“𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐞𝐠𝐨”

“𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐞𝐠𝐨”

This statement was said by a good friend of mine that runs a million dollar window cleaning business in Toronto. A philosopher in the 1920s also said the same thing, kind of...

Let me explain.

After asking my friend, he clarified that most contractors and tradesmen are wired in a way where they would rather work alone than in a team.

But why is that?

After researching this topic, I was able to find out that most tradesmen and contractors share these top three qualities. Most tradesmen are:

1. Detailed oriented

2. Perfectionists and,

3. Prefer to avoid risk

These qualities are by no means bad.

In fact these qualities are absolutely essential when building up a business, but these qualities are only good for the SHORT TERM and end up having poor consequences in the LONG TERM. Why?

This is because most contractors BELIEF that:

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑦𝑒𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 = 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘.

Franz Kafka was a German philosopher that discussed this same issue back in 1920 in his short story titled Poseidon.

In it, Poseidon is an executive so swamped by paperwork that he does not have time to explore his underwater domain. The joke here is that not even a Greek god can handle the amount of administrative tasks demanded by the modern workplace.

BUT, the reason why Kafka is telling the story is because Poseidon is unwilling to delegate any of the work because he deems everyone else unworthy of the task.

Kafka's Poseidon is a prisoner of his own ego…

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What do you think?

Do you think hiring employees will always inevitably lower the final quality of the service?