Category Archives: Doing research

Four years as a blogger

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It’s November, one of the darkest months where I live; the days are short and it tends to rain a lot.  The light seems to get sucked right out of the air down into the wet, black asphalt of the streets and sidewalks, and the lack of light can sometimes really get to me.

But November is also a bright month for me in many ways. It is the birthday month of a person who is very special to me, and it marks the anniversary of my blog. It was in November four years ago that I posted my very first blog post. Can you believe it? This is The Opting Out Blog’s fourth anniversary! Time sure flies, whether or not you’re having fun.

I really feel like I’ve come a long way in four years. When I started blogging, I had just received my PhD, and like now I thought, wow, I really have come a long way. I had learned so much while working on my PhD. Whole new worlds had opened up to me, which, I might add, doesn’t make life easier or less complicated, but it sure makes life interesting. Realizing that issues and situations that have seemed black and white and pretty much straight forward before, in reality are much more complex and problematic with no easy answers, can be troubling. It means that you can no longer shrug your shoulders and comfort yourself by saying that’s just the way things are, because it isn’t that simple. A friend and colleague of mine once likened it to swallowing the red pill, and I have to say, that’s exactly how it feels sometimes.

That’s the thing with knowledge, the more you know, the more you realize that you don’t know. The more you know, the harder it is to find easy answers. Not a comforting thought, I might add, in these times of global upheaval and destructive politics that we’re seeing in many places.

But just like four years ago, I again feel that I have come a long way. I remember the first time I posted a post on my blog. Being quite a private person, the thought of writing a text and making it visible to the world was literally terrifying. I wrote a draft of my first post, showed to my husband, and we both agreed that it needed rewriting. I rewrote it and showed it to him again and this time he liked it so with minor edits I posted it. I almost hyperventilated as I pressed the ‘publish’ button, but it got a lot of positive responses, especially from my own network of friends, colleagues and acquaintances, for which I am forever grateful. The following week I wrote the next post and showed it to my husband again. He read it and liked it but carefully said that if I was going to start blogging a lot I needed to be able to write posts without him checking everything first. The following week I posted my third post without anyone checking it and although I broke out in a sweat again, I didn’t die and I started to trust my judgement. What I did though in the very beginning, was imagine my sister – who is no nonsense and whose opinion I really value – reading it and if she (in my mind) bought it I would post it.

So there I was, blogging every week. The response I got was tremendous, but I was no blogger. I just couldn’t identify. Blogging for me was something completely different and what I was doing was rather publishing a weekly column on topics related to my research. I think it must have taken about a year before I finally looked myself in the mirror and admitted that yes, I was a blogger. I think by now I’ve even added it to my Twitter profile, so you can see, I have really come a long way!

Four years later, whether or not I’m a blogger doesn’t take up a lot of mental space anymore. What I do think about, however, is what I want to do with my blog. I’m not a believer in changing things just for the sake of it. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right? But I’ve had ups and downs with my blog and have noticed that as I’ve evolved and grown into the person I am today; my blog has evolved with me. For a while I posted less frequently. It coincided with a time when I was trying to figure out what I really wanted, where my opting out and in journey would take me next. Now I’m posting more regularly again, and I’ve noticed that my writing has taken a more personal turn – something that would have terrified and horrified me four years ago!

But I’m just going to go with it and see where it takes me. I don’t want to overanalyze my writing and let this blog continue being an outlet for me where I can write on my own terms and not take into account editors, reviewers, journals or publishers. Also, writing blog posts often helps me figure out where I stand regarding both my own life and happenings on a larger scale.

What I’m trying to say is thank you for being there for me during these past four years. I value all the comments and responses I get – more that you know!

 

Famous for a week

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This past week I’ve felt famous. I was interviewed for a Finnish radio station on Wednesday and when I got back from that interview I was asked by another organization for another interview. The term they used was “successful researcher” and, to be honest, it felt very flattering. The thing is, I don’t generally feel wildly successful. I just do what I do, and sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn’t. As an academic I get a lot of rejection that can be seriously demoralizing even though I tell myself that it comes with the territory and that I should take it as constructive criticism. Sometimes I wonder if academics are gluttons for punishment or if we just don’t know better.

Monday is the day of my book release–art exhibit. I’ve marketed the event and my book on social media, and people must obviously have noticed it. If it has made me seem very successful, I don’t know, but what I do know is that when we create narratives of what we do it tends to always seem so neat and planned and intentional.

