Unorganization: The Individual Handbook is divided into the following sections:

 

SECTION A: WHY SHOULD INDIVIDUALS UNORGANIZE?

 

Individuals are leading the push to unorganize

Introduction

Rankers

Dismember membership

Career Anchors

Find a moral dimension

Enter the entrepreneurs

The economic value of branders

For self-employment success, have...

Job security is having choices

Lifestreams

 

SECTION B: CHARACTERISTICS OF INDIVIDUALS

 

Energetic

Honest

Honesty does not mean unconditional niceness

Charismatic

Balanced

Optimistic

Enactment not entrapment

Open-minded

Suspended Animation

Self-confident

Success comes from self

Attitude is everything

Problems no more

 

SECTION C: IMPLICATIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS

 

The fundamental flaws

The fundamental forces

The brander's technological raincoat

Technological capitalism

Fat Liberty

Mass comes from many minors

Feedback

 

This version of Unorganization: The Individual Handbook is a shorter version of that which is incorporated in the Complete Personal Unorganization book on unorgan.com. The later includes a section on implementation- explaining the tools and giving case studies of how to make the transition to a brander in practice.

 

 SECTION A: WHY SHOULD INDIVIDUALS UNORGANIZE?

 

Individuals are leading the push to unorganize

When I created unorganization, I didn’t know what the primary means for unorganizing society would be, but I offered two main alternatives:

Organizations could and should "downstructure"- remove inflexible and static procedures and practices and introduce techniques such as teleworking and mobile computing (See Unorganization: The Company Handbook and Unorganization: The Implementation Toolkit on unorgan.com for more details).

Individuals could and should change from being rankers in a hierarchy to being branders (the subject of this book).

Since then, a lot of companies have begun to downstructure around the world, and a lot of individuals have stopped being employees and become entrepreneurs. But it is the later have been making a lot of the running recently as more individuals have made the move out of the hierarchy and struck out on their own. This can be seen from the number of copies of my books downloaded from unorgan.com- for the first time since the site was launched, this Individual Handbook now regularly exceeds that of the company one. It is easier to change your own views and behavior than it is to champion the downstructuring cause within your organization.

It has been insightful for me to find out that even those in senior positions in traditional business organizations are dissatisfied with what they have attained and want to achieve more. These people have comfort and security- they are established in their roles at the big organizations, with lucrative salary, benefits and share options. But is that a substitute for personal fulfillment? Many think not. They cash in their share options and keep the proceeds as a nest egg- it provides their security. Many of the individuals who have left their organizations are in their 40s- they have achieved senior positions in hierarchies but have become frustrated with the way their jobs have changed from being creative and visionary to being centered around politics, administration and people management. They want to raise their heads again and broaden their horizons beyond what’s going on in their organization. Well known senior executives have left to be figurehead at unknown companies as they go to the stock exchange. Many other people who have been made redundant by big organizations have started up new businesses. Funnily enough, unorganization is a revolution being lead by older people. Most of the graduates I know are persisting with their graduate training programs and boring jobs with big companies. Some are realizing that the rhetoric and the reality are divergent- and going off traveling and doing others things.

This book is aimed at all those people who already earn their living outside of traditional organizations, and also those who cannot or will not continue to rely upon their organization in the future.

 

Introduction

People are increasingly unwilling and unable to rely on the institutions such as business organizations that dominated and controlled yesterday’s organized world in today’s unorganized world. Such institutions do not represent the only, primary or best stage upon which individuals can earn a living and live their dreams. Why is this so? Because the world has fundamentally changed from the old, orderly organized world to today's unstable, global, diverse unorganized world.

"Unorganization" is my banner term to describe a number of political, economic, social and technological trends that have occurred and are continuing. For example, respect for, ability of and certainty about the purpose and role of central institutions such as political governments, royalty and work organizations has disintegrated. Behavioral "norms" regarding everything from the role of women to jobs for life has disappeared. The unorganized world combines lifestyle changes (mobility, divorce and working mothers), demographic changes (family, security fears) with technological changes (new telecommunications services such as the Internet). Globalization, the Internet and the collapse of communism are amongst the most powerful of these changes.

There used to be a curse that said "May you live in interesting times". These days, this is the greatest compliment anyone can pay you- being a brander is all about leading an interesting life and the unorganized world certainly provides ample opportunities for a diverse and challenging and rewarding life- for those who put themselves in a position to take advantage of them.

Unorganization: The Individual Handbook sets out to explain the ways and means that individuals can thrive in the unorganized world. Basically, individuals need to go from being "rankers" in hierarchies to self-employed "branders". This transformation in attitude and activity is achieved by developing "lifestreams". This book explains that process. So what is a ranker?

 

Rankers

Too often, people working in traditional hierarchical and less hierarchical organizations are inter-changeable units of economic production that I call "rankers". Rankers encompass anyone who has subsumed their personal individual beliefs to those of their employer, or never had any views of their own. Few people are born average, we just accumulate more and more chains the older we get and spend most of our time organizing and worrying about these ties. Reluctant as I am to categorize people according to their mere presence in a certain place, I can do this in the case of rankers with some confidence, given their uniformity in behavior and attitude. By their very nature, rankers are clones who are difficult to distinguish from one another because of their uniform appearance, behavior, lifestyle, ambitions and thoughts. These are the really quiet, average, steady and defensive people that you come across in all business organizations. At the extreme, rankers share a common dress code at work, a common glum facial expression, a common monotone and a common averageness in ideas, coupled with an impressive (from the point of view of recruiters and non-rankers anyway) ability to administer and pay attention to detail.

Rankers are also extremely rank conscious and highly sensitized to the whims and foibles of those higher up the chain of command. They laugh at their seniors every joke, funny or not. If your gut wrenches in disgust at displays of this hyper-sensitized attention paying, then you probably want to be or are a brander.

The hierarchical and less hierarchical organizations of the organized world cultivated rankers through their recruitment and socialization policies. The existence of a detailed set of work procedures regulating a job and its responsibility and activities ensures that anyone can learn the job routine in a few weeks and once learnt, the scope to develop that role further is limited. The organizational policies that stamp on dissent and conformity must change.

Rankers either do not have the imagination to do anything other than accept the policies, procedures and decisions conferred upon them by someone of a higher rank, or more likely are simply too trapped by mort-gages and other commitments to voice or vent their disagreement. Such traps necessitate compliance.

We all get to the stage where we decide between doing as we are told when we are told by our "superiors", or deviating from standard organizational norms and procedures and doing our own thing. This choice is typically made within a year of joining a new organization. It is very difficult to remain independent in opinions and actions over an extended period of time and simultaneously comfortable in a business organization. Many non-rankers who are free from heavy fixed cost obligations such as mort-gages rightly choose to leave their organizations. People who are obliged to stay because of debt obligations fester and live for their life outside of the office.

If we succumb to following organizational procedures, we get promoted as a reward for our compliance, which brings with it more organizational benefits, further locking us into the hierarchy. Once we have a "stable" "career", we become candidates for settling down and getting a mort-gage and marriage. In fact, many business organizations ONLY promote rankers who are married and settled. Rankers end up suited only to the hierarchy, thereby perpetuating it further. By then, when the ranker's own views do involuntarily arise from the depths of their stomachs, they quickly repress them.

Individuals must avoid becoming rankers through the conscious and paranoid avoidance of fixed term monetary commitments such as mort-gages and loans and organization benefits such as pension packages.

Rankers were fine for the organized world when organizations coveted continuity, but in the unorganized world, we need ideas, imagination and innovation. Average people produce average results. These days, it is better to be a spanner in the works than a ranker in the pyramid.

 

Dismember membership

The need to be a member, the existence of membership and the permanence of membership all constrain growth and reduce mobility and opportunity. We need to dismember membership for the unorganized world. We need multiple interests and the ability to follow each of those interests fully and flexibly: dividing our time, braincells and presence according to our particular inclinations at that time. It is far better never to associate yourself permanently with any organizations: political, economic or otherwise. Never sign up formally. Go for informal and temporary associations. It is too constraining to need to be an organization's employee and reflect their ways of behaving and thinking. If everyone agreed with everything I had to say then there would be no reason for anyone to read anything I have to say and no reason for me to write it.

 A management theorist, Charles Handy has described the different types of membership present in today’s labor market. It has a professional core, a contractual fringe and a flexible labour force. (HANDY, The Age of Unreason, 1989). These three groups of organizational actors all have different relationships with organizations, in terms of pay, careers, importance and management supervision:

The core workforce represents the organization's main knowledge base. These people add the most value in developing solutions that meet customer requirements. They generally have careers and are encouraged to stay within the organization through interesting projects that largely determine the organization's overall success. Results achieved rather than hours worked and time served are emphasized because different people work best at different times and in different places.

