This year I completed my epic quest to finish "The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
Among many topics, the book referenced a trend for more virtual work. This leads me to the question of what is missing when people don't work in the same physical locations? How important is social interaction, and how closely replicated can it be via facebook, google wave, etc?
Would love to hear your thoughts, including whether you think telecommuting and virtual work are a good idea.
Over to you...
Humor.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely the hardest thing to share via email or teleconference.
Those moments in a stressed-out team when something goes spectacularly wrong (or right) and everyone has a good belly laugh are hard to reproduce if everyone isn't in the same room.
In today’s global business environment, more and more matrix teams are located all over the country and internationally, particularly for large, decentralized companies. Whether you are situated at home or in an office doesn’t seem to matter in these situations. The idea is to bring the work to the right people rather than bringing the people to work. If you are searching for the right people within the proximity of the office space, then you could significantly reduce the availability of qualified talent. Additional advantages include reduced costs for office space and facilities maintenance. The trick in successful telecommuting in the human capital plan is finding the right people who are self-starters and motivated. Additional logistical issues would include assigning an appropriate mentor to integrate new hires to the culture of the organization.
ReplyDeleteIn telling his story of trying to disappear, Wired Magazine's Evan Ratliff relayed just how difficult it is to have as your only conversation with people a complete lie. Facebook, Googlewave, IM, e-mail, and collaborative tools ALL provide social interaction in the honest communication between people known and unknown. Face-to-face is certainly irreplaceable for some things, but a physical presence is hardly "really" required for positive action to take place. Boeing builds huge sections of aircraft in locations nowhere near each other. Yet the components are brought together, assembled, and safely operated every day. Certainly we can do the same thing with just about any product, physical or conceptual. The greatest limiting factor is in the minds of the managers and leaders who must acknowledge this trend or risk loosing the brightest minds to innovative competitors. As a fellow Honeywell employee I strongly urge that we continue to bring together the best and brightest, regardless of the physical barriers we "think" impedes our progress.
ReplyDeleteThanks Phil, Dan, and Mark. Totally agree that it's possible for people to be virtual (and we should make that happen). Would still like to hear more about what's missing when you do that. I've definitely found it's easy to misunderstand people, and that face-face contact helps to make the virtual go better.
ReplyDeleteMark - any chance you could provide a reference to the Evan Ratliff story you mentioned?
"In Wired issue 17.09, Evan Ratliff wrote a story about how people disappear in the digital age. Then he went on the run himself, with Wired readers trying to track him down. His story in Wired issue 17.12, Gone, tells what happened. This blog shows the history of the hunt." See http://www.wired.com/vanish/
ReplyDeleteThe game rules are at:
http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/08/author-evan-ratliff-is-on-the-lam-locate-him-and-win-5000/
The story is in Wired magazine, issue 17.12 (which is not yet available online), and is truly an interesting read and is actually a PRIME example of collaborative efforts between people who have never met - yet successfully work together on a common cause to attain a goal and never see one another. A mash-up of people, their individual skills, efforts, and ideas, working together to solve a problem. Just addressing the use of twitter the wired blog lists 62 "prominent" tweeters in the hunt for Evan, not to mention others who tweeted and may have contributed thoughts key to the solution. Sixty-two people, most of whom never knew the others existed, much less ever interacted with any of them, worked together and solved the puzzle.
This leads me to the question of "what is gained when people don't work in the same physical locations?" How restrictive is social interaction, how much do people withhold out of fear of reprisals for not agreeing with the boss? One of Gen. Patton's principles (Patton's Principles, Porter B Williamson - GREAT BOOK!), attributed to Ben Franklin, was "no one was thinking if everyone was thinking alike". Patton's staff was not required to agree with him. In fact, they were encouraged to disagree, with facts. Blindly agreeing with Gen Patton got high ranking officers removed from the staff. Speaking your mind with the wrong leader can be career ending, or at least job limiting.
Check out some of the comments being made about postings on facebook and other social networking sites. For some reason, on these sites, people loose inhibitions, sometimes (many times?) to a fault. Some people post things other people shouldn't see, yet there seems to be a willingness to share more with the whole world than they would in person to a small group. Isn't that really what a boss wants though? Honesty? Isn't that what a team needs? Unfettered comments and ideas to add options to the mix. Patton still made the final decisions, but he made them with more information than he would have had if he permitted his staff to be a collection of "yes men". Patton was a great General officer, he was a great leader. But in my mind he was a great leader because he allowed, even demanded, confrontation in staff meetings. Once a decision is made, the team moves forward with a consolidated purpose, everyone's ideas having been heard and addressed.
Regardless of the validity or accuracy of the information provided, twitterers and facebookers took all of the information shared regarding Evan Ratliff's location and synthesized that into a successful conclusion.
Interesting side note: Honeywell blocks such "time wasting toys" as twitter and other social networking sites as well as even responding to this leadershippubtalk blog from within the corporate network.
Thanks Mark. Will definitely check out the references (may be a future post topic?). I really like the concept you raise of what can be gained from virtual work. There's a lot of the obvious stuff, but lower inhibition is one you mention which is a great insight. Thanks for the contribution!
ReplyDeleteMark - I've telecommuted, actually I prefer worked out of a home office, for 14 years now. I'm not sure I could go back to a traditional office environment if I wanted to. With that said, there are some things I consider "best practices" in dealing with coworkers.
ReplyDeleteFirst the advantages - Maybe the arrangement suits me, but I find I am much more productive in my home office. There are very few distractions compared to a corporate office, although a level of self discipline is obviously required. Because I have no commute, I get in the office very early and can stay in late and work for a few hours a day on weekends (if I need to) while maintaining a nice quality of life and without sacrificing family time. I can work right up until dinner and then walk out the door and right to the family table in a few minutes.
Work becomes more integrated with life, which is an advantage for me and therefore makes me a better, more satisfied employee.
Now dealing with coworkers - Any remote or telecommuting employee MUST take the time to develop relationships with the people in their tradtional offices. When I worked with you (Mark) I was about 45 minutes from one important office and 3 hours from another one. Anytime I was near one of those offices for a customer visit, I made it a point to stop by.
Outside of that, I made an effort to visit the closer office at least once per month, preferably once every 2 weeks. I made an effort to get to the farther office once per quarter, preferably twice or three times if possible. I would try to hook those visits in with customer meetings at those offices.
I made sure to have lunch with coworkers and introduce anyone I could find to visiting customers.
In short - as a salesperson, I treat my company offices and coworkers in those offices like customers. Make time to call, to visit and invest time with the people behind the jobs.
With today's technology, there are no significant barriers to telecommuting, however face to face contact has always been a key part of good relationship building.
Mike
UPDATE: Inc magazine's editor-at-large Leigh Buchanan wrote a memo about working from home. The entire editorial and art staff has departed their offices at 7 World Trade Center to implement and evaluate assumptions about, and technologies used in, virtual work. They anticipate publishing their experiences in the April 2010 issues - should be worth a read.
ReplyDelete