I mean, I opted out of a career in business nine years ago. The story is that I wanted to pursue further studies in the social sciences and writing a PhD on opting out would allow me to do that. Not only that, it would provide me with the much-needed insights to understand what it is about our working culture that is making people not want to work the way that is expected of them. This would, in turn, help me make an impact in the business world, which is where I’m really from.

After that, I went on to study men, which I knew from the start would be my next step. I got the funding I wanted and now I’m doing that. With this knowledge (and with my books that I’m publishing left and right (okay, that was a slight exaggeration…)) I’m now planning on moving back towards the world of business so that I can use my research and nothing less than change the world and the way we understand what it means to be a good and successful worker as well as create real and sustainable solutions for work.

This is my story. This is the story of the successful researcher.

However, the truth is that this is only part of the story. The narratives we tell and the stories we see don’t include the pain, the insecurity, the doubt, and the fear. My story doesn’t say that when I opted out I was not at all sure I wanted to do a PhD. I was thinking about it and decided I needed to jump because I really needed a change. It doesn’t tell us about the identity crises I experienced. It doesn’t talk about how I at one point never thought I was going to complete my PhD. Or about how I was rejected for a whole year regarding my men opting out research. It just seemed impossible to get funding! Or how doing research and writing a book is a complete emotional roller coaster filled with moments of euphoria but also with at least as many moments of despair. Or the worry about what I will do next or how I will make my living. Or the pain of wearing my heart on my sleeve (which is kind of what you do when you put your soul into your writing or painting) and getting harsh criticism or even worse, being met with indifference.

None of this is part of my ‘official’ story or something that anyone else can see. They just see the milestones and successes. And there have been both milestones and successes for which I am very grateful; this book release-art exhibit is one. But that is the thing, nothing is ever as simple as it looks.

I’ve made it one of my missions in life to show people exactly that; that successful individuals have doubts and that their paths aren’t always straightforward or even planned. Like anyone else, they have ups and downs. They feel insecure and vulnerable, but they also don’t give up. They keep going after the rejection. They keep going despite the doubt. Because the fact is that doubt is part of the creative process.

So yes, I’ve had successes and I’ve had failures. I’ve had my share of both. But for this week, I’m choosing to ignore whatever bumps there have been in the road. I’m going to bask in this idea that I am a successful researcher. It will help keep me going when the next obstacle appears.

And don’t you forget to pat yourself on the back either. Celebrate your successes, however big or small. You’re so worth it!

Book releases, ketchup and other stuff

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It has been so hectic lately that I haven’t had the mental space to write this overdue blog post. I have a lot going on, and as usual it never rains it pours. This is also famously known as the ketchup effect; nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens, and then suddenly everything happens at once.

The main thing going on at the moment is the recent publication of the paperback version of my book Opting Out and In: On Women’s Careers and New Lifestyles. I am so happy it is finally available in paperback. I have been waiting for this since the day the hardback was published. True to academic publishing routines, the hardback version is a so-called library version. In other words, an expensive book that most people aren’t willing to pay that much money for. However, the paperback is priced much more affordably and I am so excited that anyone and everyone who has expressed an interest will now be able to get a copy of their own. (It is also available in all the major online bookstores.)

However, my book is not only an academic book. It’s a book that anyone can read, and anyone should read. It’s filled with stories of real women, on real opting out and in journeys. These stories are intertwined with different societal aspects, debates, and phenomena to help us understand what opting out and in really is and how it affects us as individuals.

People have shown a lot of interest in my work ever since I set out on my own opting out and in journey, when I started doing research and collecting narratives. It makes me feel humbled, but also that what I am doing is worthwhile and important, and that – the feeling that I’m making a difference –has got to be the best feeling ever. To this day, my favorite thing is when people come up to me – friends, acquaintances, or strangers – and share with me their own opting out and in experiences. (To those who sometimes ask me: no, I will never tire of it!)

Because this paperback edition is so important to me, I decided to throw a book release to celebrate its publication. But just like everything else I do, I wanted to do it on my own terms. Instead of inviting speakers and commentators to speak during the event, I decided I want to make it my very own, and do it in a way that reflects me and my journey. I decided to make it a joint book release – art exhibit, because lately my painting has become an increasingly important part of my life and I see it becoming even more so as I continue my journey and navigate my future.