The contractual fringe on the other hand are those people on the edge of organizations who are specialists in performing tasks which are very important but not a part of the organization's core activities. The contractual fringe includes consultants who work with different organizations on a temporary basis often for a particular project, and then move on to another organization.

The flexible labour force contains people who hold a series of jobs in different organizations at the same time. These people relate more to their profession, such as plumber or cleaner, than to any particular organization. People in the flexible labour force are paid according to their results, and cannot be supervised to the same degree as directly employed workers. They get paid as long as the jobs they do are completed within the stipulated time and to the required standard.

None of these different contractual relations are necessarily disadvantageous to the people concerned or to the organizations. There is little loyalty between the flexible labor person and the organization. However, that suits both parties just fine. The organization does not have to pay very high benefits to non-core workers and the workers can get work using their skills in different organizations because the entry barriers are low. The contractual fringe get variety in work, moving from project to project, and add to their skills continuously. Core employees have got to ensure that their organization delivers on its promises of freedom to add value- otherwise they can and should leave.

Membership is becoming less permanent and more temporary as employment types and forms become more diverse. Conventional notions of how and where we work are giving way to individualized work driven by the employee and not the employer. In the case of rankers, the employee is dependent on the employer. In the case of branders, the employer is dependent on the employee. A brander is regularly approached with different working opportunities.

 

Career Anchors

Individuals can help transform themselves by developing so-called career anchors (SCHEIN, 1978). Career anchors are patterns of self-perceived talents, motives and values that guide, constrain and integrate career choices. Individuals need to work out which career anchor most closely matches their work motivations.

There are several different career anchors:

Functional: this kind of career anchor is based around technical or functional competence. Career choices are then taken on the basis of allowing the individual to remain challenged in a functional specialization, rather than a desire to get into management.

Managerial: this career anchor tends to be held by those employees who have managerial aspirations and strive for general management positions. They base their managerial ability on analytical skills, emotional skills such as resilience to crises, and interpersonal leadership skills.

Creativity: this is the career anchor for individuals who are entrepreneurial in their need to create a product, service or company.

Independence: the career anchor for people who find themselves unable to work in a large organization or a hierarchy, and therefore adopt careers as consultants or freelance workers. In America, the entrepreneur legitimizes the company. In Britain on the other hand, the company legitimizes the individual. In Britain, the only person who gets serviced faster than someone from a large organization is a freelance journalist. The great thing about being a freelance journalist is that you can dress up in rags, bring your dog with you to interviews and still get access to senior executives and organizational strategies.

Security and stability: Some employees still aim for continuity in both their employment and their community. Only this career anchor is likely to be an untenable goal in the modern world of work. There is nothing wrong with seeking stability as, for example, a family person. However, the unorganized world, stability is likely to be the same person working in different organizations, rather than stability WITHIN ONE organization. However, there are still people (rankers) who are so average that they could only get a routine job in the hierarchy.

Career anchors tend to develop from a self-concept that is tested by the individual against real outcomes and achievements inside and outside of organizations. Self-concepts are modified on the basis of these discoveries and a career anchor is formed a few years after leaving school or university. Individuals should not however modify their aspirational self-concept just because their managers try to slow their progress down. Be certain not to accept your organization’s view of you: it is tainted by self-interest and the need to reduce your aspirations and expectations to make them compatible with your position as a ranker in the hierarchy. Often the only way to really find out how successful you can be is outside of an organization where you have the largest space to try to achieve your personal and professional objectives.

 

Find a moral dimension

 Too many of us currently travel society's organized routes and go to work each day to earn the money to pay for the possessions and purchases. (See Unorganization: The Lifestyle Handbook on unorgan.com for more details on how to change such organized lifestyles). We sell products that our customers do not need or worse still, we oversell our product’s capability and end up disappointing and lying to our customer. If your organization asks you to misrepresent or oversell a product or capability, approach the market leader and tell them you want to work for them because they are the best!

Instead, more and more of us need to have a moral purpose, a moral dimension. We should each have a mission to change the world for the better through what we do. We should be actively in pursuit of changing the world for the better, by, for example, making technologies more widely available to more people for less. Work should not just be a means to an end, but an end in itself.

We should not look back into history and decide that something is not possible because no-one has ever achieved it before. We are living in fundamentally different times and as such, history is irrelevant. A moral dimension confers a purpose beyond self and routine.

It is important that our work has a moral end as moral as being a means to an end.

 

Enter the entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are more important than ever in the unorganized world where fewer people can rely on organizations taking most of the risks. The very uncertainty that entrepreneurs move in is a fundamental characteristic of the unorganized world. As such we are all entrepreneurs now.

Entrepreneurs see a market requirement and take a risk betting that they can fill that need quicker, cheaper and more closely than other organizations. In the old organized world, business success was too often a function of mere market presence- you only had to be there to capture a market share- and it was very difficult for entrepreneurs to break into that tightly controlled market. In the unorganized world, it is becoming more and more the case that anyone can be a successful entrepreneur anywhere. If they achieve this, they earn a profit. Entrepreneurs are simply a form of problem solver who step in and provide a solution to a desire or need. Being an entrepreneur is an act of courage, as someone once said, every company begins that way. Being an entrepreneur signals a willingness to go out and take a risk for an expected but uncertain return. Of course, if the return was guaranteed, there would be no risk and no entrepreneur.

Like so much else these days, being an entrepreneur is all about attitude. To be an entrepreneur, you have to believe in something passionately. There is no such thing as a successful half-hearted entrepreneur. You have to live and breathe your business and be very dedicated to it for it to thrive. That is why turning your hobby into a business is a good idea: you tend to be passionate about your non-work interests because you spend time and money on them out of choice. As such, entrepreneurial success is less about presence and more about responsiveness and innovation. This is good news for entrepreneurs who are passionate, focused, committed and energetic.

The enterprise culture is growing. Enter the enterprising entrepreneurs. Every single one of us.

 

The economic value of branders

Entrepreneurs are "branders". Individuals in today’s unorganized world should be branders: people who think of themselves as brands. It is no longer just products that need a brand identity. Every individual needs to develop their own brand identity too. Outside of work, nearly everyone is a brand: we dress to express our personality, pursue different interests and hobbies, and take part in different activities with different people. Becoming a brander is developing and extending these differences into a way of making a living. Branders live life as if it is a resume, a curriculum vitae, adding qualifications and discoveries all of the time, learning, growing and changing continuously.

Top musicians, film stars, sports players, bond traders, sales people and other individuals are already brands in their own right. I advocate that we should ALL become brands: not only knowledge workers in ideas industries such as advertising creatives and management consultants, but also accountants, cleaners, shop assistants, waitresses and every other individual. After all, we are all already actors and actresses to a certain degree.

The wages that branders earn are often far higher than those of rankers, but for good reason. In fact, branders often earn much more to do a job than the minimum they would accept to do that job. Supermodels may not get out of bed for less than $10,000 but they often get $25,000 anyway. In economics, the concept of transfer earnings (nothing to do with transfer fees when sports players change teams) explains the minimum payment required to induce a star to work in that job (the $10,000). Economic rent (nothing to do with renting out property: the only property worth owning in the unorganized world is intellectual property) is the term that describes the extra payment over and above the transfer earnings. (In this case, $15,000 (the $25,000 actually earned minus the $10,000 minimum earnings for that job). (See the Economics textbook by BEGG, FISCHER AND DORNBUSCH for more discussion on the concepts of economic rent and transfer earnings).

The branders earn more than the transfer earnings because they are in demand and cannot be in two places doing different things for different people at the same time. You have to pay economic rent to persuade special individuals to work for you rather than apply their scarce talents to some other task. After all, a unique film director cannot direct more than a couple of films at once without the quality of their direction falling. If someone has a unique talent for directing, they are going to require payment at least equal to the level of transfer earnings to direct at all (rather than do something else such as say write scripts). Rewards paid to branders can take the form of pure cash payments or payments in kind such as trailers on the studio lot (the size of which depends upon the amount of income over and above the economic rent the branders bring in). The director will need to earn some economic rent in order to be induced by one studio to produce a certain film rather than some other of equal or similar interest. This has nothing to do with their productivity: it is not about how much they produce but rather about what they produce and its market value.

