Make it look easy & out of sight, out of mind

A conversation arose in a session this morning about some of the ramifications of remote working, and there are many. OF course there are the personal issues of home space and division between professional and personal life, as well as the questions of conditions and equipment, including the potential for tax rebates and getting paid rent by the company for the space used, considering that many will cut down on the office space they have.

But there are other things to consider also, like the relationships that people build when working together and the trust and potential for random development to take place when there is a dynamic, non-agenda'd meeting, like around the common area coffee table.

I asked my clients if they had noticed any differences in the way people act or interact with others and what might be the consequences of those who are predominantly remote and those who are in the office most of the time. For me, I think there has been a noticeable difference in the development of social capital, or the degradation as the case may be. I have got the sense that those who have been remote a lot have lost something, kind of like they are out of the loop in regards to the macro view of the company, which makes sense, as most everything they have taken part in has become an engineered and scripted event that focuses on a narrow topic.

Even though they are in many meetings, they are in larger meetings and often they do not get to speak and they are rarely seen. I think that this has changed their ability to exert influence on others, which could have ramifications for their careers going forward - which brings up something interesting.

But first, a story:

I used to manage a department at a regional store in an office supply company and one day, the store manager comes to me and says, "Taraz, I have had complaints about you from other managers". This guy is a touch over six foot six and has a scar that runs down his face from a motorcycle accident, but was one of the best managers I have had and we got along well - even though when we spoke, I had to look up his nostrils.

I asked what the complaints were concerning and he said it was because I was lazy and didn't do anything, but the problem was that he had been in my position before and knew the job, had checked every primary task on my plate and every secondary too, only to find that everything was in order, everything was done, my staff were competent and happy and we were increasing the sales volume consistently.

So, what's the problem?

The problem was, I didn't look busy enough. While the other managers would race around and constantly be under pressure at peak times, I was able to walk leisurely, chat with customers and send my people out for unscheduled breaks when I thought they needed a breather.

It is about being organized, it is about consistently doing the small tasks that stack up and make the large harder, especially when there is a high volume of activity.

My boss didn't care what I did as long as what I needed to do got done, but he didn't want to hear the complaining, so I offered a solution - I will carry a clipboard and write random stuff in it rather than use my memory and I will walk faster. Complaints stopped and he got comments from other managers thanking him for getting my ass into gear and working.

People are idiots.

However, the interesting thing is that in many workplaces, it is the people who give the impression that they are working who get promoted through the organization. A lot of people see activity as the indicator of work effectiveness without considering if the activity done is what should be done or whether it is being done efficiently. As a result, it is common that people who work poorly can get promoted, while those who are actually doing the right thing do not.

As they say, if you want something done fast, get the laziest person to do it. As long as you set the guidelines for standards and adequate accountability measures, it will generally work out okay.

But often, the people who are the best at what they do are also the ones that make it look the easiest, but it is because they have developed the skills in order to do so. Most skill development is out of sight, done in practice, not on the field of play. It is done in areas that do not get rewarded.

What I am wondering is if these things are going to affect people's careers going forward, since a lot of visibility has been lost on what people are doing daily, which makes it harder to evaluate what is actually being done. However, a lot of decisions are made on the relationships that people form, which can become cronyism at its worst, but it also factors in trust, where people are likely to better trust those that they interact with directly ( and have evidence they are trustworthy) than those who are out of sight.

When it comes to promotions through an organization, social capital from the network is highly valuable, because often there are firstly recommendations made for position fills and internal advocates are required in order to forward an applicant. If a person has been remote for an extended period of time, are they more or less likely to come to mind and, are they going to have the advocate numbers to back them. Even though they may do a brilliant job, they likely work with a narrow set of people who may highly respect them, but might not be a large enough slice of the organization, nor spread far enough across departments to influence heavily enough. This is unfortunate.

However, it would be very interesting to get numbers on this kind of business behavior, by for example calculating who was remote and how often across many data points and seeing what the correlation to things like promotions and payrises now and over the following year or two.

I suspect, that like life in general, it is those who are visible who will get most of the benefit. If we look at the highest paid actors in the world, is it because of their skills, or is it because of their visible brand? Same for bands - there is a reason that they used to tour, because in order to sell records, they need to be recognized. Sports stars are the same, where those who are constantly in the newspapers earning more than those who are not - Almost regardless of skill. Visibility has social capital value, which we can see through someone like Elon Musk - who can pump a coin with a tweet - even though millions of other people have been tweeting similar for years with next to no traction or network effect.

Visibility is a differentiator that not everyone is able to posses, because it requires a certain kind of person to do activities beyond what the skills they are known or paid for. If there are two people who are otherwise similarly skilled and one has a high profile or reputation, it is them who is more likely going to get chosen to represent, whether it be for a marketing campaign or to head up a business department. This also means that if there is enough social capital held, skills can be lower and on balance, still weigh more.

While a lot of people like the idea of a meritocracy on technical skill alone, technical skill is not the only skillset required, especially in a social environment. The ability to be able to gather the right people, assist them in doing the right thing at the right time and having the sense of purpose to keep them satisfied in the workplace are skills too - and these have to be factored into the decisions. Social ability is not a good representation of technical skill, but it is a good indicator for the potential to influence social groups, a necessary part of organizational management. But if no one sees these skills in action, how can they have the trust in making the decisions?

There are so many things that get affected by what seems minor changes to the environment, that it is impossible to predict them all, as each change will set of a chain reaction and will create new dynamics that were left out of the predictive model. If tracked before, now and after, I believe that the ramifications and consequences of Corona in millions of areas is going to reverberate through society for decades to come, though many of the affects will not be credited to corona, as there will be a statute of limitations imposed by the societal mind, where the connections are no longer in memory.

The data mining potential of all of this is immense. Whether it will be made visible is the question.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]