During the past year, my painting has become a second job of sorts, and although I at first felt I had to keep it separate from my research and that part of my life, I’m starting to realize that maybe there are more synergies than I first thought. The painting first felt like a good counter balance to my day job, however now I’ve realized that they also feed each other and are just different perspectives and forms of creative expression. Not only can they exist in harmony, they can also create a whole with countless possibilities that I can still only imagine.

So this book release – art exhibit is a direct reflection of me, what I do, and how I think. Symbolically it also marks another milestone on my journey, and I look forward to seeing where I will go next. Because the fact is, although we like making plans, life isn’t predetermined. You never really know what will happen.

The event will take place in Helsinki on September 24. If you are interested in attending, you can email me at theoptingoutblog@gmail.com for more information.

And if you’re interested in my art, you can follow me on Instagram: @ingrids_silk_painting

Opting on

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During the summer, I spend as much time as possible with my family on an island in the beautiful Finnish archipelago. We love to go boating, and when you’re on a boat surrounded by little else but glittering waves, you really have a lot of time to think. And as I think, it’s becoming more and more clear to me that an academic career isn’t for me. It isn’t going to help me achieve what I have set out to do.

As many of you know, I’ve been on my own opting out and in journey for the past few years. I came to academia from the business world and in a way, ever since I started working on my PhD, I’ve felt a bit like a tourist. Maybe it’s all the baggage I carry with me from years in business, but I’ve never really started feeling like a native academic.

Part of it is the system. The rigid structures and organizing in no way reflect the innovative, cutting edge research and thinking that goes on in academia, nor does it support the amazing work that researchers do. As a former management and leadership consultant, it is actually quite painful to see how unhappy and frustrated so many academics are due to appalling management and support systems and processes, as well as policies that just don’t support the nature of academic work.

But most of all I now clearly see how pursuing an academic career and everything that entails won’t enable me to do what it is that I really want to do. It won’t help me make an impact where I want to make it.

I want nothing less than to change the world. I want to help change organizational cultures and create work environments that are sustainable and where people can and do thrive. Publishing in academic journals is not going to help me do that. However, publishing on platforms that are accessible to practitioners and working directly with organizations is.

I had coffee a while ago with a person who contacted me through my blog – a fellow opt-outer (you can check out his blog here). We met up to talk about opting out and in and we had a very meaningful conversation. We talked about how opting out isn’t the same as dropping out, and that it’s cyclical. Once you’ve been through an opting out and in process, it sort of becomes a state of mind where you’re continuously evaluating and re-evaluating what you’re doing, what your terms are, and what’s important to you. He really hit the nail on it’s head when he said that as a term opting out is actually quite inadequate, that really it should be called opting on.

And that’s what I’m doing; I’m opting on. I’m not leaving academia completely, I still love doing research and I still want to be a part of the amazing work done by my academic colleagues (and I have a research project to finish). However I also want to do more hands-on work with organizations and use my research and knowledge to make a real difference in everyday lives. To do that, I need to opt on, and I feel really excited by the prospect of embarking on the next phase of my journey.

When doing nothing actually does more harm than doing something

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I went to lunch yesterday with a friend of mine and we had a really good conversation about workplaces we have experienced and how frustrating it can be when people do nothing, thinking it won’t effect the situation, the team, or the work culture.

I’m talking about how no management can be one of the worst kinds of management.

We’ve all experienced bad managers, I’m sure. Managers who don’t seem to know how to talk to people; managers who are controlling and micromanage you out of distrust; or managers who just don’t seem to have the skills needed and are struggling to get by. Some of us have also experienced managers who do nothing – who simply don’t manage. They don’t meddle, they don’t talk to their team members, they don’t inform people of things – they simply don’t seem to care.

I’m sure there are a variety of reasons for why someone would approach their management responsibility in this way. Maybe they do care, they just don’t have the foggiest how to go about it. Or maybe they are so overwhelmed that they just don’t have any energy left over to do anything other than survive. Whether or not there is a viable reason, the fact remains that these people still just seem like they don’t care.

The problem is though, that while they might think doing nothing at least won’t make the situation worse, this isn’t the case. While I appreciate someone who isn’t trying to hurt or trick people on purpose – I’ve also had my share of back-stabbers – they are wrong. Not doing anything may actually cause damage.

One is information. This is such a basic thing. People need to know what’s going on. They need to know what is expected of them. They need to know why they are doing what they are doing and where they can expect their job, their career, and the organization to develop from here. Not sharing information causes people to speculate which leads to gossip. People draw their own conclusions and false information starts to spread. People start feeling insecure and it can quickly become quite destructive. Gossip is one of the single worst things for workplace wellbeing.

