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Staying Small By Choice

Written by: James Chan

Article Overview: Gil Gordon, who invented tele-commuting as a way of allowing talented employees to work from home instead of at their corporate offices, prefers to stay small. Here is his personal story.

Staying Small By Choice

Gil Gordon is a guru, one of the most often quoted experts on the subject of telecommuting. He has helped some of the world~{!/~}s biggest companies set up programs that allow their employees to work full-time from their homes. But he has ignored all advice to expand his consulting practice by taking on partners or employees, or even franchising it. He is a classic entrepreneur; he runs his business from the basement of his house in central New Jersey.

Gil is very aware that he has made a choice. He could capitalize on his eminence in this field he helped create by founding an ongoing business that he could some day sell at a profit. ~{!0~}The downside to my not building an empire,~{!1~} he says, ~{!0~}is that I may not be building company assets. My assets are made up of what I know and a stack of papers downstairs.~{!1~}

He knows the choice he is making, and he knows its cost. He also knows its benefits. ~{!0~}Many people have this mystical retirement concept about working like mad and then start enjoying themselves when they retire,~{!1~} he says. ~{!0~}But by the time they turn 65, they have discovered it is too late to enjoy anything. I~{!/~}d rather enjoy life while doing what I love to do at the same time. What I do today is about lifestyle rather than checkbook.~{!1~}

Shortly before I talked with him, Gil decided to forget the world for a while and disappear into the wilderness, hiking and taking pictures with people he likes. Before he left for the trip, he posted a note on his website saying that he wouldn~{!/~}t be reachable during those days~{!*~}regardless of the nature of the emergency. ~{!0~}I used to hear this little voice when I was on vacation saying, ~{!.~}It could be the next million dollar call!~{!1~} he says. ~{!0~}I have learned to ignore that voice and enjoy the freedom and flexibility that I can afford.~{!1~}

To understand Gil~{!/~}s attitude it~{!/~}s important to know something about the early years of his business. While telecommuting has become widespread in recent years~{!*~}something that has greatly benefited Gil and his business~{!*~}it was barely on the radar screen in 1982 when he set up on his own. For quite a few years, Gil~{!/~}s business existed more as an act of will than a response to the market.

Gil describes getting the idea for it almost as an act of defiance. He had first become interested in telecommuting while working as a human resources manager for a diversified consumer products company with operations throughout the world. He saw it as an opportunity to retain talented people and manage employees who need to be on the move.

One day, sometime in the late 1970s, Gil attended a seminar on future employment trends, given by an employee of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. When one of the participants asked about the prospect of telecommuting, the official gave a dismissive answer. ~{!0~}The idea of telecommuting may be good for a few weirdos or oddballs,~{!1~} he said. ~{!0~}But that~{!/~}s all.~{!1~} Something about that expert~{!/~}s attitude offended Gil deeply. He reflected later that he felt fated to prove the bureaucrat wrong.

This wasn~{!/~}t easy. It took nearly two years from the time Gil began his practice before he found his first telecommuting client. He opened a bottle of champagne and wrote the name of the client and the date on the cork. But this was not the breakthrough he had hoped for. New telecommuting work was hard to find, and for a couple of years, even the other human resources assignments on which he depended disappeared. He was making less than a waiter, much less than the manager he had once been.

He thought bitterly of what an organizational psychologist who worked for his former boss had told him when he left his employer: ~{!0~}It seems like you~{!/~}re five years ahead of your time,~{!1~} he said. He was haunted and infuriated by those words. He persevered.

In retrospect, it might seem that the psychologist was right. But would Gil~{!/~}s business have become viable if he hadn~{!/~}t spent that time writing, making himself known to journalists and editors, finding audiences for lectures and helping to create the body of opinion required to make what he did into a going enterprise?

~{!0~}The problem with me in the beginning years was that I was trying to create a market and satisfy it at the same time,~{!1~} he says. He agrees now that it would have been easier to follow the market and offer services whose usefulness was obvious to more people.

But now that he has created a career for himself that works, he has the self-assurance to give his business a shape that fits the life he wants to lead, the confidence to stay small.

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Article Tags: attitude, building an empire, checkbook, company assets, downside, downstairs, eminence, empire 1, entrepreneur, flexibility, freedom, full time, gil gordon, guru, lifestyle, little voice, retirement, stack, telecommuting, wilderness



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