You’ve got the corporate gig, the ‘stable’ job with the nice benefits and you’re supposed to be happy but the way the organisation works is driving you nuts!
You keep reading all this stuff saying that you should leave and become an entrepreneur but you don’t feel that’s for you. The problem isn’t having a job in an organisation, it’s all the other stuff. The way you do the work, the culture, the bureaucracy, the pointless, self-defeating processes and the endless stream of drivel you have to wade through everyday.
Not to mention the performative work, the posturing, the status wars and the politics. Why can’t we just get on and make stuff happen!!
You’re frustrated by all this nonsense and you want to change it but you don’t know how to go about it. You end up feeling powerless and hopeless.
Maybe you should just give in and coast like everyone else seems to, doing just enough to keep out of trouble but no more. It’s so widespread now, they’ve given it a name – quiet quitting. But it’s a form of giving in, succumbing to the system and falling into learned helplessness. That’s just not you. Your soul would shrivel up and die.
You have to do something else. But what?
You already do things your way. Unlike many other managers, you spend time with your people, you encourage them and protect them from all the crap that comes down from above.
You make things happen but do it under the radar, going through your own channels, using the relationships you’ve built up with people in other teams. Your own organisational chart.
You run projects your way but make it look like you’re sticking to the process, doing the paperwork after the event, covering your tracks. You look for shortcuts through the system, you skip the bits you can get away with. If they find out, plead ignorance, point at the results and beg forgiveness.
You don’t recognise yourself as a rebel because you behave like some nihilistic teenager, but you are. You’re a hidden rebel, strategically picking your targets in order to get the outcome, not to inflate your ego.
But it’s not changing the system, just compensating for its shortcoming – and protecting your sanity. How do you make some real change happen, make it better for everyone?
You need to ‘be a Pirate in the Navy’ and adopt the Pirate mindset to rock the corporate boat a bit – but not so much that you get tipped out.
It’s what I used to do without realising that’s what I was doing. If I had, I could have stayed in the boat and even used it as a superpower, to thrive in that environment – and on my own terms.
So, if you’d like to learn how to be a Pirate in the Navy and make change happen without getting keel-hauled in the process, I can help.
Drop me a DM or an email to book a conversation to explore how I might help you make the workplace better and save you from slowly going mad!