make this a habit; I do plan to continue updating my blog weekly, like I’ve done so far. In case anyone was very worried. Or noticed.

One of the things that has kept me busy lately is teaching, and yesterday I taught what must have been my most inspirational class so far, at least for me. I’m teaching a course in HRM (human resource management) and this particular lecture was on power and control in organizations, and who knew that this would really make the students tick. They had so many insightful thoughts and comments that they shared with me and I have to say, I really enjoyed our dialogue.

But what was most interesting was our discussion on so-called ‘truths’. We were talking about the societal structures and systems in which we are embedded; structures and systems that we take for granted and that we have lost the ability to question or even see – much less change – because they have become ‘truths’. It’s the things we think of as obvious, natural, or common sense, partly because we think that’s they way they have always been. But let me tell you something, they haven’t always been that way and they aren’t natural; people have created them. They aren’t meant to be, they are just the way we have assumed things should be done for as long as we can remember.

Now I asked my students to think of so called ‘truths’ in society, things we take for granted, and to think about whether or not they have to be truths and whether things could be done differently. This was the absolute best part of the whole class. Time just ran out too quickly and I’m thinking of dedicating a whole lecture to this in the future, because it is just so interesting. But here are some of the things they came up with:

  • Growth and productivity are not necessarily something to strive for.
  • The concept of de-growth is interesting, but de-growth as a word is problematic because we will always continue growing and evolving as people and societies. You can’t unlearn or ‘undevelop’, you can only go forward. So even if your goal is not to continuously grow, it still doesn’t involve regressing to a previous state.
  • Careers do not have to progress upwards. They can go forwards, backwards, sideways…
  • Women are not necessarily family oriented. However men might be.
  • The way we teach in schools is not necessarily the best way to teach. It might not be providing us will the skills we really need. We need to question our education system.
  • Democracy may not be the best way. We need to come up with a new system because if we continue the way we are society is going self-destruct.

You get the idea.

I was pleased of course because my students and I shared an interest and we engaged in a really meaningful discussion. But what pleases me even more is that they are so open to thinking critically and questioning the status quo. I sincerely hope that they retain this ability once they embark on their careers and become assimilated in organizational working cultures. Because this is something that we should all do more of. Whenever something is obvious, whenever we know something to be true, we should all stop and question. We need to ask ourselves – and each other – why? Why does it have to be that way? And the fantastic thing is that it doesn’t. It doesn’t have to be that way, we only thought it did. And that my friends, that is how change comes about. Change for the better.

Time for reinvention!

Posted on by
Reply

A friend dropped by the other day. Let’s call him Bob. Bob was wondering what I was up to, and I told him I was preparing for a course in HRM (human resource management), which I’m teaching this semester. And his reaction was, “HRM?!” And I said, “Human resource management, you should know that! (Bob is a corporate executive in a company which most certainly has an HR department so he definitely knows what HRM is.)” And he said, “No no, what I meant was why on Earth are you teaching HRM of all things??” And I said, “Well, they needed someone to teach the course just like last fall when I taught the organizational behavior course.” And his response was, “Well yes, organizational behavior is interesting, but human resource management, really? Why would you want to teach that?”

Well, I don’t know if you’re thinking what I’m thinking, but I’m thinking that this really says a lot about HRM! Or at least about how people see HRM. I mean here we have a corporate executive who I would guess has been in the work force for about 20 years or so, and in a managerial position for at least half that time. Granted, not in human resources, but he has most certainly known and worked with his fair share of HR managers, and yet his reaction is what it is. Not very positive I may add, in case you didn’t get it. And I assure you; Bob isn’t alone.

In my experience, HR departments are among the most misunderstood and least appreciated departments in the history of the organization. And that must certainly take its toll. They are a support function and not a part of the core business, and therefore not considered as strategic as other departments and functions. At the same time, employees are often considered to be a company’s most important resource. Ironic isn’t it, because that sounds pretty strategic to me. And HR departments are important. However, it seems their greatest challenge is the associations the letter combination ‘HR’ triggers in people like Bob.

This is often the biggest problem when trying to create change. The language we use to talk about things, effectively keeps us locked in our old ways. Our words mean something specific to us, which makes it very difficult so see things differently. We need to create new words in order to really be able to change the way we think, or in this case see something in a new light. And let’s face it; HR professionals really need a new word.

So I suggest we scrap the term human resources. If you think about it, it is actually rather production oriented anyway, and doesn’t really embrace individuality or diversity. Nor does it recognize employees as the people they are with their individual wants and needs, which is what we’re trying to do more of, right? We need something new to call HR professionals, so that they can do what it is that they are trained to do. So let’s do that, let’s reinvent HR! Let’s create a new word that doesn’t make people go, ‘yes, but why?!’ like Bob did.

