From: bizjournals.com

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Question: I am facing a serious career decision and would like your take on my choices.

I spent the first 20 years of my career working for a large corporation. Think massive cube farm and you get my drift. Two years ago, I took advantage of a buyout offer and went out on my own.

For two years, I’ve been my own boss, taking on temporary assignments as an acting C-level executive. The last three assignments ended with the board making me a very attractive offer to join the company in a senior leadership position.

I am tempted to go back to corporate life, but hate to give up the freedom self-employment offers. Your thoughts?

Alice says:

Disclaimer before I begin: I have been an independent professional for the past 20 years and clearly, I am prejudiced on the side of being my own boss.

Corporate life offers many attractive benefits, ranging from a stable, dependable paycheck to an established structure of processes and procedures. But just like one man’s pleasure is another’s poison, those corporate rules and regulations can be either a comfort or a bane, depending on your personality and perspective.

For me, being my own boss frees me from having to conform to the structured life corporations need to produce results using large numbers of different people with different talents and quirks. Most business enterprises, whether they be private sector, public sector, non-profit, big, or small have some if not most of the following:

• Value statements — here is what we want you to believe
• Competency list — here is how we want you to ac
• Group norms — here is how you need to treat each other
• Policies and procedures — here is how we want you to work

These strictures are designed to reduce inefficiency and produce alignments and uniformity of results. The degree to which an employee adheres to these standards will determine his or her success as a corporate citizen.