On workplace expectations in a polarized world
Lately, I have been thinking about ideas and expectations in the workplace, how they are created, how they are presented, and how we react to them. My thought-starter this time was my LinkedIn feed, where I have been seeing more and more posts that try to paint the world in black or white. Like-capturing statements that in my eyes are a representation of a really dangerous trend.
That social media are driving extremes and polarized ideas is no news, but seeing this trend in the context of the workplace made me really think about the consequences, and the expectations created on ways of working. The danger that I see is that many times those statements do not generate healthy discussions, but instead drive a war of opinions: we vs them, what the others do and we should do, what is really right, and what is really wrong.
Let me give you some examples to make it clearer what I am thinking about.
«Anyone who is going back to the office after the pandemic is just in denial. Everyone should work from anywhere they want.»
Ways of working after the pandemic are undoubtedly a hot topic. Many companies completely revolutionized the way they worked due to covid-19. And to be honest, I think that very few were prepared for it. Some companies were really early in saying that they will go fully remote and abandoned the physical offices already in 2020, some asked their employees to go back to the office full-time as soon as it got possible, some others have chosen a middle way. It is a new situation for many, and I believe that many companies are battling between providing clarity to their employees, and not fully understanding the long-term consequences of one choice or the other.
This is a gigantic shift that will require time and learnings to nail. And of course, every company has its own peculiarities and what might work for a company with national operations and almost fully colocated employees, is not the same as what might work for a multinational distributed enterprise.
Yet instead of seeing the learning potential and the obvious practical difference, I see many discussions implying that we have a ”one size fits all solution” where full flexibility and work from anywhere is the only sensible way to go.
I’ve seen videos about the nonsense of commuting, taking precious time that could be used to be a really productive employee. I’ve seen declarations about the indisputable superiority of asynchronous communications and completely distributed teams. And I’ve also witnessed arguments about the great resignation only being connected to forcing people back to the workplace.
Whenever I see people arguing for those positions, I start to wonder: why do they want to paint this polarized picture where there is a right and a wrong way?
Those examples are a way of judging ”the other opinion” as well as a representation of a really individualistic perspective. There is absolutely no doubt that working from home is more efficient for the single individual: no commuting, easier work-life balance, close down the computer when you want to deep-focus. But this is only one part of the story. What I am witnessing first hand, especially for everyone working in product is an increased complexity: deep conversations are harder, conflicts are really easy to avoid, connections beyond your inner circle are extremely complicated to establish.
So, is there really a ”right expected behavior” that we should expect from any company that wants to call itself innovative? Or shall we instead talk about context, and balance of company needs with individual flexibility?
«Everyone should use <insert framework>. AKA there is only one right way to do product development.»
One other example of polarization I have in my mind is about product development. And all the talks about how product teams should or should not work.
As much as I am a big fan of strong opinion, and I really believe that there are some principles that should be followed by all product teams (for example always develop with an outcome and customer behavior in mind and not a feature), I am also starting to develop an allergy towards all the ”Everyone should use <insert framewok>” statements that I see around.
Some examples on top of my mind:
The entire company should work with one North-star metric from which every other business and product metric is cascaded
The product team should never prioritize work that is not connected with product strategy
Deadlines and commitments are not agile
Meetings are just a waste of time, why are we doing standup? It is only a way to micromanage
We are an empowered product team, which means we should fully independently decide what to work on
What I think is problematic with those argumentations is that they give a too simplified version of reality and sometimes they are not even anchored in real life. Or are mere misinterpretations, like the last one about empowered teams, which I believe is a really bad misjudgment of Marty Cagan’s words.
For example, I would really love to see an example of a company that is bigger than a startup working with only one business metric. Having different metrics is a way of capturing the complexity of the business. You should not have too many of them, but blindly focusing on only one could be extremely dangerous.
The same goes for only prioritizing what is connected with product strategy: there will always be operations or tactical detours that need to be taken. The important thing is to recognize what they are and make sure that they are only detours and not roadblocks towards what we have to achieve.
The real problem I see is that those positions drive unhealthy expectations, and the energy is spent arguing on why we do not follow a certain perfect way instead of trying to get context and, ultimately, accept that reality is multifaceted and you can’t really live by the book.
I believe that reflecting on the polarization of ideas created by external or internal factors is extremely important. They will create expectations and sometimes frictions that need to be identified and addressed. Questions like ”everyone is working from everywhere, so why aren’t we doing it as well?”, or ”the most successful companies all work towards just one metric, we should too” are important not to leave unanswered.
In my eyes much comes down to being really clear on why we work in a certain way at our company, or on why we did take certain decisions. And as a leader, stand by those decisions, and always try to bring clarity. But some days, I must admit, meeting all those internal and external expectations feels like fighting against windmills.
Has anyone succeeded in setting the right expectations with their team in all different facets of how you work together? I would love to hear how you did it.