A new year and no resolutions

Posted on by
Reply

It’s a new year and I’ve been reading everywhere all about fresh starts and being better, healthier, and happier. I really don’t feel the novelty everyone always talks about after the New Year. Except for a digit in my calendar having changed from a five to a six, I feel the same; I’m struggling with the same challenges and working on the same projects as in December.

No, I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions and I never make any. A friend posted a picture on Facebook that said, “I can’t believe it’s been a year since I didn’t become a better person”, and somehow, although it was supposed to be funny and I did get a good laugh, it really summed it up for me. On many levels.

Fresh starts are good, but for them to actually happen they need to be the result not only of a real need, but also of an epiphany and an understanding that change is absolutely essential. It takes planning and commitment and you have to be systematic. No wonder very few spontaneously made New Year’s resolutions actually make it past January. In my research, I’ve seen that no matter how much people want to do things differently in life, they don’t unless they experience something that provides them with a sense of urgency. And that can and should happen any time during the year, not just on January 1st.

But maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe that’s not what New Year’s resolutions are about. Maybe they’re about dreaming, about imagining a better you, and that even though you’re not actually prepared to do anything to get there, they sort of give you energy, inspiration, and why not hope? Because dreaming is important, where there are no dreams, there is no hope.

Writing this, I’m actually starting to feel a bit like the Grinch of New Years. Maybe the whole point is not to be so sensible all the time. Maybe our musings don’t always have to lead to action, progress, or success. Maybe they can just be for the sake of being.

Having said that, there are a couple of things I would like for 2016:

First, I need to learn how to chill. Although much of what I’ve been doing during the past year has been new and exciting, it has also been pretty exhausting. This is one of the side effects of opting out and in, you find yourself outside your comfort zone, doing many things for the first time without being able to fall back on previous experience. I need to remember to breathe, to trust myself and my abilities, and to give myself a break every now and then. And also literally take a break so I can spend more time with family, my parents in particular. Because that’s what’s important in life: the people you spend it with.

The other thing is to figure out what my next step is going to be. I find myself, at least mentally, with one foot in the academic world and one in the business world. I actually really like it that way, because there is so much in both worlds that really does and doesn’t work and they complement each other in many ways. I’ll save the details for another post, but until then I can say that it is becoming all the more clear to me that my opting out and in journey is exactly that – a journey – and I’m nowhere near the finish line. So during 2016 I will focus on figuring out what that next step is, and on taking it. I have to remember to stay in the driver’s seat though. After all, that was the whole point of opting out to begin with!

Sometimes you need to fail in order to succeed

Posted on by
4

A few days ago I found out that I didn’t get a job I applied for. For a while it seemed very promising and I was already mentally preparing to accept this job and considering the practicalities I needed to figure out in order to do that. But then I came second, so alas, no job.

Writing this I realize what a long way I have come. Not too long ago I wouldn’t have breathed a word to anyone that I was applying for a job much less announced globally that I didn’t get it like I’m doing now. I just wouldn’t have broadcasted my failure. Only it wasn’t a failure. It was actually a very good process for me. First of all it made me really think about what I want to do and what I can imagine myself doing. And I realized that I could actually imagine myself going back and working in an organization again. My own opting out and in experience continues to evolve, it is not static, and like so many people I have interviewed I also realize that the choices I made when I opted out weren’t forever. So that was good to really have a chance to think about my situation, my terms, and what I want to do. Also, although I would have been very happy to have gotten the job, I’m actually also very happy to be able to continue living the life I’m living right now the way I do. So what initially felt like a waste of energy since it didn’t really lead anywhere was actually quite meaningful. And besides, as an academic I deal with a lot of rejection all the time so in a way I’m kind of getting used to it. Scary as that may sound.

But this question of success and failure is interesting. I’ve decided to make a point of sharing my failures and rejections, because it’s important that people know that everyone experiences failures, and actually the people who are very successful usually are because they worked very hard and failed over and over until they succeeded. Their secret is they didn’t give up.

We have a very low tolerance for failure in our society, and organizations especially aren’t very forgiving, which is extremely unfortunate. The thing is, it is from our mistakes and failures that we learn and develop and if we’re terrified of making mistakes, and as a result maybe even getting laid off, we won’t ever dare do anything out of the ordinary or take any risks, which is bad both for personal and organizational development and learning. As inventor Regina Dugan says, “We can’t both fear failure and make amazing new things.”

