Postcard from the Edge
The Art of Separation
I’ve recently found myself talking to many bright people who have suddenly found themselves “Outside the Walls” of places they thought they were secure.
The reasons were varied, although they had little to do with personal “performance” and far more to do with managers constructing a convincing (even if implausible) story for nervous shareholders. With little idea of how to create growth without risk, these defenestrations have had more to do with extracting apparent growth, the organisational equivalent of selling the family silver. A sort of corporate magic show.
I’m sure that to those doing the defenestration, the people leaving were largely indistinguishable from each other, anonymous, and always replaceable on demand if needed. That, though, is not what it looks like when you talk with them. Each is individual, and although on the surface they have similar skills, they utilise them differently, have a unique place in a network of connections inside and outside the organisation, and a backpack of implicit knowledge that leaves with them.
I am interested in the Artisans amongst them. They might be accountants, designers, engineers, or any one of a host of skills that can be reduced to a resumé. They have a particular approach to and commitment to the work they do. They think beyond the task at hand, work outside their designated hours, and are the ones people turn to when the processes don’t work as they are supposed to.
They are high-value nodes in a network that those doing the defenestration have little idea of. Network engineers would describe them as “nodes of betweenness centrality” through which unmeasured but critical traffic passes. Malcolm Gladwell might describe them as the elements that create “Tipping Points” - Advovates, Mavens, and Connectors. Finance sees them as undifferentiated but above-average costs whose removal makes the operating margins feel better (for a while).
What, though, becomes of the displaced artisan?
For most, the immediate go-to is LinkedIn. On the surface, LinkedIn is a valuable resource that connects professionals and gives them a space to present themselves. Below the surface, though, it is somewhat different.
It reminds me of the Serengeti. We find a few big beasts who create respectability and influence the narrative, then the wildlife, grazing nervously, waiting to be chosen, and then the legions of hunters looking for lunch via recruitment fees.
With a premium LinkedIn membership, you can have an AI help you with your resume. I’ve tried it, and I have to say it’s impressive until you realise that the algorithm-friendly resumé it has created for you will be largely identical to every other AI-constructed resumé of people with similar skills.
Then, we realise we have a Catch-22 situation - that the recruiter’s AI doing the first stage of choosing is looking at our AI-constructed resumé and that we are sandwiched between them as some sort of homogenised candidate.
What is the Catch-22 rule?
“Catch-22” is a provision in army regulations; it stipulates that a soldier's request to be relieved from active duty can be accepted only if he is mentally unfit to fight. Any soldier, however, who has the sense to ask to be spared the horrors of war is obviously mentally sound, and therefore must stay to fight.
In the LinkedIn market, then, getting chosen is a lottery based on the labels our skills carry and our employment history, but only a tiny part of the unique individual we are.
If we put in too much of who we are, and the AI doesn’t select based on those criteria, we lose. That’s the game.
So what happens if our data gets past the algorithm to the first stage of the human eyeball? Our resumé now has the attention of a recruiter whose income is determined by an ability to get an adequate bottom on a specified seat as quickly and cheaply as possible. Filtering at this stage will be for bonus extras and may include previous employer fit, location, and a number of other labels - leadership, extra qualifications, etc. but nothing too exotic that might question how things are done.
If you can get through this, you may be in front of the Mark 2 eyeball—the employer—and the possibility of a principal-to-principal conversation, where the artisan's qualities become more apparent, expressed, and aligned with the role, the company, and the team. Or, of course, not because whilst the advertisements may say they value ideas, commitment and passion, it may be that what they really want are those who are compliant process operators, who are happy with good enough, and without the curiosity and craft approach of the artisan.
It means we have to make a choice: to take the job and leave the artisan at home or to keep trying.
Divergence
The more the workplace pursues efficiency and productivity, the less room there is for curiosity and connection to what we do or the autonomy that enables it. No matter how many pool tables and bean bags are in the office, it is still output and relentless growth that calls the shots for most organisations.
For the vast majority of us, craft is something we have to pursue in our own time.
Perhaps that is the connection we must make: to accept that the organisations we work for to earn a living will never be home to the artisan in us. When it comes to work, what we share in common is the need to make a return on effort.
When we join an organisation, for a while, learning precedes performance, and equally, remarkably quickly, we arrive at a point where performance atrophies learning. At most organisations, familiarity quickly shrivels curiosity,
In organisations dominated by process, there is limited room for learning - we serve the processes rather than create them in the way an artisan does. We get promoted where we are, but what do we learn that will be useful elsewhere? It doesn’t take long to become environment-dependent. To take the felt-safe route of progress in a known organisation, even if that organisation is going backwards. In uncertain times, however, feeling safe can be dangerous when the reality is that redundancy is a shareholder’s frown away, and shareholder representatives change more often than the current weather.
I think, more than ever, we need to think of the few years after the end of our formal education as an apprenticeship. Traditionally, apprenticeships were seven years, and that feels about right. Then, think of ourselves as latter-day journeymen/women, learning from those who have something to teach us, until we decide whether to continue as well-paid itinerants, or establish our own practice. Either way, by the time we hit our forties, we need to be able to make a choice.
If we don’t, we are in danger of becoming akin to latter-day James Taylor Mill Worker:
Yes, but it's my life, has been wasted And I have been the fool To let this manufacturer Use my body for a tool I can ride home in the evening Staring at my hands Swearing by my sorrow that a young girl Ought to stand a better chance Millworker, James Taylor
The average “time in role” in today’s organisations is four years. Again, that feels about right: one year learning, two years delivering, and one year levelling off and entering the mill worker phase. It shouldn’t be this way, of course, but for all the HR hype, experience says otherwise. After four years, we need to look critically at where the path we are on is taking us and whether it’s time to diverge. Getting comfortable leads to complacency, which in turn leads, inevitably, to outraged surprise.
We each see it differently, but I think divergence is something that we are aware of but tolerate for the sake of the relationship and the sense of security it brings, only to find that, as
points out, they left us some time ago.There is no “solution” or neat seven-step process to prevent this estrangement; it is an essential and inevitable feature of current business models. We use each other up in pursuit of efficient value generation, and the time it takes is getting shorter as technology lends a hand.
The art of divergence is in being aware and being ready.
I believe the answer to being ready lies in conversation with others asking themselves the same question: somewhere quiet, Outside the Walls of conventional business thinking and practice. From the end of this month, New Artisans will move over and be included in my substack, “Outside the Walls” (OTW). I am moving those already registered here over to OTW and extending current paid subscriptions to April 2025 as a thank you for being here.
If you’re not there yet, it would be wonderful to have you along as we explore the space outside the walls. Heretics, Poachers, Pirates and Wanderers very welcome…
I think you’re right, it’s best to treat a corporate role as training for what you want to do later in your career when you are ‘Outside the Walls’. Once you are in your forties, you should always have a ‘non-corporate’ escape route, a fallback if you get made redundant or burnout (the combined chance of which is much higher than staying there until you get your pension).
I’ve been ‘Outside the Walls’ for 20 years and it’s been a real struggle, partly because I was mentally unprepared for it (and partly because I was so damaged by my experience inside the walls).