"In Search of Excellence, Sherlock-style"

He's a Briton, a Victorian, and a genius. He can defend himself with flying fists, quote Goethe in the original tongue, create fantastic airs on the violin, bring the denizens of the London underworld to justice, and tell you what you had for breakfast. Now add another item to the list of enviable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes: he never had to punch a time clock.

When considering why Holmes has appealed to so many for so long, the fact that he was self-employed may not come immediately to mind. But wouldn't most of us live that life if we could? No nine to five treadmill, no monthly reports, no office politics. No assembly lines or layoffs. Most of all-no boss. Essentially, the active Holmes was a freelancer, occupying that elusive niche between unproductive leisure and corporate enslavement. As long as there continued to be a market for his services, he was dependent on no one for a living but himself.

But that's not all there is to it. After all, those of us fascinated by the idea of working from home, being free to accept or decline assignments, and other aspects of freelancing, have plenty of other role models to.follow. And most kinds of freelancing -- even being a private detective -- boil down to having a series of temporary employers. But just as Holmes was not strictly a private detective, neither was he strictly a free-lancer. In becoming the world's first consulting detective, he simultaneously became an entrepreneur.

Surely, there is something universally appealing about the idea. How many of us, as kids, set up (whether in reality or imagination) a lemonade stand, a dog-washing service, a detective agency, or some such other enterprise? There was glory in the discovery that anyone with an idea can, with the investment of enough time, sweat, and luck, create a money-making venture.

Back then it was a game; adult life teaches the tougher reality. But Sherlock Holmes makes it look easy again. He saw a way to use his abilities to meet a previously unfilled need, then simply went out and filled it. "I have a trade of my own," he matter-of-factly explained to Watson in STUD. "I suppose that I am the only one in the world."

Interestingly, that kind of innovative, dynamic approach to earning a living is a hot topic today. Our heroes used to be peodle who spent a lifetime working their way from mailroom clerk to chairman of the board. Now they're people who have their own multimillion dollar software company at age twenty-five. In industrial and career education, the latest buzzword is "entrepreneurship." Students barely old enough to spell or pronounce the word are becoming well acquainted with its meaning. Ray Kroc, the McDonald's hamburger king, and Steve Jobs of Apple Computer are presented to them as the epitome of success. Why not Sherlock Holmes as well?

"In my inmost heart I believed that I could succeed where others failed," Holmes told Watson in MUSG. And succeed he did. By the time he was twenty-seven, his consulting detective business was acknowledged by Scotland Yard (only within its own ranks, of course) as the place to turn when all else had failed, and was doing a profitable enough business to keep Holmes in sovereigns. By the age of forty, Sherlock Holmes had surmounted the greatest obstacle a man in his business could face: the wrath of the immensely greater organization belonging to his fellow entrepreneur, Professor Moriarty. In the years that followed, Holmes's own business grew from a one-man operation to that which can be called an agency. He was able to p men on his payroll to take care of the more routine chores of detective work, yet was still busy enough that he often had to refuse or delay cases. Finally, at age fifty, Holmes was ready -- and financially able -- to retire.

Without government loans, career counseling, or an MBA, Sherlock Holmes still excelled. He built his agency from the ground up, using that which we would like to call exclusively "Yankee" ingenuity. In these times when American business is turning to ancient Japanese books of philosophy and even odder places in search of strategies, might we suggest that the Canon would be as good a place to look as any? For Sherlock Holmes was a business man -- and despite the fact that you won't find a mouse-coloured dressing gown in Dress for Success, he was an exemplary one.

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, October 1985)