But overcoming the fear of failure isn’t very easy in this day and age. Zygmunt Bauman talks about something he calls the fear of disposability – a fear of being expendable, of becoming redundant – which is a direct result of the constant flux that is our reality in this fast-changing economy. Organizations and individuals alike need to stay lean and flexible in order to survive the ever more competitive global market. Well, it’s a viscous circle if you ask me.

So what do we do about it? Well like so many other things, this too is organizationally driven. If organizations become more forgiving, they will help create a more forgiving culture, where we can be more accepting of failure. And not only that, I’m convinced that these very organizations will be the big winners in the long run, because people – their employees – will dare and have the space to be more creative, and they will make amazing things, as Dugan says. But in the meantime, I think we should just all become more forgiving as individuals, of ourselves and of each other. And we should be more open about sharing both successes and failures, and not just instagrammable versions of ourselves and our lives.

Let’s change working life as we know it!

Posted on by
2

I read another article yesterday about new meanings of work and how organizations need to start offering people new or different solutions and ways of working to better meet their preferences and needs. I always do a little victory dance (okay, not literally) when I see articles like this. For one it sort of confirms that I’m on to something, but more importantly, it supports my argument that things are finally happening on that front. We are at a crossroads of sorts and now is the time to redefine work as we know it. And the best thing about this is that we can all be involved in this change together.

One thing struck me, though, when reading this article. Although the arguments were good and valid, they really didn’t offer much in the way of concrete solutions or ideas for how this change is going to happen. Or indeed what these new solutions for work could be. And to be honest, I get that a lot too.

The thing is, these new solutions need to be developed together. In other words I have no quick ready-made solutions that organizations can instantly adopt. After all, we’re breaking new ground here. But the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the changes we need really aren’t that major. When people opt out, it isn’t that they don’t want to work, it’s that they don’t want to work the way that they have been. The biggest problem in the jobs they opted out of was that they lacked a sense of control over their lives and their time.

I’m sometimes approached by career coaches who help people find their true self and calling, wondering if we could perhaps work together somehow. I’m all for coaching, I think that coaches do very valuable work and help a lot of people in many different ways. However, in my research I have found that the biggest problem for people who opt out is not that the job they did wasn’t their true calling. Rather it’s the structures and working cultures that cause a lack of coherence and agency (a feeling that one has very little power and control to affect one’s situation), which in turn has a negative effect on wellbeing. After having opted out and in to a new lifestyle and way of working, they report feeling like they are finally doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, which could be understood as a true calling. However this sense of authenticity really isn’t about the job they’re doing, it’s actually a result of finally being able to control their time better; that they can be themselves and don’t have to hide certain aspects (like children who are generally expected to be kept invisible in the corporate sphere, especially for women); and of the sense of coherence that they get because they have more control. In fact, most of them loved what they did before, that really wasn’t the main problem.

So the change that I’m calling for isn’t a change in tasks or areas of responsibility, or even workload. It’s rather a change in systems and policies that allow for more autonomy and control over when, where, and how people work. This means different solutions for different people – some want more autonomy and some want less – but that really shouldn’t be impossible; we have the technology. In practice it will mean setting clear and concrete goals and being able to follow up on these so that it doesn’t become a question of whether or not we trust people to actually do their jobs if we can’t see them. Measuring work in hours as we generally do today really isn’t the answer. I mean just because you sit in your office for eight hours doesn’t mean you’re actually working or creating added value for the whole eight hours.

So the good news is that this really isn’t rocket science; it’s all very doable. It’s rather a question of mindset, which of course can be tricky to change.

People who opt out think long and hard about what works for them and what doesn’t, and based on this they develop terms. I also have terms, which I’ve thought about a lot lately, and I’ve found that I need to keep reminding myself what these terms are, because sometimes I forget. The reason is that organizational culture as we know it is so strongly embedded in our consciousness, that we are very much affected by what we think is expected of us. The terms we develop really aren’t that outrageous because we think we will probably have to compromise to hold down a job (which we need to do because we all have to eat, right?). So these terms and ideal solutions for work that we develop are still very much colored by the understanding we have of what is acceptable. However, being cautious and thinking in terms of old rules and regulations do not a revolution make.

So I would like you to join me in dreaming up what your ultimate solution for work really would be if you didn’t have to take into account organizational cultures, rules, regulations, and traditions. If you could work in any way you wanted (and now I want you to really think out of the box and not worry about what is and isn’t possible) how would you work? What is important to you; what is your ideal set up? Would you do things completely differently, or maybe just change a small but strategic detail? Or maybe not change anything at all?

I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email at theoptingoutblog@gmail.com (emails will be treated confidentially).

It’s time for a change. Let’s create that change together!