We're All Change Agents
““Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ”
When Daniel Pink wrote his 1997 Fast Company article, “Free Agent Nation,” I was already five years into my second career. My first career had been kind of a bust. I had taken a meandering path from college, becoming an ineffectual legislative aide in Congress, a paid campaign worker for two wildly unsuccessful presidential candidates, and a political consultant for causes I didn’t really care about.
I reached a personal crossroads on a city bus in the fall of 1992. One Friday afternoon I noticed how excited I was to be heading home from my political interest group job, and how much stomach-turning dread I experienced taking the same bus in the opposite direction the following Monday morning. My career, I came to realize, shouldn’t be this hard on my digestive system.
So I quit, and without foresight or a plan I dedicated the next few months to moping. (On my resume, this period has been subsequently re-packaged as “personal reflection time.”) Eventually, I began looking for a way I could shape my career to my personal skills and interests, to be of service to others while still being personally energized.
Then I really lucked out: Once I found some hint of a direction, my friends and colleagues helped by throwing me small bits of contract work and referring me to their co-workers. Over time I built enough of a practice to cover my mortgage and avoid having to take a traditional job.
Pink’s 1997 article illuminated how my change story connected with that of so many others (minus the moping). He described a building phenomenon in American culture and business – the rise of the autonomous “free-agent” worker who has traded the constraints and benefits of full-time employment for the ability to define more of his or her own professional boundaries.
Back then, Pink counted 25 million Americans in this cohort – 14 million self-employed people (like me!), 8.3 million independent contractors, and 2.3 million people working via temp agencies, comprising about 16% of the US workforce. Twenty years later, a 2018 NPR/Marist poll estimated that 20% of American workers are contractors or freelancers, and projected that this cohort of free-agents would rise to 50% of the workforce in the next decade.
Pink plucked the term “free-agent” from professional sports, where it describes an athlete who can shop his or her services to any team. Over time, the term has jumped into general usage; it now refers to any person who holds responsibility for his or her destiny.
These days, we all have become free agents in some sense. We all have to manage our brand, keep our resume fresh, and maintain our networks, because nobody can be complacent. Even if you have an employment contract and fulltime job with a big successful company, a merger (AT&T and Time Warner!) or collapse (Enron! Bear Stearns!) could come with little notice. And as government shut-downs and buy-outs become increasingly common, even civil servants are increasingly insecure.
So for better or worse, congratulations on your free agency! Amid all the uncertainty this entails, at least we can be consoled by the thought that we are not alone.
Along with unsettling ambiguity, our shared free agency also brings opportunities. As each of us is less anchored than ever before to a specific employer, role, or profession, more options emerge every day for you and me to become an agent of change.
Personal technology and other tools of mass communication have given you a voice, if you choose to use it. You can look at a problem in your neighborhood or on the other side of the world, and propose a way to fix it. You can collect information from experts around the globe, and energize people who share your passions. Whether you choose to aim big, or aim small, work within the system or overthrow it, each of us has the power to change the world.
Today more than ever, wherever you live or work, we are a worldwide nation of change agents.
Which is good news because boy, does the world need some changing. When I look around I see assaults on ideas and values I couldn’t have imagined need defending: The idea that every person has worth and deserves respect; the idea that we are obliged to help those afflicted by poverty, war, and disability; the idea that science is almost always right, and that racism is definitely always wrong.
This is no time to sit on the sidelines. Civil rights activist Bayard Rustin was right when he called for people of good will to become “angelic troublemakers.” This is the moment to act.
