the 5 o’clock test
You’ve probably heard the saying that “we’re all in business for ourselves.” This statement resonates with me. Everyone is, in effect, an entrepreneur. You may be an entrepreneur with a narrow set of expertise and only one client: an employee, in other words. Yet you are not a permanent part of your employer’s company. As you move on through life, you will be an entrepreneur of your own brand, seeking to move from one client at a time to another. You may become increasingly specialized in your services, but the brand – you – is still something you’ll attempt to promote and improve upon as you move from client/employer to client/employer.
Even if you buy into this mindset, though, it can be tough to think like an entrepreneur in a 9-to-5 job. An employee has a fundamentally different way of viewing the world than an entrepreneur does. One of the main ways you can tell if you’re an employee with an entrepreneurial mindset versus an employee with an employee mindset is this: do you worry about being at your desk at 5:00 PM (and also, 9:00 AM)?
If you have the employee mindset, you’ll want to make sure you’re a team player. You’ll have a contract specifying a minimum of 40 hours per week, and you’ll watch that clock to make sure you are in your seat 40 hours (at a minimum). The employee mindset says that the “where” (sitting at your desk) is more important than the “what” (getting results). The employee is banking on ‘face time’ being the critical measurement of success. If you have ten hours of work to do or two hours, the hours will be the same.
The entrepreneurial employee’s mindset is different. If you’re in at 10 and leave at 3, it doesn’t matter as long as you get the job done. If you need to be there at 5 (or 6, or 7), fine. If you can leave early, also fine. The employee with the entrepreneur’s approach knows that his or her “brand” is based on whether or not goals were met. Whether you sat in your desk an extra two hours after your work was done for the day, just so you were there at 5, doesn’t matter.
Has anyone in a professional career has ever bragged in an interview about how they could always be counted on to stay in the office until 5:00? Employers don’t care. Clients don’t care, either. Skills and results are the only thing that matters, right?
Unfortunately that’s not true. A lot of lip service is given in the corporate environment to work/life balance and the idea that only results matter, but anyone who spends more than a day or two in a cubicle knows this isn’t true. Whether or not you have butt firmly planted in chair at 5:00 matters nothing to your next job, true. But in office politics – the business of surviving in and flourishing in your current job – ‘face time’ is critical. Look around the office and see how many people are coasting, working at less than full potential, simply so they have their tired face visible when 5:00 rolls around. These people may understand, deep down, that there is no real reason to be adhering to a 9-to-5 schedule, but that’s the corporate culture and it seems unlikely to change.
If you feel the desire to be in your seat at 5:00, fine. Many people are more comfortable not rocking the boat. But if you feel that you NEED to be in your seat at 5:00 or you’re going to be disciplined, you’re not in an organization that values results. You’re being paid to fill a budgeted position so a manager can move up the corporate ladder by pointing to his management of a team of 20. And before you think you can just coast along showing up at 5:00, remember this: managers with that mindset weren’t born. They were sitting in your seat 20 years ago, waiting for the clock to move past 4:59…
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This is so true. What sucks is that you're right: results alone should matter. But that's being shortsighted. Leave early every day of the week even if you're nailing your goals and people will start to whisper.
Once you get a reputation as someone that's viewed as a “slacker,” you're done for. You can't forget about the office politics.
It's why one of my tips for being a better employee was to show up early. It was two-fold: to get things done and for this very reason—it counts.
There are some jobs that reward performance but there is no job in any corporation that does not have office politics attached to it. That is just the way it goes when people get together whether these social groups are called families, clubs, companies, or nations. So, not only are we all entrepreneurs in one shape or another, but we are also politicians in once shape or another. Now that is a pretty scary thought, isn't it?
@writerscoin: I'm a morning person, so back when I was an employee I usually showed up early. Sometimes really early – 6:30 AM, for example. The only problem is that I'd put in a 10 hour day and leave at 4:30 and my coworkers would crack jokes about half days… while the guy who slipped in at 10 and left at 6 would look like a harder worker. Once again, just something I hated about being an employee…
@ctreit: That's a great point – people tend to look down on politicians, but we all do the same types of things: negotiating, compromising, campaigning. Some people just enjoy the politics more than others, and some people are better at it than others. I was actually not too bad at office politics, but I loathed doing it. I have a friend who loves the “game” of office politics, but as far as I can tell he stinks at it… so that's a whole different skill that needs to be worked on if you want to succeed in corporate life. Shudder.
That's true. And I got no response to it. You said it best: it's one of the things that sucks about being an employee…
Problem with being an entrepreneurial employee is that…well, it's an oxymoron. Entrepreneurs by nature are different from employees. Having been both (all three, really), IMHO an employee should not try to be entrepreneurial — it's a quick way to make yourself sick with stress or, at best, to get kicked in the teeth.
For an employee, a job is and should be something that puts food on the table and a roof overhead — not a calling, not an identity, not much of anything else. The employee should work exactly as many hours as she or he is paid to work, deliver the best work possible during those hours, and then leave. While working, the employee should keep quiet and just do the job. To do otherwise is likely to be unappreciated and almost certainly will go unremunerated.
An entrepreneur is an inventor, a designer, a leader. If the entrepreneur can't get hired on the upper managerial or executive level, then it would be better for the person to start his or her own business. An entrepreneur should be paid — and well — for the quality of his or her inventiveness and leadership and should not be held to a 9 to 5 schedule. This is a person who works until the job is done, not a person who staffs a cubicle or a retail counter from the start of the workday until closing time. If the job is done at three in the afternoon, then the entrepreneur should be able to leave the site; if the job is going to be done at midnight, then the entrepreneur stays there until midnight. That's why the person's pay should be higher than an employee's.
Because entrepreneurship is a calling (not just a job), most people with that gift probably are happiest running their own businesses.
BTW, about “One of the main ways you can tell if you’re an employee with an entrepreneurial mindset versus an employee with an employee mindset is this: do you worry about being at your desk at 5:00 PM (and also, 9:00 AM)?” As a supervisor, one of the things I was required to assess in my staffers' performance was attendance — whether they showed up on time and sat there until the office closed. Stupid? Yup: ours was work that could be done remotely and at any time of the day. Part of the workplace culture? You bet!
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