Managers are actually willing and indeed happy to pay very high wages to branders who are uniquely talented. The reason is that the output these star players produce, be it films, games, meetings or whatever, are likely to earn their managers a larger revenue than the level of economic rent paid out. Despite the extremely high fees paid to branders, it is profitable to pay them and supply this output. If someone costs $10 million but earns $100 million in return, you don’t mind paying $10 million. There is no such thing as a sure thing in the uncertain unorganized world, but relatively speaking the "A-List" is as likely to bring the punters in as anyone in this day and age. And if branders don’t earn back their high fees, their star wanes and they don’t get paid as much the next time around.

The concept of economic rent also explains why content generation is more important than distribution: because unique content generators are scarcer than bandwidth to broadcast that content. When a dee-jay leaves a radio station, he or she can pretty much move their show wholesale to another radio station and the only difference to the listener is the frequency on the tuner dial.

Economic rent explains why branders deserve to earn more: because they bring more revenue in. Economic rent is the reason why it is worth investing in differentiating oneself from others: because if you cannot get it elsewhere then marketable skills are well rewarded by those who need them. Given this fact, the policy of organizations that pays standard wages to people on a standard wage scale is folly which is leading talented people to desert hierarchies en masse: people are different and no standard wage or job description can ever change that fact. Our organizations are designed to suit rankers, when they also urgently need branders to survive.

To be all that you can be and earn all that you can earn, you need to leave your standard job. But if you are a ranker who has not got the talent to earn more than the standard wages that your standard job pays then I guess that you had better stay put in the hierarchy.

 

For self-employment success, have...

In addition to the personal characteristics described in Section C below, for small business to get larger, there are some requirements:

Talents. What you are good at. Different people have natural and acquired aptitudes for different things. Some people draw well, some write, some learn languages, some play musical instruments or sport.

Interests. What interests you and what you enjoy spending your time doing. People are interested in any of the many tasks and topics which affect us on this wonderfully diverse planet. Some people are interested in digging up old bones, some in looking after teeth, some in keeping fit. We should encourage and respect these different interests. With diverse skills and interests, we are most likely to be able to meet the diverse future challenges of the unorganized world.

We should try and dedicate most of our time and energy to our passions. Most interesting people have passions. People have diverse lifestreams: I am often amazed about what people collect. The good thing about earning a living from your passions is that you have to be passionate to succeed in your own business. Indeed, most self-employed people are passionate about what they are working on.

Differentiators. Branders cultivate the differences that make them special. In the organized world, you could get by being average and ordinary. Indeed, this was positively encouraged and rewarded in hierarchies and queues. The imperative is no longer to be the same in order to fit into organized collectivist structures, but to be different in order to be invited into and valued in the dynamic interactions that dominated the very unorganized space.

All individuals are unique, and we each have a responsibility to cultivate our differences when trying to live a fulfilled and fulfilling life. We need to emphasize these differences rather than suppress them. Clearly, each of us has much in common: we all need to sleep, eat, all get thirsty, and so on. But beyond this common core, we should develop different skills, opinions and interests. We must develop our Unique Selling Points (USPs): the things that set us apart from other people such as unusual hobbies and collections. Without different opinions, we end up with too similar a response to a very diverse world. Viewing our great world through narrow fields of vision does not do it justice.

Content and Ideas: Without an idea such as a lifestream to set up a business, there is of course little chance of self-employment success. People need to generate content that is valued. Everyone, within both personal and professional contexts needs to have ideas and solutions that interest other people. The generation of content is the key currency in the information age of the unorganized world. Content is king because global distribution channels for content such as the Internet are widespread.

Many of us just getting into business today are better off concentrating on research and development and sales and marketing rather than distribution or manufacturing. For example, Nike, the sports apparel company, does not manufacture anything, it is effectively a design house. It creates new shoe designs, brands them and gets someone else to actually do the manufacturing. (Partnering and outsourcing are discussed in detail in Unorganization: The Implementation Toolkit on www.unorgan.com).

A product or service: Develop something that is either unique in the market place or aimed at a different part of the market or better than the market leader. Service your products and productize your services!

A brand presence: People as well as companies and products must have a brand presence. Otherwise they are rankers; interchangeable units of economic production with no options and no leverage. Rankers are not special, and are therefore replaceable. People want to partner people who have unique knowledge or capabilities.

Good service: For your customers, responsiveness is everything. Customers need to be able to get through to you straight away because they may not call back again. You have to make information about your company’s activities readily available to potential customers and meet their needs closely and flexibly in a prompt and efficient way.

Finance: Some money to invest in your company is going to be necessary. During the transition from employment to the self-employment, this investment could initially simply be an Internet site funded from work.

Networks of contacts: The more people- potential partners and customers- you can call upon, the better. Never miss an opportunity to exchange business cards and make sure that when you assess someone’s capability you are not just thinking about the current opportunities for your company but also the future applicability for other projects.

An Internet presence: You have got to have a home page on the World Wide Web which you can refer people to and which other people can stumble across (again your customers visit you first!). Make sure people can contact you if they want to by having an email address. It does not cost very much to get yourself a professional looking Internet home page.

Technology: These days you are going to need a mobile phone such as GSM mobile which can be used in over 50 countries world-wide. You will also require an Internet browser and email account so that you have access to all the information on the Internet and can cheaply and quickly contact people around the world. You will also need a personal telephone number such as an "07000" number in the UK that can be pointed at any other telephone number associated with any other telephone network or in any country. This gives your customers single number contactability if you are moving around a lot and changing premises. You are also going to need a laptop for portable computing power and customer presentations and a cellular data card that connects your mobile phone to your laptop via a PC Card modem.

Partners: Set up business partnerships with people and companies who have complimentary skills and goals. Leverage your presence and enhance your credibility. Being partners can add a lot of value in terms of receiving customer support, equipment loans, up-to-date information about industry developments and initiatives, introductions to other partners and customers and so on.

Customers: Clearly without customers, the survival of the business is jeopardized. Once customers have been signed up, you should produce case studies and showcase applications of successful applications that involve either well-known companies or interesting uses of the product or service.

Self-employment success is secured through a combination of all of these factors. They should all be present to maximize the likelihood and achievement of the full potential of the business. For example, three of these critical success factors- interests, talents and differentiators- tend to be interdependent and mutually supporting: what you are good at tends to interest you and make you different and you develop differences from what you are interested in and spend your time on. People should be able to spend their life developing what they are good at, what interests them and what makes them different, rather than just pursuing them as hobbies financed by a standard job. Such diversity is much more possible and likely to be rewarded in today’s diverse unorganized world where there is no one way or one best way.

Don't wind up your start up, help it take off!

 

Job security is having choices

Another critical success factor for self-employment success is having multiple choices in everything from customers to sources of finance to ideas and talents.

What constitutes job security has changed fundamentally from the old orderly, organized world to today’s unorganized world. Job security used to be an employment contract. But these days, your employer can give you a month’s notice to leave the organization even if you are on a five-year contract. The truth is, your employer could restructure, downsize, downstructure, merge, be acquired, be divested, go bust on any day. And trade unions can help little if the demand for the products does not exist, in which case, employees had better accept the need to reinvent themselves in another role, firm or industry. Trade unions cannot engineer stability, they can only postpone (but not cancel) instability.

If you lost your job today, you should have at least one alternative way of earning some money tomorrow. You should be building up your hobby into a lifestream so that you can turn it into a business at a later date. You should be getting that Internet site up and running so that you can run it full-time sometime later. You can build choices by adopting the attitude that you are currently working on a single project for a company and contracting for them even if you are a full-time employee. This incentivizes you to cultivate contacts especially with people from outside your company.

In such an unorganized world, the best job security there is is to have choices. You need to have alternative stages on which to leverage your ideas. Such stages consist of other companies engaged in the same or similar type of business as that you are in now, or your own company. The level of job security that having ideas confers depends on the ability to develop, apply and communicate them. Leveraging your ideas is very important because there is no point in having unique assets, ideas or opinions if you do not try to implement them. Having ideas and skills is great but not much good if they are being wasted due to a lack of opportunities to use those abilities.

The worst situation to be in is one where we are reliant upon someone or something. When your manager micro-manages or fails to appreciate you, you should be in a position to leave and have somewhere else to go or something else to make a living from. When one lifestream is ebbing, another one should be flowing. You should not be dependent on someone else or some organization for your livelihood. In fact, freedom can be seen as the availability of realizable alternatives. Freedom exists when individuals are free to voluntarily associate with countries, governments, companies and other individuals.