But there are also other routine things that there just need to be processes for. For example, how do you welcome a new employee to your workplace? How do you make sure this person has everything he or she needs, and yes this includes information. How do you show new people, but also old employees, that they are important and that you care? Having a boss who seems to genuinely not care about what you do and how, is actually really demotivating. It kind of makes you feel invisible, and definitely not like a valued member of the team.

Managing people is hard. There are some great managers out there, and there are also unfortunately many not so great managers. This is true for both the business and the academic world.

I recently read an article about how academics are much more likely to suffer from mental health issues than employees in any other profession. There are a lot of reasons for this. One is the precarious work. Unless you have tenure, which is really hard to come by, work is very insecure in academia. People work on short contracts, never sure about how or when they are going to get funding again. For many the research is also very closely linked to who they are. They are their research, which means if everything is going well, they feel like they are doing well as a person, but if they get rejected – which really happens a lot in academia – it’s a hit to their very identity.

But then there is also bad management. I have seen a lot of bad management in the academic world. Academics aren’t necessarily interested in managing or being managed, which is probably why they became successful academics in the first place. But we also tend to forget that universities and departments are organizations with employees like any other organization. They need to be managed in a way that works. Granted, academics are probably not the easiest group to manage, but doing nothing really does more harm than good.

Pretty darned great

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I have always loved to read. Books have been a huge part of my life every since I was little. My parents read and my sisters read. They read to themselves and they read to me. And after I learned to read I started reading too just as much as they did. We always had books at home and it was one thing we were allowed to indulge in as much as we wanted. Not at the dinner table, however, but my sisters and I would still constantly try to sneak in books to read on the sly under the table because we just couldn’t put them down. And we always got caught but still never stopped trying the same trick over and over again.

Growing up with books, I always thought that the single most awesome thing must be to write a book. I never really though I would because it seemed like an unattainable dream that was just granted very few special people. Little did I know that one day this would actually happen to me.

Even as I started doing research and planning a book based on that research, I still sort of felt that writing and publishing a book was the ultimate thing. Then one day I started writing a book proposal and it became the first step in quite a long and slow process. The book contract was a long time coming, and then after I finally submitted my manuscript, there was the slow and sometimes tedious and frustrating process of copywriting, cover design, checking indexes… and the process was so slow that that somewhere along the way publishing a book no longer seemed like it was going to be the magical thing I thought it would be.

It actually turned out to be more of a non-event than anything else to tell you the truth. I had been notified of an approximate publishing date of the hardback, but then months in advance noticed by accident that my book was actually already available for pre-order through numerous online bookstores. Since it was an academic book (even though I made sure to write it in a way that made it accessible to anyone, so anyone could enjoy it) the first hardback version was also so expensive that I realized that few people would actually be prepared to spend that much money on a book – even a good book if I may say so myself. I have filled it with stories of women who have opted out and in, and made it a good read, but still. So that was quite disappointing, although I was learning a lot about publishing.

But I had a more affordable paperback version in my contract. I was happy about that since I know I have readers who are interested in the book. But it seemed so far away. And it really was a long wait. So long that I was starting to wonder whether or not I would actually be able to muster the energy to even get excited about it when the time finally came.

Well guess what. Last week I received news that the paperback version is going to be published in August. It is set at an affordable price, which I am absolutely thrilled about, because, as I said, my intention was all along to write a book about opting out and in that was accessible to a wider audience. And you know what? Now that it is finally happening, it sure feels pretty darned great.

So check out my book: Opting Out and In: On Women’s Careers and New Lifestyles by Ingrid Biese

You can already preorder it. Click here for more information.

Where you lead, I will follow

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I’m working on an academic paper with a colleague at the moment and I’m supposed to be going through my data set to see if I can find a few more relevant quotes for the different issues we raise in the paper. However, I sometimes find it hard to think without writing, and in order to find the right quotes I needed to create a storyline for myself just to get my head around the task. So I decided to start writing instead. It is only when I am forced to put my thoughts into words that they actually start to crystallize.

So I started writing, and when I do that the funniest thing often happens. It often feels like the text starts living a life of it’s own. It leads the way and I follow as well as I can and I’m never completely sure where we are going until the words are on the paper and the text is written. And the end result is often much better than I originally planned.

