If Gandalf Hired Freelancers

You’re a wizard, reader.

You have to save the world. You’re the chosen one.

Without you, there would be no Middle-earth. As we know it, our reality would shatter into a thousand pieces. No home for the birds, for the bees, and the children. Total desolation. The future relies on you. 

Alas, the tremendous yet noble task of saving Middle-Earth cannot be done alone. So, Gandalf, as the mighty wizard, what would you do? Would you go for the first people who offered to help you…or would you take your time finding the best people for the job? 

Let’s take a pause. You might have noticed that it isn’t just about Gandalf’s internal struggles by now. There is more to the picture, no, it’s not Gandalf’s impostor syndrome. 

As a digital agency, here at Hierographx, we know how hard it can be for a business to allocate tasks and when those tasks need more hands on deck, or if you should assemble a freelancer fellowship. 

Let’s Say You Already Know a Guy (And He’s A Hobbit)

The Hobbits are the only ones who are nice enough to handle the ring without being tempted by its power. Think of them as Middle-earth’s Canadians. 

Freelancers can be saintly people. We won’t deny that. 

However, not understanding who they are and their work ethic is a problem. It can be a challenge to know who works for you with freelancers. What if Gandalf never went to Bilbo’s 111th Birthday? 

He may not have known that Bilbo, exposed to the ring’s corrupting power for far too long, was becoming possessed by it. He may have left the Shire with the ring, losing it to a random Orc (or someone even more untrustworthy) down the line. 

Roll end credits. That would have been the end of the series right there.

Let’s take your ex as an example. Imagine they had the ring. That’s bad news. Middle-earth would be even more screwed. 

Freelancers can sometimes be something other than they claim. A freelancer can claim to have years of experience, but they might lack the proof. When you need an important job done right, you need the right person and the right team. Halfway to Mount Doom, mid-battle, is no time to find out they padded their resume. 

The Team IS the Thing

Gandalf didn’t choose team members based on who had the most impressive credentials. He went based on who was most malleable. 

Sometimes you just need to meet someone to get a feel for what they can do. Had he hired a freelancer, his choices might have been based on first impressions…and the work on the job may not have met his professional expectations. Using freelancers is the equivalent of throwing out the fellowship. 

Gandalf’s team of Dwarves, Elves, and other races of Middle-earth is equitable and highly effective. The wizard chose his team as much for their loyalty and fortitude as he did for their great successes when working together. Their teamwork meant an additional higher level of productivity. Sure, everyone has their quirks, but isn’t it better to know those ahead of time instead of rolling the dice on a freelancer you’ve never met?

The Elves Want to be Pretty

You’ve got connections. After all… you’re a wizard! 

Your plan has to be done correctly, or everything goes south. With a plan this big, resources might be an issue. Sometimes you need investors. Sometimes you need really rich, pretty people to help you accomplish your goals (hair flip).

These partnerships mean a lot of powerful players with a say in your vision for a project. If Gandalf hadn’t gotten the Elves to help, he may have given up and just stayed at Minas Tirith smoking the pipe he brought along with him to ‘recharge’ his ‘wizard magic.’ The Elves would have spent the entire time looking in the mirror, shining their shoes, and making sure the silverware was set just right on the pearly white tablecloth that their servants had set for them.

Investors (and Elves) are more likely to assist you if you don’t hire random people for the job. If they see that you have a worthy team, they may just let you borrow their huge army. 

Do You Mine?

Possibly the most famous scene from the Lord of the Rings trilogy is the battle between Gandalf and the Balrog. 

Here, Gandalf pulls his best savior moves and dies… but doesn’t really. 

That’s what receiving criticism is like. It’s kind of like dying. 

He may have never traveled through the Mines of Moria if he had hired a random person and didn’t consider the Dwarves’ culture. 

Gandalf would never have encountered the Balrog. If he had never encountered the Balrog (our bit-of-a-stretch metaphor for criticism), then he would not have emerged as Gandalf the White.

Criticism is important in any hero's journey. Freelancers are great at handling criticism, but most freelancing websites don’t allow freelancers to give criticism. 

The success of a project depends on the quality of criticism that team members give one another. Even the great Gandalf himself needed to make some changes to ensure the safety of Middle-earth. We all have good days and bad days. Without advice from others, we would be walking through the mines blindly and never evolve into a better version of ourselves. 

He Can Do It All!

What if you hired some random freelancer instead of him? You know him. The handsome guy in the room who will be king one day. He seems to get all the jobs done with ease. Nothing seems to bother him. 

To him, this whole project, this whole adventure, is just another day. One day, this man will lead the world like no one ever has before. He’s just that great. Every successful business has at least one of those guys on the team. Experts say most guys like that tend to have a “J” in both their first and last names, but in Tolkien’s case, his name is Aragorn.

Every good team has a master planner, but every good team also has a master implementer. Aragorn is the team member who can do it all. If Gandalf didn’t recruit Aragorn as part of the adventure, then there would have been plenty of dead innocent people who were never saved. 

In all seriousness, freelancers are not there to stay. A freelancer can easily be the best of the best, but they won’t be a constant member of the team. 

Freelancers don’t have the opportunity to grow with the team since they are temporary. If you have someone who works for you who can “do it all” like Aragorn, it is likely because they have been a consistently responsible team member. Gandalf didn’t spin a wheel to choose the next king. He recruited someone he trusted, and that trustworthy person proved to be worthy of being King.

We Didn’t Start the Fire

If we had to guess how Tolkien felt about the idea of freelance work, then we should look no further than the corrupted Gollum.  

You see, Gollum thought he could handle the power all by himself. Gollum tried to take on a task too large. In his craven greed, he let the ring corrupt his heart for so long that he lost his mind. His instability causes him to betray friends, disregard basic hygiene, and also makes him talk to himself more often about his ‘precious.’

After decades of living only for himself and not for others, what does Gollum end up being good for? Falling into the fire. That’s it. 

Gandalf could have entrusted the entire responsibility of carrying the ring to Gollum, since he knew Gollum had already had the ring for many years. Gandalf is smarter than that, however. He knows that even with Golem’s knowledge of Mordor, he would have given in to the ring’s temptation. Gandalf can’t afford the risk of entrusting the fate of the entire world to just one person with a little extra job experience. 

Heroes are Needed for Hiero’s Journeys

While a little self-indulgent, we hope you see the same connections that we do between the corporate world and Gandalf as a CEO… and by extension, what a CEO who hires freelancers could be up against.

Like Gandalf, you probably realize that you just can’t take the risk of hiring random adventurers when big things are at stake. As a leader, you have to carefully position your team to be diverse, effective, and goal-oriented. 

Freelancers might know the way, but if Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings is any indication, they could bite your finger off if a better opportunity turned up. You want to form a fellowship of skilled people that you can trust and collaborate with: people who can help you win. 

At Hierographx, we’d like to think of ourselves as maybe not quite “Elven” pretty… but certainly skilled and dedicated. If you want to win… our teams of researchers, developers, designers, and content writers can do just that.