The long term: January 20, 1997 issue of New Thinking

January 20, 1997 New Thinking:
The long term

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January 20, 1997

The long term

By Gerry McGovern

The long-term isn’t what it used to be.

This Internet landscape is not stable. Not for technology, not for people. Everything is shifting, nothing is secure. But then the Internet is just the sharpest edge of a world that is daily cutting away at the future.

The future used to be some point down the line, some point off in the distance. It used to be something you thought about, planned for. But right now in this world of continuous change it is hard to know what time we have, what time we are in.

Our present is someone’s else’s future, someone’s else past. We are living in quick time, we are racing across ground constantly being eaten up by progress. Nothing is out of reach and everything is closing in, ready to pass us by.

And yet, at core, have we changed? Are we any different in our bones to those past humans who lived shorter lives but who lived long, steady days? Our years, our lives are like fast-forward occurrences.

What makes something old? Old things are good things too, aren’t they? Old fiddles, old wine. Culture. Yes, some old things are indeed precious. Not around here. A 386 or Mac LC, anyone?

I started my own company because I didn’t want to work for anyone else. Being an employer comes with the turf. Some say that the way forward is to have contract workers, so that you can be lean and flexible, so that you can always be ready to change with the ever changing times.

But somehow I can’t see how you can build much that is truly solid and worthwhile if it is simply on contract workers that you depend.

Because these ‘contract’ workers know about the ever changing times as much as I do. They know that the only loyalty they have is to themselves, and they’re dead right, of course. The new breed don’t have a great fear of downsizing. In fact, given half a chance they’ll downsize your company for you.

The new breed are portfolio people looking for companies to be part of their portfolios. They know that the long-term has gone out of fashion, and that as soon as they’ve gathered that body of work and experience in one place, there’s a necessity to move on.

It’s obvious that the only way to keep good people these days is to give them some sort of share in the company. There has to be an irony here, hasn’t there? In the Industrial Age, lots of people got lifelong employment, but ownership remained among the few. In the digital age, where precious few get lifelong anything, ownership needs to be shared.

Very few companies can promise you the future unless in the process they are promising you a share in that future. Because you are the knowledge worker, and this is the age where knowledge works best.

The future is what you make it and it is the knowledge worker who is making that future right now. If the knowledge worker does not share in the company, then the chances are that the company might not share in the future.

Gerry McGovern

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The future is what you make it and it is the knowledge worker who is making that future right now.