Collaborative teaming – the future of freelancing

I believe that the future of freelancing is not about working as an individual. In order to meet the demands of clients freelancers will be forced to move toward collaborative teaming, permitting the individual to focus on their strengths whilst benefiting through leveraging the strengths of others and diverting the focus from their weak areas.

Believe it or not freelancing is still in the infancy stage when you might consider that the future of the workplace will see a predicted 40% of the workforce become self-employed by the year 2015. Freelancing has traditionally focused on a number of key occupational demographics including copyrighting, IT, PR and writing, but will sure to expand greatly as large organizations streamline operations and delayer levels of management and personnel. My contacts tell me that some well-known, multinational organizations are planning over the next five years to sustain only a small core of permanent headcount and employ contractors and freelancers when and where required.

So there is little doubt in my mind that freelancing will continue to increase as a percentage of the total workforce. However the important distinction to make is that it just is not any kind of freelancer that will command success in the workplace of the future. Clients will become more demanding and already the trend of organizations is to focus on high performance teams. No longer does the individual reign supreme rather it is collaboration that organizations require. Why is this? It’s because teams provide a number of benefits that individuals cannot provide. These include; blending and leveraging of individual differences, diversity of skills and experience, preference to manage one team rather than a group of individuals and a team can be multi-focused much easier than an individual. Organisations, from an administrative perspective, are also not going to want to focus on hiring many individuals when they can contract out to a multi-talented high performance team.

When it comes to freelancing those of you already working as a freelancer would be aware of the limitations that come with working as an individual. Those range from the administrative tasks to the need to self-market and network, to the fact that it is difficult to develop your skills and experience when working the same kinds of contracts. Sure there is the freedom that comes with working as an individual but there is also the loneliness. Many freelancers find the transition from working within an organization to freelancing difficult simply because their personality is not suited to working in such an environment.

For me high performing collaborative teams are the future of freelancing, not because individual freelancers don’t have the skill sets or experience but because clients will demand the flexibility and efficiency that results from such an approach. The challenge will be to learn how to operate within a freelancing team and to welcome collaboration rather than fear it. Many of my coaching clients are currently moving through this transition and already at the early stages of working within a collaborative team the benefits of increased business opportunities, sharing of networking and marketing activities and ability to develop professionally is being experienced.

Characteristics of a successful entrepreneur....easy to know, difficult to master

I came across a new magazine the other day called Ambition, which after reading I presume is focused on entrepreneurs but is relevant for all small business owners, entrepreneurs and freelancers. Let me first start by saying that it was a great magazine to read with a good mix of relevant, interesting and informative articles in a market already crowded with entrepreneur focused material.

Anyhow, back to the reason for this blog. One of the articles was titled "What makes a true entrepreneur"? Now there's been a few of these articles recently with the main focus of the conversation focusing on whether entrepreneurs are born or whether the required competencies can be learnt. I don't agree fully with the author when she says that entrepreneurship cannot be learnt because to be honest the word entrepreneur has morphed from what it once was and thus the competencies required have also changed. An entrepreneur no longer has to be an inventor or innovator in the pure sense of the word so what was required to be labeled an entrepreneur 20 years ago is different in today's business environment. I could go into more detail on this now but will leave for another time. Rather let me focus on some of the characteristics of the entrepreneur that came out of a MIT study, albeit 25 years ago (you would think that there is something a little more recent and thus relevant?). However some of these were;

- drive and energy
- internal locus of control
- low fear of failure
- clear goal setting
- self confidence
- moderate risk taker

These are some of the examples but the point I want to make is this. If you are an entrepreneur how do you go about identifying, developing, measuring and learning these characteristics. Whilst easy to read and talk about it is not so easy to assess and increase your own abilities in these areas. Even if you do, the article fails to mention 'how much' drive and energy, self confidence and internal locus of control you need. What is meant by 'moderate' in respect to risk taking? With so many ambiguities this list of characteristics tells you a lot and nothing at all. However it is important to note that the list did not mention that most successful entrepreneurs were the ones with the best business plans. Whilst implementing an effective business strategy is important the message that entrepreneurial success is people characteristic centric appears time and time again.

So what does this tell you? If you're an entrepreneur who wants to be successful focus on your personal and professional development; seek advice from those who can assist you in these areas such as business psychologists because in reality no other professional has the experience, training or education to effectively provide you with the tools, frameworks and support needed.

And for all those freelancers out there, take note. The characteristics listed are some of those you'll need to transition to a 21st century freelancer.