Free Agent Nation

the act of work itself should produce its own intrinsic rewards.

The question, then, is how this new workforce makes meaning. The answer is by assembling four pieces—freedom, authenticity, accountability, and self-defined success—that together comprise a new free agent work ethic.

At the bottom level of the pyramid were basic physiological needs—food, sex, and oxygen, for example. One layer higher were safety needs—such as protection from illness, calamity, and danger. And still higher came love needs, esteem needs, cognitive needs, and aesthetic needs, proceeding all the way to the apex of personal growth—self-actualization

The buyer doesn’t purchase the person; the buyer rents that person’s abilities. Or in the case of a microbusiness like a taco stand, or a soloist like a freelance speechwriter, the buyer purchases not the person, but the artifact of the person’s abilities. Talent—performance, skill, and results—is what organizations and other buyers seek and what f

“Free agents are accountable. Period. Employees are responsible but seldom held accountable for anything. Free agents and other independent professionals are accountable for the success of their own careers. They are accountable for acquiring the specific marketable skills and experience that bring value to their clients. They are accountable for t

Diversification—that is, an independent worker spreading her risk across a portfolio of projects, clients, skills, and customers—is the best hedging strategy. But there are other hedging techniques

A prevailing belief in the West, articulated by John Calvin, another seventeenth-century theologian, held that God chose certain people for salvation, and consigned the rest to eternal damnation. Free will? According to Calvinism and its doctrine of predestination, it didn’t exist.

Genuine trust flows in two directions—which leads to the essential feature of the Free Agent Operating System: reciprocity.

Large permanent organizations with fixed rosters of individuals are giving way to small, flexible networks with ever-changing collections of talent.