Remote Face-Off with Leadership
The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805 by J.M.W. Turner, 1822 (public domain - Wikipedia)
“Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind.” — G.K. Chesterton, 1910
I’ve been working remotely for the last decade. In fact, I was doing remote work as far back as 2006, when the consultancy where I worked had weekly office hours in Second Life.
Funny story: when I was contacted by the chief communications officer for Ford Motor Company to consider a new role leading digital communications in late 2007, I was still living in Boston, working remotely.
Since the Ford job was related to what I had been doing, I asked, “Do I have to move to Detroit?”
A natural question, right?
He gave me the retort courteous, informing me that the job was in fact an executive role at the World Headquarters and that my presence would be required.
And here in 2024, we have a wide selection of jobs that regularly feature on-location, hybrid, or remote options as easily as they offer other tangible benefits.
For those who are insistent upon remaining home, it’s like a reverse version of “Bartleby, the Scrivener.”
In Herman Melville’s short story, a successful Wall Street lawyer hires a copyist named Bartleby to help with the workload. Bartleby initially works hard, but eventually begins to respond “I would prefer not to” when asked to do things.
As time goes on, Bartleby increasingly refuses to do anything he’s tasked with. The lawyer eventually moves to a new location because he can’t get Bartleby to leave the building. The police are called and Bartleby is sent to prison, where he dies after refusing to eat.
We can only hope that those on either side of the return-to-office or work-from-home arguments aren’t quite as stubborn.
There isn’t much glamor in being in an office. Commutes add unproductive hours to our days and gray desks in gray offices half-filled with gray people are far from inspiring.
Such enticements aside, an office environment excels at putting us in the presence of our fellow workers, and sometimes simply being co-located can give a boost to our souls, not to mention help give us some context.
At one time in her career, the legendary writer Dorothy Parker had a small, dingy cubbyhole of an office in the Metropolitan Opera House building in New York. As no one ever came to see her, she became depressed and lonely. When the signwriter came to paint her name on the office door, she convinced him instead to write “GENTLEMEN.”
The detriment of remote-only work is that we might miss some of the subtleties that inform communication: the raised eyebrow, the sidelong glance, the exasperated sigh. Some things are only discernible when we’re together.
And if you’re tasked with managing people rather than processes, this is a particular concern.
My friend Tom Webster, who used to head marketing for Edison Research, made an astute observation about technology, remote work, and generations last week.
He wrote about a study on the impacts of the pandemic on how we work and workplace attitudes. Younger employees had an easier time adjusting to the new arrangement than those 45 years and older — but not for the reason you might think.
When younger employees were sent home, *where* they worked changed, but what they worked on likely did not. If you coded in an office, you coded at home. Same if you wrote reports, worked on spreadsheets, or anything else Microsoft tells you is Office…
Chances are, if you are a younger worker, the tools of your job didn’t actually change. Sure, you might have Zoomed a bit more. But you still had Google Docs, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Hubspot...whatever. The same tools you always used.
But if you were in management, your tools weren’t the same. You lost one of the most important tools you had: non-verbal communication. It wasn't replaced by anything.
Managing people is hard. It got harder, and no one helped you, or gave you tools and training to do this remotely. You don’t manage people in Google Docs. You were just given Zoom. Suck it up, GenX.
Today, many of us are heading back to offices, or at least some kind of hybrid arrangement. If the older employees of your company seem a little more eager to return than the younger ones, maybe it isn’t because they are less resilient or adaptable.
Maybe it’s because they had more to figure out, and no one helped them.
Technology has given us more tools with the increasing ability of digital presence. But digital presence isn’t the same thing as actual presence.
Humans are by our very nature social beings. We need interaction not only to manage our mental well-being, but to help us make better decisions.
If you’re headed back to an office and you’re annoyed or put out, remember those who might be struggling. And perhaps offer some advice or give them a little empathy.
The last thing we want is exasperation that ends with “Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!”
There’s so much to learn,
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