The importance of having multiple viable choices applies to working, voting, living and many other important aspects of life. Having choices ensures that individuals cannot be dictated to by anyone. Competition confers accountability by allowing a change in purchases if a supplier under-performs, neglects or exploits. Choice and freedom means that individuals can escape accidents of birth, follies of governments and other voters, all forms of legitimate coercion such as taxation and national service and so on. They are no slaves to the organization or building society. Fortunately, in the unorganized world, there has never been a better time to build choices. We are faced with more opportunities than ever, and a greater chance to benefit from those opportunities. Each individual has global reach. Keep building up viable alternatives and stay free to choose.

Job security is not what it used to be because the world, organizations and jobs are not what they used to be. No-one anywhere has a job that is secure from the perils of reality- everyone’s job is under threat from someone or something. These days, job security is having choices.

 

Lifestreams

In the unorganized world, it is important that branders pursue multiple "lifestreams". Indeed, the systematic and deliberate development of multiple lifestreams is the primary means for creating an individual brand identity and conferring job security. Instead of one business trading in one activity, an entrepreneur in the unorganized world is more likely to have two or three different lifestreams, and develop them simultaneously.

Lifestreams are alternative means of making a living that develop from hobbies and talents and interests. A lifestream is more than just a hobby, although it often starts out that way. A lifestream is also something active: not just watching the sport, but organizing a fan club or an Internet site related to it. The first thing you need to do is work out what your personal lifestreams are. What are you interested in and good at? What hobbies and interests do you have and how can they be developed? What unique skills, resources or knowledge can you turn into lifestreams and earn a return from?

To clearly describe the concept of lifestreams, I will give an example of myself. My life consists of three main lifestreams:

collecting Coca-Cola cans and bottles

expertise in the Short Message Service (SMS), a service which allows text messages to be sent and received by mobile phones, and

the development of the unorganization theory centered on the unorgan.com Internet site.

The lifestreams:

are pursued simultaneously. When I travel, I ALWAYS COMBINE BUSINESS WITH PLEASURE by visiting local Coca-Cola collectors, local mobile phone networks and SMS software companies and business schools, companies and local partners to publicize unorganization.

At any one time, I make a living out of a combination of these lifestreams by buying and selling Coca-Cola items, consulting about mobile solutions or how to unorganize. SMS on digital mobile phones is my cash cow that finances unorg at the moment. I earn good money from giving unorg presentations. However, I spend much more because I want more people to find out about my ideas- so I give them away free and publicize them. I love all three of my lifestreams.

ebb and flow during the course of life, with different lifestreams taking prominence at different times depending on what opportunities are available externally and inclinations exist internally. Whichever lifestream is most prevalent for the time being, the brander ensures that none stop flowing completely.

It is important that each brander has MULTIPLE lifestreams: too many people let their workstream predominate and dominate, with little time spent developing anything else. The word "multiple" is included because having more than one lifestream confers both diversity and security on the individual. The idea is to have multi-faceted pursuits rather than simply allowing work-related thoughts and actions to dominate your life to the exclusion of the vigorous pursuit of anything else. Security derived from the fact that you have more than one way to make a living at any one time.

My goal is world-leading excellence in each lifestream. Working well on several on multiple lifestreams is resource consuming in terms of time, effort and money. It is a challenge not to spread yourself too thinly and certainly impossible to excel at more than one lifestream unless you are in control of your time and can give each one the effort and attention it deserves, mixing and matching effort at any one time period. Certainly, excelling at more than three lifestreams and having a life too is close to impossible.

I put my lifestreams on my resume/ curriculum vitae now. They give a better explanation of what is important to me than simply listing playing sports, reading, traveling and so on as my hobbies. When I set up my own private limited company in early 1999 (primarily to save tax), I called it Mobile Lifestreams Limited!

Think of yourself as a brand, develop multiple lifestreams, and have multiple ways of making a living! In this day and age, having multiple lifestreams is not vanity, its security. If you have got something to say, why don’t you say it?

 

SECTION B: CHARACTERISTICS OF INDIVIDUALS

Branders should exhibit a number of qualities to maximize their chances of success in the unorganized world. Rankers should NOT demonstrate these characteristics since they will be detrimental to their survival in organized organizations which covert compliance above all else. In particular, branders should be:

 

Energetic

Look at the energy of children: the skipping and the silent singing. They haven’t got a care in the world. Then take a look at the glum faces of adults. Where does all this energy disappear to from childhood to adulthood?

Adults are burdened with responsibility and worry because people’s freedoms are suppressed by organized society. Societal pressure and systems ensure that people have to follow the adult conventions such as get a car, get a home- and try to pay for them. They end up traveling between different types of buildings trying to finance other buildings: going to the office in our car to pay for our home. Grown-ups waste their energy by spending it on busyness not business. They spend too much of their efforts getting in a position to get something done, rather than doing that something. They queue, justify and defend. They waste their energies on trivial things such as playing politics and worrying about the wrong things, for example, paying the mort-gage.

Adults need to recapture the sheen of youth: not with cosmetics on the outside, but with energy on the inside. We need to find true motion, not just go through the motions. Growing children glow the most and have the most energy. To be energetic, adults must keep growing and learning too. The best way to create energy is to spend it. If you have got to the stage where getting up in the morning and going to your current job no longer motivates you, but instead you have to drag yourself reluctantly out of bed, then you cannot expect to feel happy and contented. To regain your energy, you must recognize those things that you are currently spending your energy on which are wasteful and then do something about it, such as change job or where you live to get out of the rut. When you get bored somewhere, move on. Variety is the spice of life.

The good news is that the best way to feel motivated and energetic is to be discontented yet purposeful. When there is a difference between where you currently are and where you want to be, creative dissonance occurs. We need to know where we want to go and regularly compare where we are today with where we want to be and take steps to get there. This process means we consider the present and the future and live life for today but without losing sight of tomorrow. "Enjoy the present but take good care of the future, you will spend the rest of your life there". This is constructive discontent- a little stress can be a good thing, when it is not too much. You should harness it to work out how to get where you want to go and use your desire to be there to focus on getting there. Fire in your belly is the best form of stimulant there is.

Purpose fuels motivation. Spending your energy doing business not busyness in turn creates more energy. Pursuit in itself will generate the necessary fuel to get you where you want to be. So go for it!

 

Honest

Individuals should communicate openly and truthfully. They should say what is in their heart, not just what they feel they should or are expected to say. They under-promise and over-deliver.

Individuals are honest not just with other people, but also with themselves. Honesty is being true to yourself. As such, being honest takes a certain amount of integrity, self-confidence and courage. It is far easier to see things as you wish them to be, or remember past times that were successful- selective recall and partial honesty are the enemies of learning- they may not be lies but neither are they the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Honesty is the first and foremost value that supports individual and organizational change and learning. Honesty is an ability to listen to how your heart responds to events and then work out why you felt that way. Learning is then modified action from the insight gained from turning your reaction into new truths. This is positive change, i.e. improvement- you avoid feeling that way again if it was a bad feeling and repeat it if it struck you to be true. You have to ask yourself why you did it that way and why you felt the way you did about it.

You can only achieve true learning if you listen to your heart- otherwise you suppress your inner feelings and end up perpetuating received wisdom, assumed modes of action, keeping up appearances and so on i.e. stagnating. You cannot assume that because something felt true the last time you did it, it will still be so now. In a transient world, truth can change- if we are honest enough to recognize those changes, we can learn and improve.

Honesty is the best policy because these days you are much more likely to be found out- you are likely to be heard, found, detected and that dishonesty can be communicated quickly and widely. We had better make sure that we are willing to later (or sooner) defend, justify or apologize for everything we do or say now. Honesty creates a virtuous positive reinforcement cycle. Being true to yourself now means that you be true to yourself later. You do not have to compromise on honesty now because of past dishonesty. Honesty really is the best policy.

 

Honesty does not mean unconditional niceness

On the whole, people these days are so nice. They smile at you at shop counters and make amiable comments to you. They help out and are genuinely kind. The people that you meet on trains seem to be particularly nice. Nice people seem to get on well with everyone, are really friendly, smile a lot and are always apologizing. Being nice is a refreshing and calming characteristic. It is just that we need to combine niceness with the capacity to be unnice to people who do not deserve our kind smiles. The people I observe seem to be either cynical, suspicious people who won’t give any information to anyone or nice decent people anxious to help out. As so often is the case, there is no middle way.

