What drives me crazy, entrepreneurs who think they're hybrid professionals
Do you love reading the comments people post on LinkedIn as much as I do?
It's seriously one of my favorite forms of research.
Just the other day, a VC from Australia found my TEDx talk and posted about it. (Super cool, right?!) And then, over 100 people liked it and left a bunch of comments.
The next thing I knew, I was entranced, voraciously reading their first-time reactions to the concept of hybrid professional identity. Comments were express like:
"Yup, that's me."
"I've been one all my life."
"Oh, you mean t-shaped professional? That's what I use."
Guess what?
I HAD to respond because there was a serious problem in the comment thread.
(WARNING: If you're an entrepreneur, beware. I love you and don't mean to offend you, but the truth hurts sometimes...)
NOT EVERY ENTREPRENEUR IS A HYBRID PROFESSIONAL.
There. I said it.
Now that that's off my chest, let me explain.
Point number one:
Yes, entrepreneurs tend to where a lot of hats, but wearing many hats doesn't mean you're all those professional identities combined.
For instance, if an entrepreneur is doing marketing, sales, product development, business development, operations, accounting, graphic design, and countless other jobs, that doesn't mean they call themselves a marketer, salesperson, product developer, operator, graphic designer...you get the point. People can do many roles but that doesn’t mean they ARE those roles. Roles are not identities.
Identities are self constructed, and can be (self) assigned, perceived, and projected. They are labels we call ourselves to define who we are. Humans like to categorize and name things to make sense of the world.
I wear a lot of hats in my work, but I don't consider all of them to be my professional identities. Sometimes I do things just because I have to do them. Some I'm good at, and some I'm not. At the end of the day, I have a set of primary professional identities I associate with the most (being an artist, educator, researcher, and designer) and all the other “hats” I wear are not my true identities.
Point number two:
The difference between a person who has many professional identities and someone who is a hybrid professional is INTEGRATION.
I've met many entrepreneurs, and I believe the term "entrepreneur" is a synonym of sorts for jack-of-all-trades. The majority possess many work identities. However, their different identities don’t overlap, blend and combine. I don't meet many entrepreneurs who are, for instance, an artist/scientist/coder combo. They're not crossing identities together. They wear one hat at a time.
Typically, entrepreneurs introduce themselves and list their multiple identities. That's where it ends. They can't explain the intersectionality between their identities.
And you know what? That's okay.
The most important point:
For entrepreneurs or anyone who believes they're a hybrid professional, you must be able to explain the relationships between your multiple work identities. If you can't articulate how your identities fit together, then you're either in the emerging hybrid stage or you really aren't a hybrid. You can have varying degrees of depth and breadth in each of your professionals identities, but only when these identities intersect does your hybridity emerge.
Again, there's nothing wrong with only wearing many hats. Plenty of workers live in "multiplicity" (having many identities). If that's you, welcome to the land of the multi-passionate and multi-hyphenate entrepreneur (there are groups who identify as that). Multi is different from hybrid (that's a forthcoming topic).
Enjoy your singularity, multiplicity, or hybridity (see my post on that). All three types of professional identity matter. Just know which type you are.
And please, please don't conflate hybridity as another term for jack-of-all-trades, you know I'll be pouncing on your LinkedIn post if you do.