This also happened this morning with the paper I am working on. I first wrote down subheadings to match the issues we had agreed were the central ones. But then when I started writing, one thing (or word) led to the next and before I knew it a whole new set of subheadings opened up for me. Although the issues we want to raise are still the same, I realized that the way I had started out was not the best or most logical way to structure the analysis. It wasn’t until my writing revealed this to me that all the pieces fell into place.

This might sound strange to someone who doesn’t write, but I’ve heard many writers of fiction say the same thing. They never really know what will happen to their characters when they set out; it’s like they have a will of their own. And really it’s not so strange; it’s just how our brains work. It isn’t until we actually write things down that we realize which way we should go with our texts. But it does feel a bit magical and it’s what I think is one of the most exciting things about writing.

So, let the text lead the way and I will follow! I can’t wait to see where we end up.

How to create sustainable solutions for work

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I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago where I, among other things, attended an event on good work and alternative organizing. It caught my eye in the conference program, as it sounded pretty much exactly like what I am currently researching and spending most of my time thinking about. That is, what constitutes good work and how we can create different solutions for work that are sustainable but that also cater to the diverse wants, needs, and objectives of the people who make up the work force?

The event was basically a panel discussion between scholars who research different types of organizing and much of the discussion revolved around work cooperatives. A work cooperative is an organization that is owned and self-managed by its workers. Either the workers are all democratically involved in the decision-making together, or they elect a person to manage the cooperative and make decisions for them. The work cooperative follows certain principles like democracy, training, and control, which provides meaning and is also one of the reasons it might appeal to people as a solution for organizing.

This struck a chord with me because control is one of the major issues that comes up in narratives of opting out and in. People experience little or no control over their lives and their time before opting out, but once they have opted in to new lifestyles, mindsets and solutions for work, they gain control over when, where, and how they work, which not only is important to them, it also adds to their sense of authenticity and wellbeing. (You can read more about that here and here.)

Another thing that I found interesting was that the researcher who had been studying cooperatives was obviously very intrigued by this way of organizing. When talking about cooperatives, she confessed that she was almost reluctant to admit that work in cooperatives can also be problematic as it can be precarious and lack security. In other words, it is not always a good solution for everyone. She was reluctant because she kind of really wanted it to be.

As someone who researches opting out and in, I can recognize that feeling. One of the things that is symptomatic of opting out and in, is that people generally come out the other end of their journeys – which can be very difficult and troubling experiences – feeling happy and better about themselves simply because they have more control and they feel like they can finally be themselves. Because of that they typically feel that their journey has been a successful one, and it becomes easy to think that maybe it could be a solution for everyone. But it isn’t.

Success is actually quite a complex and multifaceted issue. When we speak of success, we have to ask ourselves, out of whose perspective? When people opt out of successful careers, they often give up their high salaries, which, in turn, may have a direct effect on their pensions later on in life. This is something they seldom think of at the time. It might also entail an increased dependence on a spouse, which makes a person more vulnerable should something happen (for more about that, I can recommend The Feminine Mistakeby Leslie Bennetts). And then there is of course the societal perspective. If women, for example, opt out of power positions in society by choosing not to have careers, how will that effect gendered structures and gender equality?

No, even though opting out and in can be a wonderful and emancipating experience in many ways – I should know, I’ve been on my own opting out and in journey for the past decade – it’s not a solution for everyone, nor should it be. And to have an increasing number of people opt out is, in the long run, certainly not a sustainable solution out of a societal perspective.

So the answer isn’t to abandon all traditional ways of organizing. The answer is to change organizations from the inside. We need to help organizations create sites for good work, where people can have a sense of control and wellbeing so that they won’t feel a need to opt out or choose precarious work in order to feel authentic and find meaning. That will of course mean different things to different people, but what it would mean for organizations is that instead of just talking about it, they would have to really embrace diversity in the real meaning of the word.

That is what we need to do to create sustainable solutions for work, solutions that are sustainable not only for the employee, but for the employer and for the economy as well.

The discipline of a master procrastinator

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I’ve never really thought of myself as disciplined. I’m actually a master procrastinator. Sometimes it can inexplicably take me forever to get around to doing something – inexplicably because the things that don’t get done are usually really not a big deal. They wouldn’t necessarily take very long to do at all if I just got around to them.