Being nice has the unfortunate side effect of making us prone to attacks of so-called social engineering, "a tactic used by people in the computer underground to access a computer by talking unsuspecting system administrators and telephone company employees out of valuable information. They rely on people wanting to be helpful. When someone calls and says that they are a new employee in the company, or somebody in another division who has misplaced a password, or someone with a legitimate need for temporary network access to a computer, a person’s natural inclination is to give him the information." (TSUTOMU SHIMOMURA, TAKEDOWN, 1995). Nice people give out their bank Personal Identification Numbers to people claiming to be calling from the bank, let fraudsters pretending to be utility and repair workers into their homes, volunteer their salary details and purchase unwanted goods from door-to-door salespeople who they can’t say "No" to.

I think that the root cause of niceness is socialization from economic, political and social institutions. We are taught the same things as each other by the national curriculum in our schools. We take our holidays in the same places. Our organizations levy the same sorts of constraining rules against us. We all get mort-gages and marriages. This causes the nice roundness in mind and body that we see in our settled, middle-class parents.

Rather than unconditional niceness, practice conditional niceness in which you are as nice to other people as they are nice to you. Be as nice as you can be, and as unnice as you have to be. Partner companies that help you, not those that manipulate you.

 

Charismatic

A brander comprises an inner core of knowledge and ideas and an outer core of communication and networking. Charismatic leaders are great at the later, but the ideal situation is to have both a strong and balanced inner and outer core simultaneously.

In theory, ideas alone should be able to succeed- you should not have to be in a position of power or have charisma or be in the right place to succeed with your ideas- the only prejudice should be talent. Otherwise there are entry barriers in the way of success and this runs counter to the unorganization philosophy.

In practice, whether or not ideas without charisma succeed depends on the media you are communicating the ideas through. On the Internet, charisma is probably not as necessary- no one can see you or where you are. But if communicating through television, then yes charisma is definitely needed as well. You only have to look at the trend for political leaders over time in the US, UK, Latin America and many other places. In Russia in 1998, a technocratic, rather plain-looking young unknown man was elected as president but did not last more than about six months on the job! Presidents these days need to be photogenic. In many places such as India where much of the population of voters is unfortunately illiterate- image really is everything. The problem is that many of these political leaders don't have ideas- they are reactionary chameleons.

Neither should it be possible for a company to develop the perception among the public that they are the best quality supplier merely because they advertise themselves as the best.

Charisma without ideas comes across as smarmy to me, ideas without charisma makes it difficult to get the message across. The combination of both is lovely...

 

Balanced

Branders should take a balanced approach to life and try to see both sides of the story and weigh up situations fairly. This balance helps individuals to cope with the novel and complicated situations that are commonplace in the unorganized world such that they can interpret fuzzy events in a balanced way. Individuals should also balance work and play. They are focused on where they want to go, efficient at getting there, and intent on doing business not busyness. Keeping things in balance and perspective is one of the most important things in life. It is all too easy to lose perspective and get locked into something that is not really important. This lack of perspective leads to all sorts of problems such as workaholism and henpecking.

There are several different ways of retaining a balanced perspective:

Multiple Lifestreams. By having more than one interesting and important interest in their life, people get balance and perspective (and security) and synergy!

Children. Because of their focus on content rather than context, a child soon makes you see whether something is worth pursuing or not. Too often, adults pursue something primarily because other adults expect them to. Listening to the things that make children happy confers a deep sense of what is and is not important.

Complexity. I am a skeptic about so-called "Complexity Theory", an inter-disciplinary means to understand the unorganized world combining science and biology and economics. However, when I ask the complexity gurus why their theory is so special, they often refer to the perspective it confers- the ability to see the overall picture and the unfurling pattern of events.

Art. The pictures and painting I like are those which confer perspective by presenting an overall and interesting opinion or view. Through the overall design and placing in the piece, the viewer gets to see something more clearly from the artist’s perspective.

Perspective is the ability to work out what is important in life and work and play and the overall mix of all these things. Perspective is essential for retaining a healthy balance in life. Perspective- not only useful but essential. Perspective- respect the perceptive. Balance.

 

Optimistic

Branders have a positive mental attitude. They always look on the bright side of life. Other people do not want to deal with skeptical pessimists. New opportunities abound so don’t let yesterday’s failures or criticism get you down. Be positive, not negative. Successful people are also enthusiastic and recognize that "passion persuades" and "age may wrinkle the skin, but lack of enthusiasm wrinkles the soul".

It is no wonder that Star Wars is such a popular film given that it inspires the hope that decent and honest individuals can succeed, which they can. The only misguided image in Star Wars is the machine-like villains such as Darth Vader versus the flesh and blood heroes such as Luke Skywalker. In fact machines have got to the stage now where like R2D2 they can be helpful!

Remember, how you feel affects how you act. If you don’t think that you can achieve it chances are you won’t because you will not try hard enough. There are plenty of reasons to be cheerful. After all, success is a journey not a destination. May you succeed in the pursuit of opportunities in the unorganized world.

 

Enactment not entrapment

Institutions can take even less care of the future of individuals in these complicated times. However, individuals actually exercise a large degree of influence over their own personal situation and circumstances. They are actually more in charge of their own destinies than they often think. This truth is encapsulated in the concept of "enactment".

Enactment teaches us that individuals can create their own prosperity because they can enact the environment in which they operate through their actions. Enactment reverses the conventional wisdom and states that some things have to be believed to be seen. Individuals should not rely on and complain about the failure of governments and organizations to look after them. They can and should enact their own futures for themselves.

Individual prosperity is shaped by perceptions of personal limitations that lead to a failure to act and subsequently to failure, rather than failure whilst acting. Our avoided actions end up becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. Our limitations turn out in fact to be missed opportunities because we fail to attempt to achieve our goals. The repeated failure of individuals to solve problems can be partially explained by failure to understand their own predominance in their environment. We must realize that new opportunities will pass us by if we deal with them only on the basis of our past experiences. It is the assumption that we are helpless which in fact makes us helpless. We are helpless not because we cannot escape but because we do not try to escape.

Many current problems arise from the accumulation of previous mistakes made, and the failure of the individual to forget those past actions in a changed world. Past failures are irrelevant because every day we get up and the world has changed and there are new opportunities. The constant change in the unorganized world means that current distributions of power and experience are less relevant because the operating environment in which opportunities are arising is always changing. The future is not what it used to be. There is no room for complacency and arrogance when new competitors and opportunities will affect us tomorrow.

Thus, every individual should exercise positive self-belief when acting. That is where the "act" comes in into "enactment"- you actually have to do something and not just think and dream about it. As the filmmaker George Lucas rightly says, "The door to the cage is open. All you have to do is walk out, if you dare." Get out there and have a go. You'd be surprised at what you can achieve if only you'd give it a try. Optimism and self-confidence are essential. To change their environment and thrive, individuals and organizations should alter their attitude. You get what you settle for (and with). The best way to predict the future is to invent it. (WEICK, 1979). As the Alcoholics Anonymous saying goes "Grant me the serenity to accept the things that I can’t change, the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference". The idea of enactment is especially relevant and true in today’s unorganized world where opportunities are plentiful and there are low entry barriers to benefit from them.

"So the technology of reason should be supplemented with the technology of foolishness. We need to treat goals as hypotheses to be changed, intuition as real, hypocrisy as a traditional inconsistent memory, as an enemy of the new. Experience not as history, but as a theory of what happened which can be replaced". (COHEN, MARCH AND OLSEN, Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice, Administrative Science Quarterly). Things will never be the same again. We should recognize that past success and distributions of power are not necessarily a passport to future success. We must discount the value of the past and believe that the good old days still lie ahead.

It is very easy to wrongly assume that individuals are trapped puppets whose prosperity is dependent upon business organizations and political governments. In fact, many of today’s problems arise when managers and politicians insist that they can control the world and bring about "stability". Stability is over. Those who promise it are liars. Those who seek it are human.

 

Open-minded

Branders should not be suspicious of new people or technologies or things. In fact, individuals should not just be tolerant and used to diversity, but also cosmopolitan and actively welcome different people from different places. Such open-minded people enjoy other cultures and comparing different ways of doing the same thing around the world.

We should avoid following national stereotypes and assume that just because someone comes from somewhere, they will behave as the "typical" person from that country will. Typical no longer exists, we should look beyond skin and dress and keep an open mind. Similarly, not all products designed and manufactured in a certain country are automatically the best quality in the world just because they are made there.

