Is a "Culture of Independent Hustlers" the way of the future?

I was chatting about a week back on a linkedin thread about team culture. And was reflecting on how my view on culture has changed massively in the last few years.

The culture I now think works best and thrives is the one that I like to coin “a culture of independent hustlers”.

And its based on the premise that everyone in the team has no problem leaving on the drop of a dime and can have a new job tomorrow.

Because they are freelancers who are ‘good’ and have an established reputation and client base.

And so you don’t treat them as employees… rather you more treat them as partners in a shared goal who you happen to be responsible for managing & paying.

And trust me this… this is a MASSIVE shift from the way it is normally done. I know because it is also more or less the way i’ve operated for the last couple of years and I think it is awesome.

Now let me explain.

Most traditional teams, and particularly corporations, tend to work on leverage

By this I mean that each layer of bosses starting from the CEO tends to have a lot of leverage on his team.

This is in part because they know that their employees make pretty good money, have financial obligations that requires them to earn a stable salary, and it is not fast nor efficient for them to switch jobs. Especially in a bad economy.

This leverage tends to increase the worse the employee is. So you can safely assume: shittier employee = more leverage for the boss.

The problem is that lots of mediocre & shitty managers love leverage. It is just the way they operate. They want people who are highly reliant on keeping their jobs and therefore are highly optimized to keeping their boss happy.

A culture based on leverage has a lot of weaknesses

When the boss knows they have a lot of leverage on their team it completely changes the way they act and manage. I’ve seen it a ton of times and consider it a rule rather than a hypothesis at this point.

They are less open to being challenged.

They often openly play favorites and sometimes play people off one another.

Politics are often rife.

Inefficiencies often run rampid because people are timid to speak up and challenge the decisions that are being made.

There are a lot of high profile startup failures where you can essentially point to this being the root cause.

For the past few years I manage my teams with the goal of having almost no leverage

I’ve worked with freelancers the past few years and consider myself to have little to no leverage. Meaning that yes I hire them on platforms like Upwork, but they can leave at the drop of a dime and we both know that.

Most of the time they have other clients and are concurrently working on other things.

And because I vet who I work with so that i’m working with really solid folks in their specific fields... they tend to have no problem finding other work.

They are not reliant on me. And I love that.

Because it also means they don’t bother playing silly games like politics… because they can’t be bothered. Its just not worth their time.

A culture without leverage leads to much better team members and teamwork long term

It is because of the reasons I just stated above that the past couple of years has probably been some of the best, most efficient cultures I’ve seen in my career.

A mutual respect develops because I’m a freelancer and they are freelancers.

We are both like ‘independent hustlers’ that are good at what they do. A bit like the teams of Fast & Furious or Mission Impossible.

And this leads to freedom and solid teamwork. Because even though I perhaps engaged the client and put the team together… I have very little leverage on them.

There is no year end review or any of that crap.

There is no real incentive to kiss my ass. And I don't want that.

Does this mean that I allow folks that are 'bad' stay in our team?

Short answer… No.

Folks that don’t pull their weight are out fast. And I need to take those decisions.

And so having a highly transparent system like the one I use in Clickup makes it very clear who pulls their weight and who doesn’t.

And this, in my experience, leads to some very solid teamwork. Because there are almost no politics at play.

This also leads to some very solid decision-making…. because the good ones also feel very comfortable to challenge decisions.

I see the world moving more and more to this model

I watch a lot of Youtube ‘independent hustler’ types lately. Folks like Greg Isenberg, Brett Malinoswki, Oliver Cortado, Shaan Puri and Sam Parr, etc.

And I’m seeing tons of agencies pop up. Agencies that often use a ton of contractors.

Why do they use contractors? Simple. Because you’re not obligated to pay them a salary. You hire them when you have clients and let them go when you don’t.

And I see from the way that they talk that a lot of these folks are starting to see the same things I am.

A mindset where you don’t wanna be an employee in some large corporate machine where you are just a cog in a system that has a lot of leverage.

Rather you are a hustler who creates an inbound client pipeline as well as your own reputation and brand. You’re no longer reliant on a job or a ‘career’ in the traditional sense.

And from where i’m standing… the more the global workforce moves to this model… the better things are gonna be for everyone.

But are we all gonna have to collectively work harder and smarter? Also yes.

And we’ll leave to the managers who rely on leverage… all those folks who are not ready to be these ‘hustlers’.

Which in my view is gonna be a dwindling number in the coming years.