A Company of One.

The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past. Edition 155.

It is projected that in 2027, 86.5 million people will be freelancing in the United States making 50.1 percent of the population.

A combination of five forces is driving this re-configuring of the workforce:

1. Aging: In the United States 10,000 people turn 65 every day and many of this group continue to work because they need to so as to make ends meet, or want to for reasons of identity, community, purpose and/or growth but cannot or do not want to work full time for a company. Many firms which are finding it difficult to access certain skills and experience are now becoming far more flexible in their approaches to retaining their seasoned workforce on a part-time basis.

2. New Mindsets: 76 percent of Gen-Z want to work for themselves and 66% of Gen-Z who hold a full-time job also have a side-gig or side-hustle. In addition, Covid-19 have many people re-framing the question of how life could fit into work ? with how does work fit into a life?

3. Remote/Hybrid Work: Remote-Hybrid work provides the flexibility to work anywhere for anybody which can enhance opportunities to get work while moving to locations that cost less which allows for more career options.

4. The Technology powered Gig-Economy: New marketplaces from Fiverr and UpWork to find talent and work, AWS and Open-AI to access technology, Etsy and Shopify to sell and connect to marketplaces, Tik-Tok and Meta to connect and brand, combined with companies need to remain agile is driving more talent and firms to a plug and play workplace.

5. AI and Web 3: While AI may not lead to fewer jobs it is going to change the nature of most if not all jobs and the half-life of skills are going to decay considerably faster. Web-3 while out of favor will eventually enable more ownership and equity for individuals. Most importantly many of these technologies are now providing super-computing power to everybody who cares to learn, allowing individuals to get all the benefits of scaled companies. Otter.ai allows you to have an AI assistant to take notes and write meeting summaries. Side-Kick and Magic from Shopify provides entrepreneurs with an army of digital helpers which allow for scaling without adding staff.

Whether it is finding work post-retirement, working a side-hustle or passion project to make ends meet or build an expertise or create an off-ramp, or filling the gaps between full-time employment at firms which are often trigger-happy in adding and removing talent from their payrolls, the smart professional prepares to be a company of one.

But even if you do not fit any of these categories be aware that companies are creating internal marketplaces where opportunities can be identified and applied for and teams of experts can form and dissolve around projects.

As a result, for an individual to thrive in a company they will need to learn how to operate as a company of one. The combined power of the Avengers is because each of the Avengers is powerful on their own and not just because they learn to work as one.

Think of yourself as a better paid Uber driver with benefits if you work for a company.

If your expertise is needed at that time or in a particular market and location, and your collaboration and ability to work in teams is highly rated you will be in demand.

If not, as companies manage and monitor costs and increasingly find ways to plug into resources all the time everywhere you will find yourself parked permanently.

Or consider the Hollywood model where expertise come together on tv or movie projects and then the people disband and move on. Very few people work at a studio. Most people work in teams where they bring their skill whether it be casting, directing, catering or make up etc. The future of business will be similar as companies begin re-aggregating expertise around projects versus having hordes of generalists or people hanging around for a project. McKinsey and Bain have done this for years.

I am not suggesting that everyone will be a freelancer going from gig to gig but if you build your career with the mindset of continually honing expertise, working well with other people in teams and being flexible you will succeed in your company of tens of thousands versus thinking of yourself as a cog in big machine waiting for someone to care for or build your career.

In fact, I strongly encourage people to stay if they can at their firms as long as they are growing or can find opportunities to grow. Make no mistake there are huge advantages to work amidst people you can learn from, with infrastructure that these firms have, their reputations that create a glow and aura around each talented individual, and growing because access to amazing Clients, big challenges and amazing leaders and mentors.

But to succeed over the long run in a firm you need to maximize your options. If you have options, it means you are market competitive, and it allows you to tolerate a lot of drama and day to day nonsense at your current firm because you care about the firm and you know you have options. Because you have options you have skills that are valuable to your firm. People stay a long time in firms where they are growing and building skills and they never feel trapped.

You stay because you can go.

To thrive in a company today regardless of the size one must be responsible for one’s own career and ensure one is remaining relevant and not living on the fumes of past successes or believe that change will come slowly.

Becoming a Company of One.

1.Read A Company of One by Paul Jarvis. He asks us to consider if the real key to a richer and more fulfilling career, is to be able to work for oneself, determine one’s own hours, and become a (highly profitable) and sustainable company of one? It is critical like never before to identify opportunities that combine your skills and the market. To thrive means to “flourish by doing what one is best at for which there is a market.” Do not wait to find this later when you are out of work or under pressure but do so now. Finding what you flourish at allows you to further your career at your existing company. Again, operating with a company of one mindset does not mean you need to work in a company of one but it is a mindset that ensures you are honing skills and have options which allow you to stay in your firm.

2.Architect, hone and sculpt your key superpowers: The true power of any organization is a combination of th power of the talent to work as one but also that each person has superpowers and is very talented in some niche, expertise or craft. The Avengers are successful not just because they work together but because each one of them whether it be Wonder Woman or Iron Man have their own unique powers. They have powers of “one”.

Career Turbocharging is a piece that helps you identify your superpowers:

3.Build out your online and digital presence. Your resume is not what is on your hard drive or LinkedIn. It is increasingly your digital presence, particularly the first page that people see on Google when they search for you or the answer to a prompt “who is X” on GPT-4, Bing, Bard or Claude.

Go search for yourself but do not look just at the search results. Click the news tab, the image tab, and the video tab and recognize that this is the first impression that will be made and also this is what the AI engines will ingest. Ask a chat bot about yourself. This is “you” as the future becomes more distributed and digital. Try searching for your colleagues and competitors on search and chat-bots and you will be surprised at how your perceptions of a person can change.

To help create a better presence think of being active on two or three platforms like Twitter (X), Threads, Instagram, Tik-Tok and LinkedIn, develop a website (using Square Space or some other service), consider writing a blog on some passion or hobby or even start a newsletter.

4.Invest deeply in relationships including the firm you work at: In a connected age it is critical that you have as many allies and people who will vouch for you and serve both as leads and references.

Try to stay as long as you can at a firm working to fix issues with jobs and people there vs giving up or leaving. Do not believe the grass is greener on the other side because you will find that it is often because it is fertilized with bullshit.

If you do leave do not burn bridges because everyone will check with the places you worked at or the people who worked there especially if you decide to become a company of one. Elegant exits are as critical as energetic entrances.

Think long term. Help as many people as you can as often as you cannot just because it may help you but you will feel great doing so. Even if you spend your entire life working at a large company as most people do keep thinking of yourself as just yourself without your title, the budgets and the armies of supplicants or staff. Many people confuse their title with themselves and are shocked to find the hard way that it was the title and not them that people were genuflecting too.

5.Invest in learning: The day a human being and a professional stops learning is the day they stop growing and career decay sets in. Anybody who does not spend a few hours a week learning is falling behind today.

Here is everything I have learned about learning.

We are entering a brave new world and the future is hard to tell. Maximizing optionality in a changing world requires each of us to think with a company of one mindset even if we wish to spend decades at our current place of work.

Rishad Tobaccowala helps grow companies, teams and leaders by helping them see, think and feel differently. Forty years of experience delivered through writing, speaking and advising in ways that are actionable and inspirational. For more about Rishad Tobaccowala click here.