There is a beach in Hong Kong that is packed one day and empty the next. The beach empties because the season has changed from summer to autumn according to the official calendar. It does not matter that the weather has not changed and is usually sunny, all of a sudden the people arbitrarily stop visiting. We should look at the environment, not the official calendar.

It is cold in my neighbor’s house, because it has been raining in the UK despite the fact that it is July. Yet the heating is resolutely switched off because it is after all summer. No-one in the house can sleep or concentrate because of the cold. Yet, the heating will be programmed to come on automatically every evening and morning from October to February, whatever the weather. We should look at the environment, not the calendar.

A building is just a building. There is very little difference between a hotel, a block of flats and an office. They are have pretty much the same structure and facilities with a different sign on the front and a different price of course. We should see beyond labels to increase our living and working options.

Observe everything around you, discuss openly and honesty any topics of mutual interest, gather as much valuable information as you can. Have an outward focus and great interest in life to fuel your creativity. Never stop learning new facts, discovering new truths, meeting new people and visiting new places. Never stop thinking unless you never started in the first place.

Avoid labeling things, see beyond the obvious, the visible, the frontage. Be open-minded. Go beyond labels, and get ahead. You’ll have the beach to yourself.

 

Suspended Animation

There is an optimal mental state for the unorganized world- something I call "suspended animation". It is a personal, individual thing, and has nothing to do directly with buildings, institutions, possessions or jobs. It is a frame of mind, a way of viewing the world and configuring our actions and behavior towards it.

Suspended animation is a state of mind where we hold no assumptions, where we take nothing for granted, where we disregard the past. At its heart is an understanding of the minimal and transitory nature of our power. You are only as good as your last project. Someone may run a department in an organization somewhere and have a few employees who report to us and do as we say. However, outside of that department, these people are free to think and associate and do as they please. As such, our control is illusionary because of its incompleteness and temporary nature. Who knows who is going to take over the organization tomorrow or leave it or what competitors are going to do or what people are doing outside of work?

Suspended animation includes suspending assumptions about sex, nationality, sexuality, career paths, life patterns, the course of events and everything that we have learned as received wisdom in the past. We must disregard stereotypes and challenge conventional models. We cannot assume that because someone is French they wear berets and eat a lot of garlic and onion.

We need to be grateful for and proud of any power that we hold and the advice that we can give. We must also recognize that the more we try to enforce our will, the quicker we reduce our very base of power, because people rebel in their other spheres of life and change jobs, move on and otherwise exercise the voluntary exchange principle. In the unorganized world we are accountable for our actions because other people have many different ways to reveal any negative actions. For this reason, we have to recognize this and make ourselves accountable to and for our own actions and ourselves.

We cannot take our surroundings and circumstances for granted, but neither can we live under siege assuming that the worst is going to happen and we are going to divorce, die or get fired every day. It is enjoyable to explore new options, think new thoughts, consider new points of view and ways of doing things. But obviously it is extremely stressful to get up every day and start life all over again.

Ultimately, suspended animation is achieved when you walk into a situation with an open mind, with no pre-conceived notions of what you can see and what you think about it. It is all about broadening our perspectives by stepping back and seeing a wider view. To paraphrase someone else, there are no victories, no defeats, just moments, some better than others. Just float and be prepared to be surprised. Be animated, but suspend your assumptions.

 

Self-confident

One of the most important characteristics that individuals need to thrive in the unorganized world is self-confidence. Too many people either have too much or too little self-confidence, and neither is good.

Individuals need to believe in their own abilities and carry their own convictions that what they are doing is right for them. When approaching business or personal opportunities, self-confidence is a pre-requisite, because it is not only dogs that can sense fear- it is communicated through our actions too.

A lack of self-confidence causes everything from the need to wear designer clothes, to the need to manage- to put in control structures and hierarchies. It can generate a superficial life, where in the absence of any firm moral intrinsic values, the consumerist vacant citizen will spend their life trying to hide their lack of internal self-confidence by trying to externally signal that they are a successful individual.

Of course, there is no room for arrogance in the unorganized world. This is excessive self-confidence such that other people’s feelings are not taken into account at all. Learning is precluded because the arrogant person always thinks that they are right. You can be self-confident and know that you are right for you and the times. However, the self-confident person would smile, recognize the strength of their position and maybe attempt to educate and persuade, the arrogant person would simply dismiss that alternative viewpoint without even bothering to say why they are rejecting it.

Being self-confident is essential but too much or too little self-confidence is a bad thing.

 

Success comes from self

I failed my driving test three times. At that time, I did not want to be in the car, I did not want to or see the need to drive. I studied on a campus where everything I needed was within walking distance. Public transport in the UK is more than sufficient to get around on. I was only learning to drive because my family and friends were telling me too, not because I wanted to. Internal motivation and external circumstances are more important than a label saying "You are now old enough to drive". If I had been living in a remote village and wanted the flexibility, then maybe the need to drive would have existed earlier and I would have passed sooner. Which goes to show you, a potential disadvantage is often in fact a motivational advantage. If you want to get out, then you had better do something about it. Then years later, I went abroad to Africa and America and there was very little public transport. What was available was infrequent, unreliable and sometimes dangerous. All of a sudden I had a reason, a motivation, a need which being able to drive could solve. I quickly retook my driving test upon my return and passed on my first renewed attempt.

Never do something just because someone tells you that you should. Never carry out a task given you by a superior that you do not see the need for. Never follow social stereotypes or do something just because other people expect it of you. Always try to spend your efforts and focus your attention on activities that matter to you and interest you. You will always be more successful pursuing goals and things that mean something and are important to you personally. You are wasting your potential wishing you are somewhere else doing something else. You will only ever be all that you can be if you pursue what is important to you.

The fact that success comes from self and not from the commands of others is a good reason to start your own business, so that you are only doing things that you believe in. Success comes from self-confidence, motivation and employment.

 

Attitude is everything

In fact, attitude is everything. You know something, there is not much difference between a young executive and a juvenile delinquent of the same age- the main difference is their attitudes. And ironically, juvenile delinquents are free to do and be more- if only they could be bothered. Attitude determines success or failure. Lazy people do not make an effort. Pessimistic people think its all going to go wrong. Technophobic people think that the Internet is difficult to use. Non-commercial people think that earning money is immoral.

Attitude has always played an important role, but now it is everything. In the organized world, you needed employment and contacts to break into opportunity arenas in addition to the right attitude. Now everything you need to be a success is accessible to you and there are a great number of opportunities available. We can achieve things if only we would just get up and try. Attitude is all about enactment. You don’t fail trying anymore, you fail because you don’t try.

As we have seen, the best attitude to have is an optimistic, open-minded, self-confident, determined and impatient one. You have to be open to changing what you thought you knew because things are changing so quickly that periodic re-evaluations of received wisdoms are necessary. You need to cultivate "suspended animation"- awareness of the fact that what you once knew to be true is not necessarily still true now. You have to have thought about what you want to spend your time doing, what you are good at, where your talent lies. You have as someone once said, you have to believe that the good guys always win and that we are the good guys. Other people like to see your self-confidence when you approach them in meetings. I am not talking about aggression, but not timidity either. Impatience is also critically important. This translates as not be willing to hang around on a street corner or stay in bed all day. It means a commitment to get up and make progress every day.

Once the attitude is right, success follows. Individuals realize that education is important and commit to their schooling. A better attitude leads to a better appearance, not because appearance is an end in itself, but because poor appearance like poor attitude can be a barrier to getting where you want to be.

And more than anything else, we live in an unorganized world, yet many people persist in holding organized attitudes. To take advantage of the positive change to the world, each of us needs to change the way we view things. For instance, our attitude towards instability should be a positive one now because of the new opportunities that such instability generates.

Remember, there but for my attitude go I. Attitude is everything.

 

Problems no more

The problem with problems is that individuals who think they have problems end up having problems simply because they think they have problems and do not therefore see those problems as opportunities rather than threats. They become threats because they are treated as such. The mental model with which problems are viewed and framed determines the extent to which that problem becomes a problem. I sometimes think that organized people like to create false theatrics and say that another disaster has been averted- just to fill in time and create talking points. Anything to make a ranker's life interesting.

Problems are just non-communicated differences. It does not matter if you have problems or weaknesses as long as you are honest and open enough to recognize them. And once you have recognized them, you can manage and deal with them. We all have paradoxes and dilemmas and face conflicts and strain and none of us are perfect. The secret to dealing with this fact is to recognize it and do something about it- either by changing ourselves or enlisting the help of others, and preferably a combination of both. We need to explicitly cite problems to indicate that we have recognized their existence to avoid difficulties with others. Honest and effective inter-personal communication is the means through which problems are surfaced and therefore avoided. A problem shared is a problem eliminated.

