We’ve heard of outsourcing. Companies are doing it. Employees are afraid of it. China (among others) is welcoming it. As a result, outsourcing has different meanings to different people. To me, outsourcing actually holds a deeper root than what companies are currently doing. It has become a convenient tool for us to relinquish our responsibility and pass it on to others.

I guess outsourcing is made popular because it lowers cost, improves efficiency and … (you can fill in the blank with all the business buzz words you can think of!). This is from the company’s point of view. However, a company is an invisible entity made up of humans (yes, us!!). The root of outsourcing can actually be traced back to us.

We have outsourced our health to doctors, gym instructors, yoga teachers, dieticians, health insurance etc. We have outsourced our work to our wives, our children, our colleagues, the printer, the computer system etc. We have outsourced things that we don’t like to people who are willing to do them for a fee e.g. cleaners to deal with the cleanliness, human resources (HR) to deal with the “staff issues”, accountants to deal with our payroll and our tax payments, teachers to deal with the education of our children etc.

This spirit of outsourcing has given rise to the blame culture, where the person you have outsourced to (the contractor) is expected to take full responsibility. The parent will blame the teacher for the low grades of her son. The employee will blame the computer for his inefficiency. The couch potato will blame the TV that he became a couch potato. The manager will blame her staff because a particular work was not delivered on time / with quality.

As any companies can point out, outsourcing carries with it a “reputation risk”, i.e. if the quality of the outsourced piece of work failed to meet the customer’s expectations, the company will suffer, and not the contractor. No matter how much compensation there is - the contractor will never take full responsibility.

Similarly, if we outsource our health to others, any failure on their part will only mean we suffer, and not them. No matter how much they can compensate us, they can’t compensate us our limbs, our loss organs, our very lives. Joining a gym doesn’t make you healthy. Attending regular classes of yoga doesn’t mean you know yoga. Subscribing to a particular diet does not mean you will lose those weight. We still have to be responsible for our own being.

Just like outsourcing the cleaning job to others, it doesn’t give us the right to make a mess. Outsourcing the difficult “staff issues” to HR doesn’t mean we don’t have to deal with the particular colleague - you are still working with him on a daily basis, not the HR. Although we outsource the payroll to accountants, we however check this more dilligently than any other activities! Can we apply this dilligence to others?

Can we apply this dilligence to our health, our wealth, our work, our lives?

It’s sad to see we take outsourcing so literally. We outsource our depression to pills, psychiatrist, alcohol etc. We outsource our frustration to others who are weaker than us, to others who has less power/position, to the computer, to the wife, to the children, to the TV, through sports etc. We outsource our weaknesses to others through power, position, money, or any kind of leverage eg bribes, connections, incentives etc.

I’m not saying that outsourcing is bad. In fact, outsourcing has remained because it has been effective. Outsourcing is here to stay. But in the midst of all the outsourcing that you’re doing, try to remember:

  • you can never outsource yourself

Please remember to put yourself back into any outsourcing agreements. The teacher can’t make you learn. Only you can learn it for yourself. The teacher can only be partially blamed. The pills can make you better, but it can’t cure the roots. Only you can cure yourself from within. Money, position, power - it can only get you so far, but if it comes from within yourself, others will appreciate you for it, and you will know that you have added value.