Get back to the office!*
*mostly, but if not I have a model, read on...
I recently posted on LinkedIn about working from home and it went viral and I got over 1,000 comments. I decided to lean in and listen to what everyone was saying and think about my experience, to answer the question of whether remote working / working from home, is a good idea or not.
Step back: Why should you listen to me about this?
In the past we built Tigerspike into a 300+ person company with 8 offices in SF, NY, LON, DXB, SIN, TYO, MLB and SYD. Each of those offices had 20-40 people in it. The best thing about Tigerspike was the culture. Talk to an ex Tiger and most will reminisce about the amazing culture that we had. My biggest regret about when we sold is that the culture changed afterwards.
But what is culture? … Its people and place and the work itself.
What are you doing?
With whom are you doing it?
Where are you doing it?
At Tigerspike we did design lead tech work. Mostly cutting edge stuff (mobile as it was at the time) and often purposeful work; we tried to do good for the world. We spent money on nice offices. Great feeling. Nice furniture. Kitchens where we made Friday lunches for everyone, real plants, beautiful buildings in cool, central city locations. In the early days we used to take everyone skiing once a year. And the main part was the cool people who worked there. We didn’t hire dicks, and when we accidentally did, they didn’t last long. We had so many cool people at Tigerspike that dicks just didn’t fit in.
We sold Tigerspike in 2018, and I am lucky enough, through my fund, Mangosteen that I set up afterwards, to back a number of ex Tigers as they start and grow their own companies. So I am seeing how the new companies work now too.
And I am 50 so I have seen a bit.
Key point: almost all things are just better face to face
I am not saying there aren’t remote only companies out there that don’t have great cultures, but it is a true statement that relationships and connections are most effectively built face to face. Innovation happens more effectively face to face. Almost all things.
Note: This doesn’t mean things can ONLY happen face to face, but I am saying that almost all things are BETTER face to face.
Grindr recently made all their staff return to the office. Now that is a company for whom face to face interactions are important. :) Face to face is the best way to build trusted connections. Zoom is a very very distant second.
Same with sales. A million times better to sell face to face than through zoom. Again, I am not saying it is impossible via zoom, just that face to face is way better. Sales people have been working remotely for years, why? because they are in meetings which are best face to face
I was going to write a load more. I can go on and on about various things that are better face to face like mentoring, training, learning rapid iteration, dating, etc etc. All of these can be done on slack or zoom but are way better face to face.
I don’t think anyone can argue about that. And that is the main point. If you want to build a great culture it is way easier face to face.
We would not have maintained such a good culture if we didn’t have the majority of people working together in an office. I am sure of that.
Feedback from my LinkedIn post
I had some genuinely good feedback from the 1,000+ comments I got on LinkedIn. Most of them were talking about how you can find better candidates if you are not beholden to searching only in a city radius which is true. Many talked about accommodating introverts and anxious workers. I hear this; also true. Many said they hated their commute which was long / shit.
Individual vs company
There is an argument here that can be made about the individual vs the collective. That it doesn’t matter what you think it matters what the company thinks (you know, the entity that is dishing out your salary!). I grew up in Asia where the collective is often prioritised over the individual, so there is some cultural lens I am looking through here, and I think that on balance the company should be prioritised over the individual. The company employs all the individuals and so company health is more important.
But the company is made up of individuals and good individuals make the company great, so they are linked I get that, but I think if you are working for the company you owe it to the company to be in the office and lift everyone else, including yourself. Humans are meant to be with other humans; even introverted ones. To a degree you have to suck it up and learn to be with people you may not choose to like.
What I am saying here is individual arguments are valid, but are not as important as what is best for the company
Big corporates
I think that there is a big difference of opinion in this debate based on whether you are talking about a ‘big corporate’ or a ‘startup’.
I spent 8 years at KPMG, which were by and large good because KPMG is a good company and the work was interesting. But if I was working from home I would have done literally nothing (except stopped this with timesheets!).
When Marissa Meyer took over at Yahoo and cancelled remote working and she said that many people haven’t even logged into any company systems in months. These people are taking the piss and stealing from the company. This is what happens if you open the door to remote working for those who really need it; the piss takers come barging through behind them. The victims here are the people who really need it. They are made to suffer by the piss takers, and for big companies the piss takers are the majority.
Startups
You can’t dodge work at a startup because a) it is immediately noticeable that you aren’t working effectively, and b) usually it is purpose driven work so you want to work. Thats why startups are so awesome to work at. And while I have big company experience, my expertise is startups.
I am not in favour of remote working but ironically I think startups is where it can work best. Which I experienced first hand working with the guys at (AI startup) Minikai. They have a main office in Melbourne but people in Canberra, Sydney, Singapore and Bali. Because that is where the best people we could find were. This is working well. All things being equal we would hire someone in Melbourne, but we are not rigid. And how fast Minikai is executing, plus the LinkedIn discussion, plus my experience got me thinking about what the right answer is.
So what is the right answer?
The right answer is if you are in the city where the office space is, you should be in the office full time. Minimum 4 days a week (Maybe a half a day or a day off so you can have flexibility if you need it). Everyone must be in the office together. Vibing off each other, but also allowed to work with headphones in a private area. There are some exceptions but remote working should not be offered to everyone, it should be an exception for people who really need it. You need face to face, you need serendipitous meetings and discussions, you need office romances. You need life.
In addition to that, in what I am calling the “golf model” everyone in the company (including any remote worker exceptions) have to get together for a minimum of 3 times a year for 7 to 10 days. All together in a cool shared space. We did this in Bali last month it worked really well. Rented a 5br villa with a big living room to work in. Everyone stayed there and worked hard and bonded, and came up with new innovations and ways to work, and then returned to work hard mostly in Melbourne and (some) elsewhere.
The golf model
I am not a good golfer, but I thought about a game of golf that takes usually many hours and how it is the perfect game for business discussions. This is not a new revelation, but I wondered why, and I think how the game is designed lends itself to it perfectly.
In golf you are chatting while together (at the tee). Maybe you are having a heated discussion and get a bit mad at each other. Maybe you are making some good points. Then you each hit your balls in different directions so you separate and cool off, or ponder the points made while you are alone looking for the ball you hit way off the side of the fairway.
You then reconvene again on the green as you putt your balls into the hole and then go to the next tee to drive (hit the balls) off again. In this model over 9 or 18 holes you talk many times and cool off and ponder many times.
Come together as a group; discuss. Then separate and be alone; ponder. Come together as a group; discuss. Then separate and be alone; ponder.
This is what work should be like. It is in many ways the perfect way to get things done. Discuss and innovate then separate and get on with it.
This model is what I am advocating for modern startups. The golf model.
Within the office you come together and also separate. And more broadly, you come together 3 or 4 times a year for a week of intensity, then return to your offices to get stuff done.
This means that you have mostly in person in the office workers, but you also accommodate remote workers, and those remote workers are not isolated, and still come together to be part of and shape the company culture.