Once branders have reached the state of voluntary independence such that they are not dependent or reliable on anyone else. (See the trans: shaping interactions in the unorganized world book on unorgan.com for a detailed explanation of this). In such circumstances, all problems are self-created and any problems thrust upon you by others are in fact opportunities and not problems at all. Challenges from others that could be seen as problems if we cannot avoid suffering from them can either be avoided altogether or taken advantage of by for example disclosure and exit without material loss. Independent individuals cannot be pushed around by others.

A business associate of mine has simple changed the word "problem" to the word "risk" and is now contentedly managing those risks and weighing up their returns as he would with any other risk. He recognizes problems for what they are, transitional difficulties that can be avoided and learned from. So should you. There need be no such thing as problems.

 

SECTION C: IMPLICATIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS

This section is all about the theoretical framework that underpins and supports the need for individuals to change the way they work. Some people have always preferred and needed to work for themselves. So what has made this more essential and more achievable today and tomorrow?

 

The fundamental flaws

There are some fundamental flaws with the organized business organizations that ruled the capitalist economic systems that prevent them from operating optimally. I use the term "organized business organizations" to refer to the static collectivist groupings such as organizations, hierarchies, downsized companies and so on that dominated the orderly organized world. These groupings are static in so far as, for example, membership is fairly fixed, with people working on fixed term contracts. These flaws are the reason why self-employment is positive. These flaws slow down the organized organizations and allow more dynamic entities to compete successfully against them. The fundamental flaws are:

There is a lack of adequate incentives within traditional static organizations. Employees are not directly rewarded for effort or initiative expended in meeting, for example, customer service standards. These faulty incentives mean that standards are only excellent when there is an intrinsic reward for the work done, such as pride and satisfaction felt at making a customer happy with the exceptional service rendered.

Bounded rationality is the problem of limited understanding and control of an increasingly dynamic, global, competitive, complex unorganized world. This makes interventions of any type increasingly hazardous. If we do not know what people want or do, how can we help or reward them? Unclear circumstances lead to imprecise interventions that have negative unintended consequences. Within a business context, bounded rationality means that managers cannot fully and fairly assess the value and effort of other people’s contributions. People get paid simply for being present in the office when expected or do not get rewarded for exceptional service.

People within organized organizations are dependent upon others in that group for their performance and prosperity. To perform fully and excellently, dependent individuals have to rely upon colleagues supporting them and persuade them of the value of our ideas. Dependence on others is hazardous in situations where there is a lack of incentives and bounded rationality. Groupings such as teams splinter and divide because different members think and believe different things about the decisions going on within that group. Effort is either expended on busy negotiations and compromise to keep the group together or the static group disintegrates. Either way, dependent situations do not provide an optimal platform for either internal employee collaboration or external customer service.

The whole concept of membership is outdated in the unorganized world. Membership is an unnecessary constraint. No two people ever completely agree with each other's point of view on all matters. As such, it is hazardous for one person to associate with another, because their membership of an organization could associate them with the beliefs of others in that organization, even though they themselves do not agree with those opinions. If the organization's members attempt to reach a consensus before stating their opinion, then you have watered down opinions that constrain innovation by finding the middle way, the compromise. The search for consensus is dripping with transaction costs (the costs of getting into a position to do business, before the business itself is carried out).

The existence of coercion within organized business organizations means that people are forced to do things: they have no choice but to carry out the tasks given to them by their managers. Employees are compelled to undertake tasks to which they are not suited or interested. This means that employee potential is not maximized and external customer results are suboptimal. It also necessitates the existence of managers and managerial procedures, because, if everyone in the organization was doing everything they wanted to, there would be no need for other people higher in rank to supervise and ensure the completion of the tasks. Of course, everyone doing what they want can only arise when the collective groupings are voluntary and dynamic.

These inter-connected problems with organized business organizations explain the inherent dissatisfaction with the way people increasingly feel, behave and are treated by organizations. Faulty incentives, bounded rationality, dependence and force are the underlying elements that make organized business organizations the suboptimal environment for the full realization of everything positive about work such as learning, earning and succeeding. This is the case for rational individuals in pursuit of realizing their full potential opting out of organized organizations.

 

The fundamental forces

Having established why traditional static business (and political) organizations are flawed, it is necessary to explore alternatives to supplant and replace them.

Organized organizations have always been imperfect and wasteful environments. In the organized world they were the primary mechanism for individuals to participate in democracy and wealth creation. This meant that those precluded from such static structures were unequal and disadvantaged. There are some fundamental forces for ensuring individuals have the opportunity to thrive outside of traditional organizations, and therefore make viable achievable choices over how they make their living and spend their working life.

The fundamental forces are reduced transaction costs (the costs of getting into a position to do business, before the business itself is carried out) and increasingly contestable markets that can be entered and exited easily and profitably. What determines whether individuals take advantage of these mechanisms is whether they are able to create novel ideas- whether they can go from being rankers who can only sustain an existence within static collectivist groupings to being branders who have the talents to successfully enter and exit companies. This independence for individuals characterizes a new economic system called technological capitalism: the opportunity for all individuals to pursue the opportunities. The outcome of all this is the realization of the voluntary exchange principle that no-one need do anything they do not want to. This principle states that "Individuals are free to voluntarily decide whether to enter a transaction and can thus veto the move from markets to firms if working in a firm would leave the individual worse off".

The aim is to overcome the fundamental flaws of organized organizations by ensuring that the power conferred by the fundamental forces is widely available to every individual. We need to remove anything that prevents individuals from being able to realize their full potential such as static structures. To achieve this, we need to:

introduce full and dynamic incentives that reward individuals for the value they add. The existence of adequate incentives insures that people are rewarded for positive contributions and not rewarded for negative contributions, including no contribution at all. Optimal and accurate incentives are best secured from market-based transactions. If the customer is mine rather than that of my company, then I will be motivated to meet and exceed that customer’s expectation

recognize the existence of and minimize the effects from increasing bounded rationality by reducing interventions from institutions

supplant dependence with independence

eliminate force and create positive choices pursued voluntarily

To overcome the organized fundamental flaws and harness the unorganized fundamental forces, we need to target the implementation and realization in practice of the "Most unorganized" solutions listed and described below:

 

We have seen throughout this book about how individuals should go from being rankers in hierarchies to branders in unorganized companies. We shall see how the economic system should be technological capitalism and the civilization should be Fat Liberty.

 

The brander's technological raincoat

The fundamental flaws and the fundamental forces provide the theoretical basis for individuals to thrive in the unorganized world. But it is new technologies such as the Internet, mobile communications and electronic agents that actually enable the implementation of successful self-employment in practice. Opportunities to demonstrate their talents are available via low entry barrier media such as the Internet. This removes the static notion of membership- currently either I am a member of the organization and am entitled to use the services and benefits it provides- or I am not entitled. Because communications technologies enable spontaneous, non-permanent collaboration, the traditional absolute choice between the individual and the group is gone forever. Individuals press their polling button when they need support from another individual, thereby forming a grouping. Individuals can remain autonomous and yet join with others as the need or opportunity arises. Companies will become dynamic entities because they exist only if two or more people are connected via electronic signals.

Technology may give us the means to communicate but the willingness to cooperate will depend on who is asking. Because individuals are social beings and need to be kind now to get help later, the unorganized world will be more integrated and friendly too. People will be outward looking, rather than hidden behind their employer’s organization.

With new technologies not only is more information more readily available (from a single source such as the Internet), but it can be located on behalf of individuals by their electronic agents, sorting out these market transactions transparently. Thus, the advantages to individuals of organizing economic activities within the cocoon of the organization become less pervasive. The unorganized world of free markets can be navigated and negotiated using technologies such as electronic agents, facilitating dynamic unorganized companies "structured" around electronic signals rather than physical buildings, with electronic networks replacing geographical communities.

These technologies will provide an alternative, better way for individuals to conduct their lives outside of hierarchies. They also represent a clear threat to organizations, which as we have seen discourage innovation because of the lack of flexibility in their systems and structures which hinders individual employees from contributing to the limits of their ability.

 

Technological capitalism

Individuals armed with these technologies will bring about what I call technological capitalism, in which individuals can participate more easily in, and benefit more fully from, free market economies. Technological capitalism is the opportunity to pursue the opportunities. Individuals should have the right to pursue opportunities, for example, their own prosperity and their dream of entrepreneurship. "This time next year we’ll be millionaires". This is much more possible given the technological, commercial and social trends that have been described throughout this book. Technological capitalism will end the choice between capitalism and socialism: free markets will reign supreme, but honest individuals will be able to connect to both business partners and their family and friends using their technologies.

