Buildings that stand dozens of stories high do so because their brick and mortar reflect principles of architecture successfully put to the test. Great sports and business teams flourish with unmatched cohesion not only because their members are understandably talented, but largely because sound principles of play and execution govern their behaviors and efforts as a whole. Principles are the underpinnings of thoughtful, sustaining and respected commercial creations. So it is with a sound, productive Portfolio Careerism
.
Consider the following eight themes and applications as the principle reasons why Portfolio Career Employment (PCE) ultimately distinguishes itself among better known employment and entrepreneurial models. These core principles will be woven throughout the effort you put forth to both design and implement your PCE. Others may widely call this approach to creative employment 'gig' work. PCE is that and much more.
Let’s take a look at each to appreciate how they contribute to the innovative signature of the PCE model.
Contractorship-Centric. Independent contractorship is widely and successfully employed across all industries of commerce. It can be either simple or complex in structure. This contract work is grounded in remuneration for pre-specified results over a pre-specified period of time (the term of the agreement). PCE in its execution is, fundamentally, independent contractorship. You will recall from earlier stated remarks, however, that independent contractorship is not contract employment.
Vocation-Based. For most of the employed today, their choice for work is likely determined by their level of educational preparation, proximity to home and the supply side of the job market. Career counselors widely report that workers at any level of job satisfaction, from the disenfranchised to the highly contented, routinely express the desire to ultimately find work of their “calling”. Expect to devote substantial thought to declaring and building your PCE with vocation as a significant driver when naming your core Platforms and constructing your Platform Proficiencies.
Effort Hours. Careful attention to ‘effort hours’ characterizes the importance of time over which we expend effort in our work. Pay per hour jobs are the measure of just that. As a PCE advocate, you will either be paid per hour or a single fee with term specifications. Again, the appeal of independent contractorship is to manage effort over time against revenue earned. For example, will you choose to accept a project promising to pay $6,000 (projected effort hours – 170) or one likely to yield $2,000 (projected effort hours – 21)? In automotive speak, your wise and efficient management of effort hours is the “governor” on your employment engine. Ultimately, be prepared to project earnings based in part on effort hours, protective of time as a co-equal to revenue.
Stewardship. This certainly strikes a chord with many today seeking career satisfaction. Made popular among various religious movements and environmental causes, stewardship widely refers to taking care of something that belongs to our at large, global family. Our PCE approach customizes stewardship to include any important or vital cause, notion or principle you deem worthy of protecting and nurturing in a commercial way. As you go about forming proficiencies for your Stewardship Platform, keep in mind how indelible an impression this is likely to impart on others who come to appreciate your devotion to this principle. Even more, expect your declared stewardship to clearly sustain the emotional and soulful integrity of your eemployment.
Professorship. Do you have some talent, process or idea to share that showcases an expertise? Are you willing to declare these proficiencies in way that leads and inspires? PCE Professorship does not require an advanced degree or a faculty position at a renowned university. Proudly, we all have the ability to instruct and guide. Commercially develop the gifts you have that offer solutions and strategies for all who seek their promise. This represents a unique opportunity for the type of braggadocio that will be appreciated for all its possibility to change lives and advance shared learning.
Entrepreneurship. Who hasn’t thought of storming to the summit of the commercial world with some impressive and creative business concept? Imagination and uncommon vision usually precede these great efforts. In quixotic fashion, entrepreneurs dream big and set aside trepidation in favor of what might be. The trick here is to be bold but always realistic and spot-on with goals and objectives that reflect savvy understanding of the markets in question. This is, paradoxically, not the time for unbridled whimsy. As you go about forming your PCE the matter of smart business innovation and how you interpret it through the Entrepreneurship Platform Proficiencies you create will ultimately define your adroitness for the nearly impossible and uniquely extraordinary. New thinking coupled with fresh approaches is, after all, what PCE excellence should ultimately exude.
Your Life’s Work Vision™. Setting goals, forging strategies and planning objectives is to promote the “high fly-over” forward-thinking that is both found and expected in any successful commercial venture. The PCE devotee embraces this type of thinking as a matter fundamental to the breath and scope of enterprise design and implementation.
Set fear aside for the moment and imagine without hindrance what your commercial and vocational dream might ultimately look like. Vision has no restraints; it calls us to the outer limits of possibility. Your time for paying homage to limitation and self-doubt is ended here.
To conclude the design side (indeed, the In Principle portion) of the your PCE, your portfolio of Core Platforms and their Platform Proficiencies will descriptively name and itemize your aptitudes, competencies, products, services and programs. In all its élan, your portfolio will become Your Life’s Work Vision™ “dressed to the nines.” Your vision and its carefully demonstrated tally of proficiencies serve not only the commercially dedicated independent contractor but also those who may otherwise be content for now to continue on with traditional at-will employment. Only now, the path to career completeness will be buffed with a vocational polish sure to inspire.
1. Contractorship-Centric: An entity of one exclusively designs and predominantly provides products and services. Routinely outsources to other contractors when demand exceeds ability to supply. Single source for control and degree of risk for performance or product quality, revenue flow, effort and expenses. State-of-the-art self employment.
2. Vocation-Based: Largely blends a model of service and product delivery defined by career experience (historical) with a greater need to express talents and personal goals when pursuing a desire for commercial self-fulfillment and -characterization.
3. Network-driven: Chiefly defines the market through personal understanding and access to demand sources through a carefully executed flow of networking around, through and with commercial “firewalls”, “gatekeepers” and “friendlies”, respectively. Actively engages business development contractors and contracts where appropriate.
4. Customized-serviceable: Supply diverse, demand accommodating.
Conventional Employment
1. Customarily employs talent-diverse, skill specific individuals as collective entity to provide products and/or services. Rarely if ever needs to outsource to contractors. Control and degree of risk for performance quality, revenue flow, effort and expenses dependent almost exclusively upon scope of staff size, abilities and commitment.
2. Largely or almost exclusively deploys employee abilities against a purely commercial needs drive to the “bottom line”. Rarely if ever defines corporate satisfaction as measured personal effort hours saved or individual goals achieved.
3. Carefully assesses a market’s potential through achievable penetration and potential revenue yield deploying conventional mass marketing tactics and sales “demand-creation” strategies .
4. Conventional practice attracting a large, one-product, one-service-fits-all customer base.
We here at the John Anthony George Foundation provide workshops live and virtually, via Zoom, exploring Portfolio Careerism, as presented in my book, An Uncommon Way Forward (Infinity Publishing, 2009), in all its possibilities. Call or text us now at 773-230-8817 to find a time to chat about how you, or those you work with or serve, can discover these wondrous truths in search of an exciting alternative approach to career fulfillment.
Carpe diem, friends!
Peter Willert