So imagine my surprise when people started telling me they really admired my discipline. It all started when I was on maternity leave with my first child and taking social psychology classes. Since I was living abroad without a network of friends and relatives to help, I couldn’t leave my baby and actually go to class, but I would study the literature at home and then go to the university to take the exams. And this is what I did: I would spend time with the baby in the morning and when I put her down for her nap I would devour as much of the course literature as I could until she woke up. Then I would spend time with her again until her next nap and then I was off again to the world of group dynamics, prejudice, dialogue, disorder… you name it I was reading it. I was tired and my house was literally a mess, but I loved every minute. Studying social psychology was something I had wanted to do for a long time, but it also provided a pretty good counterweight to the sometimes lovely and oftentimes uneventful days at home with a baby.

I was told that I was amazing, so disciplined.

Another time I heard this was when I was working on my PhD at home in a different country than the university where I was enrolled, and also finished within the designated time. People would wonder how I had the discipline. Some people talked about how they would never be able to write a doctoral dissertation at home because they would get too distracted. Well, the discipline part really wasn’t that hard. After I enrolled as a PhD student, my job was suddenly to read again and think, as much as I possibly could. The things that might have distracted me at home, were things like laundry and dirty dishes and other never ending tasks that, to be honest, I didn’t want to do anyway. No, I didn’t feel particularly disciplined; I was just doing what I really wanted to do.

The other day I attended an event where I heard Paul Auster being interviewed. What an interesting man. Paul Auster, when asked about having the discipline to write every day, said that he always thinks that’s an irrelevant question. Because it’s not a matter of discipline, it’s a matter of wanting or not wanting to do what you do. If you really love what you do, discipline isn’t an issue.

So what do we learn from this? Well, maybe if you like what you do you don’t have to worry about discipline, but if you have to force yourself to do what you’re supposed to be doing, maybe you don’t really want to do it in the first place?

But I also have to say, procrastination really isn’t such a bad thing. It’s not the enemy of productivity, nor the opposite of discipline. There is a study that shows that procrastinators are, in fact, more creative than people who don’t procrastinate. I mean if you think about it, maybe procrastination is a way for creative people to allow themselves a break to actually reflect. We don’t generally get a lot of time to reflect in society, even though we know that you need to have time to reflect to actually be able to create.

So on that note, I think I’ll have a cup of coffee and procrastinate for a while. No discipline needed for that either.

The times they are a changing, and we can be part of that change

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I’m at a conference at the moment in the beautiful city of Turku, Finland, and the topic of the conference is the future of work. You can imagine, I kind of feel like a kid in a candy store. I mean, this is what my research on opting out and in is all about: to decipher clues that might tell us something about how people want to and will work in the future.

Well, I listened to a very interesting keynote presentation yesterday. It was given by Marina Gorbis, Executive Director of the Institute for the Future. Gorbis said something that really hit home: you can shape change as it is happening, but you can’t put it back in the box thinking that things can continue as before. Because they won’t.

We’re living in an extremely interesting and exciting, if not also somewhat frightening, time in history and things are changing at a mindboggling speed all around us. The nature of work is being completely revolutionized and we need to be involved in shaping this change. According to Gorbis, jobs are being broken down into tasks and micro-contributions and organizations have access to large networks rather than just a finite number of employees to complete these tasks. To a certain degree, management is being replaced by algorithmic coordination.

Gorbis talked about machines as economic agents and how many people feel threatened by this, by machines, technology, and artificial intelligence, but that these are, in fact, not part of the problem. The real problem is that we’re competing not against machines when shaping our lives and work, but against social processes and institutions. We’re in a time of dramatic change and development, but we are stuck in our ways, which makes it difficult to influence the change in a way that will serve us – humanity – in the best possible way.

And this is true. This is what I see in my research. People want to work differently, to create alternative ways of understanding and organizing their work. However, many organizations are stuck in routines and mindsets that date back to industrialization. When these organizations are unable to change with the times and accommodate the people who work for them, and who would most likely continue to work for them under different circumstances, some people see no other alternative but to leave – to opt out.

Another thing that I have found is that the change that is needed for these people to want to stay is really not that dramatic. They aren’t asking for much, just some flexibility, freedom, and control over their lives and their time. They still want to work, and they want to do so in a meaningful way. No, the change people crave isn’t necessarily really that great, but it involves a change of mindset; a change of the social processes and institutions that Gorbis talked about.

So to tell you the truth, as I was listening to her talking about the future, the future that is already here by the way, and describing the innovative ways in which people already organize their work – for better and for worse – I realized how ridiculous the situation really is. The fact that these organizations that people have opted out of are worried about things like flexible hours or working offsite is laughable. Come on organizations, catch up already!