One of the most frequent arguments against capitalism is that it leads to an elite of high income earners, and an increased disparity in wealth between these people and the rest of the population. Socialism was a response to inequality, whereas capitalism can cause it. Under capitalism, new economic opportunities tend to present themselves to people who have already benefited from other opportunities. To be in a position to benefit from new opportunities under capitalism, individuals need to be a member of an institution such as an organization. Acting alone they are likely to either face high entry barriers or be excluded from taking advantage of those market opportunities. The rich get richer and poor people stay poor. For example, the two of the largest and fastest growing countries in the world, China and India, "are seeing the emergence of a vast rootless, floating, marginal, urban population with an increasingly affluent, confident, cosmopolitan business and professional class." (WOLF, 29/05/95). Much of this income inequality results from the current high entry barriers to economic opportunities because of work benefits from organizations and mort-gages for houses.

Emerging technologies can help to neutralize this tendency. For example, if people can be polled using position location technology, then both richer and poorer people would benefit. Only people who threaten the security of others- irrespective of their income bracket- would suffer. Similarly, the provision of infrastructure such as telecommunications to poorer areas does not detract from the usage of such services by richer people. Indeed, it increases the usefulness of such services by widening their service availability. If everyone has a telephone then the benefit of having a telephone is greater, because the possibility of contacting more people is greater.

The unorganized world is characterized by a great deal of economic capacity spread widely across the globe. The international dimension of this world is crucial. We are living in a world that is simultaneously larger yet smaller. In the post-communist world, great wide areas of the globe have opened up to freer markets. Yet, infrastructure provision such as telecommunications is simultaneously making these areas reachable and connected. These parallel trends combine to mean that the large but yet small world has enough economic capacity and space for all good people to prosper and yet for all bad people to be stopped.

Basically, I am a technological capitalist. I believe in a change in emphasis from institutions to all individuals as described below:

The move along the political spectrum that we have already seen from communism to socialism and on to capitalism is a positive one. In fact, this spectrum is a continuum. Picture a circle that starts with communism and having turned full circle is completed with an end point called technological capitalism which ends where communism begins.

The move from socialism to capitalism has rightly shifted us away from organizing events using institutions towards using markets instead. But this transition has not yet gone far enough and moved onto technological capitalism. Too much economic activity is still dominated and dictated by large private and public sector institutions and not enough by individuals.

Technological capitalism is similar to capitalism in that it emphasizes the existence of opportunities arising in free markets and the importance of individuals acting out of self-interest in the private sector. The invisible hand is still the only magic wand. Under technological capitalism there are both the free market opportunities AND the opportunity for all individuals to benefit from those opportunities. Talent determines future wealth, not current wealth: poor people can become rich.

Technological capitalism is realized through a combination of the realization of the voluntary exchange principle and a reduction of transaction costs. New technologies reduce the transaction costs such as those from negotiating that are incurred when pursuing opportunities. It thereby becomes easier and cheaper to organize economic activities using markets rather than firms. Reduced transaction costs give individuals the reach, presence and capability that previously only institutions had by facilitating partnering and outsourcing to gain access to skill sets outside of your own core competencies.

Some people see a contradiction given that technological capitalism is fiercely pro-free markets yet simultaneously interested in equality of opportunity for all people. These dual aims can be achieved because the voluntary exchange principle is fully implemented in technological capitalism. As technologies such as the Internet reduce the entry barriers to economic opportunities, the voluntary exchange principle stands, because decent individuals who have avoided ownership traps such as mort-gages and membership traps such as organizational benefits, can walk out of their organizations as and when they want to. We can then join another company, do temporary work, not work at all or form our own company. We can turn our hobbies into businesses. Other people’s organizations are no longer the only stage from which people can earn a living and prove their self-worth.

As such we have gone full circle, with technological capitalism actually the equivalent of communism for the unorganized world. Technological capitalism realizes in practice the equality of opportunity amongst individuals that was always the theoretical goal of communism whilst anchoring the achievement of such equality firmly within an economic system of very free markets.

The implications of an unorganized world coupled with the transformation of the economics of doing business are immensely positive. The full implementation of technological capitalism promises all the advantages of capitalism coupled with the communist ideal, without the disadvantages of either economic system. Everyone is affected everywhere by the attraction of technological capitalism whatever part of the political spectrum they used to occupy. Mark my words, implementation of technological capitalism is the holy grail that should be our number one goal.

 

Fat Liberty

When I look at the evolution of civilization, I see the following development route:

Lean Liberty

Fat Slavery

Lean Slavery

Fat Liberty

Lean Liberty is the state of civilization in developing countries where there are no widespread government welfare programs such that people have to fend for themselves. It is like America was 200 years ago when the Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence. Everyone has the opportunity to make something of themselves- and the requirement to do so due to a lack of official safety net systems.

Fat Slavery is the state of civilization that gradually evolved in "developed" countries by the 1970s and 1980s. The Scandinavian welfare model is the classic example of Fat Slavery. Under Fat Slavery, individuals are not incentivized to do anything themselves except comply with institutional norms. Fat Slavery is the situation where large government and business institutions provide everything for citizens and employees- initiative is not encouraged, compliance is. The government accounts for half of all economic activity and hierarchical corporations in which people are employed account for a lot of the rest.

But Fat Slavery is becoming Lean Slavery- individuals suffer all the disadvantages of the fundamental flaws whilst receiving little in return. The fundamental flaws mean that both large governments and organizations are failing to deliver the improvements in state systems such as health and education that they promised, and employees are trapped in routines and bored in organizations. These organized systems of business and government are more trouble than they are worth- they take a lot out of us and from us and give us back very little of anything valuable in return.

And so civilization must evolve towards Fat Liberty- this is the combination of individual freedom and individual prosperity. Too often in the past, the choice was between Fat Slavery and Lean Liberty- you got more freedom if you "downshifted", but you could also be less prosperous. The fundamental forces mean it is now perfectly possible for individuals who think of themselves as brands and develop multiple lifestreams to achieve Fat Liberty.

The fundamental forces underpin the opportunity for more and more individuals to opt out of Fat or Lean Slavery either voluntarily or because they have no choice. Fat Liberty is the status that incorporates freedom from force, financial, intellectual and emotional independence and individuals in pursuit of realizing their full personal potential. Every individual can achieve the glorious combination of both autonomy and independence and wealth and prosperity. The achievement of Fat Liberty should be the goal of us all.

 

Mass comes from many minors

People often see a photograph of my Coca-Cola collection (See http://www.BottleBank.com) and exclaim at how large it is. They are taken aback by how many different pieces I have and the seemingly overwhelming scale of my collection. ("Surely there can’t be anything left for you to collect").

It is the same with unorgan.com- first time visitors are often surprised by the sheer quantity (and I hope quality) of the content to be found there. Friends of mine wonder how much time it must have taken to write that material.

I have not kept a record of the cumulative total number of hours spent on unorganization. But, over time, a few hours a day equates to a considerable effort. The same goes for the Coca-Cola collection- the total sum of all the efforts made to collect a can here and a bottle there equate over time to a huge collection.

It is the mass that cannot be copied- other people can start collecting and start an Internet site, but they will find it hard to catch up and replicate the quantity and quality that has been accumulated. Many small steps cannot be replicated by one giant financial step. This becomes your sustainable competitive advantage- something that sets you apart from new entrants into your category. The secret is to start now and continuously improve- keep evolving your ideas and lifestreams. At some stage, you will own that category from the point of view of others. Circumstances will never be 100% right- if they were, there would not be a worthwhile opportunity. Put as much of a foundation in place in terms of building the business idea and options and financial resources to fall back on, and begin. The IBM network computing implementation advice is useful here: "Start small, grow fast". The move from dependence to independence is a gradual one. It does not happen overnight. You will want to retain your regular earnings for as long as you can whilst building your lifestreams. You can succeed beyond your wildest dreams, if only you would take a step beyond convention. Get started- and enjoy the journey.

 

Feedback

Feel free to email Simon Buckingham, the author of this book at simon@unorgan.com with comments and queries. Every week new articles about "unorganization" are published on the www.unorgan.com Internet site, which already contains several other related Handbooks such as Unorganization: The Lifestyle Handbook and trans: shaping interactions in the unorganized world.