Decrapify Work or Die (the empire fights back)
When the conversation isn't the conversation
The debate about the return to the office continues to rage. I say rage because it has been set up around the false dichotomies of fully remote versus fully office; always in-person interaction to always virtual interaction; going back to what was before to changing to something completely different to what was before.
This is nonsense, of course. None of these dichotomies are valid and no-one is seriously engaging with them but it is the nature of discourse today to be oppositional. It’s a lot easier to pick sides than to really explore the issues and reason about them.
But this conversation isn’t the real conversation. It’s not about what the future of work is going to be like, it’s about the lived experiences of people, it’s not about the structure of organisations or any of that. This conversation is really about power.
What COVID has done is to shift the balance of power from the organisation towards the individual, and the leaders of those organisations, and others with vested interests in the status quo, are complaining loudly and fighting back.
Not only do these leaders want to hold onto their power and return to how things were before (why wouldn’t they? It’s been working great for them), they are woefully out of touch with their workforces, as found in the recent survey by Microsoft. Whilst their people have been struggling, the guys (and it is mostly men) at the top have been thriving! Sitting in their well-appointed home offices, with time to focus away from the noise and distraction of their normal schedules, they’ve been able to crack on.
“Problem? What problem?” is their response to the challenges of working from home. Well, at least they’re consistent because that was their response to everyone else’s challenges of working in and commuting to an office everyday.
The conversation about the future of work is not really about work, it’s about power. Particularly, their power over you.
And this is why it’s going to be a massive fight because, as Chris Herd points out, we’re not talking about the future of work, we’re talking about the future of living. People want the freedom to choose, just like the Golden Age Pirates.
It’s time for a few mutinies.
Reporting from the Palace …
The blanket coverage surrounding Prince Philip’s passing mostly consists of ‘experts’ speaking with utmost certainty about things they know nothing about, taking the tiniest scraps of evidence and hearsay and spinning them into magnificent concoctions of speculation and imagination, all the time inferring the cast iron certainty of these fabrications. They provide little insight other than into their own worldview, biases and prejudices.
Some of you might say that is very much like the conversation on the future of work.
I couldn’t possibly comment.
(nor absolve myself of any accusations of doing the same).
What is work exactly?
Easy question? Well, a companion question would be ‘what is life?’, given that we talk about ‘work/life’ balance. So maybe not so easy.
I think one of the reasons we are struggling with the issues facing us right now is that there’s such lazy thinking and sloppy use of language around the whole topic. Leaving aside all the work that is not ‘done in an office’, there is not very much everyday definition of the types of work that we do in our jobs.
Equally, there’s not much distinction about the types of environment that we need to suit the work in many offices (I’m thinking of the ‘desk farm’ layout of ‘work factory’ mentality). We lump all this stuff together as ‘work, assume it can all be done in the ‘office’ and then wonder why all the meeting rooms are full of individuals writing reports.
Part of the way forward is to start thinking more consciously and deliberately about the type of work being done. One of my favourite thinkers on work, Dr Richard Claydon, defines five types of knowledge work
Focused : getting your head down on solo work, often creative
Collaborative : working with others
Connective : building relationships and networks
Learning : formal and informal
Shallow : all the other shit that stops you doing the important stuff but makes you look busy
Offices are great for shallow work, so it may be no coincidence that people spend way too much time being performatively busy and letting it crowd out all the other, more important, stuff.
But how many people actually analyse what types of work they do and how much time they spend on each? How many managers look at the work under their purview in this way? How many leaders make sure their people are properly supported to do these different types of work, and in the right proportions for the success of the business?
I’m not talking about detailed breakdown (which normally means hyper-surveillance of the shallow stuff), I just mean have a general view. Or even ask themselves the question.
Without that view, any conversation of the where, when and how is pretty pointless. (Like talking about what Prince Philip was like when you've never met him...)
In this period of COVID-enforced Work from Home, Focused work has greatly benefitted. Shallow work (particularly interruptions) has reduced somewhat but Collaborative, Connective and Learning have all suffered (I’m generalising wildly here because the impacts are very unevenly distributed).
However, I suggest that Focused work is increasing as a proportion of the work we do, so we’ve seen an uptick in productivity. Which is why people are saying they only need to be in the office 2-3 days a week, because that’s all the other stuff needs.
When they are in the office, they don’t need a desk, they need environments that support Collaborative, Connective and Learning modes of work. Which means a lot of organisations are going to have to rethink and reconfigure their spaces and the ways that they work.
And they need to make sure people have some fun, too. Because if it’s not an enticing experience, they aren’t going to want to come.
Whatever type of work they're doing.
Hold your loved ones close
I didn’t manage to send out a Not-newsletter last week because I need to attend to personal stuff, one of which was the passing of my brother (from illness, not COVID). It’s reminded me of the importance of family, of spending time with the ones you love and making memories together.
It’s also reminded me that this work is important. People need to have the freedom and the power to make those choices and not be co-erced into putting the job first, to their personal cost. That’s why we need to decrapify work.
Have a great weekend, and give your loved ones a bit of extra time and attention (and a hug, if COVID restriction allow!).