With all the evidence to support remote work, some CEOs just don’t get it. So what are CEOs thinking that is different than the rest of us? Part of it seems tied to perceptions of the work itself. In a recent survey, 87% of employees felt they were productive at work while only 12% of leaders felt their people were productive. Talk about a disconnect! How could two groups be so opposed? Maybe it is because they are two different groups.
Working vs Managing
Everyone knows a story of a great worker who was promoted to management and didn’t do so well. They probably weren’t trained to be a manager. They were promoted because they knew the work. But knowing the work has very little to do with managing the people. Rather than being taught how to manage, they usually find their way by seeing who is at their desks, having regular status meetings, and trying to keep senior management happy. Then Covid happened and all that structured security went out the window. They struggled through it but longed for the day that they could get people back in the office. Then they would be able to look out of their office at the happy workers at their desks and know the world was good.
Not everyone works their way up to the top. There are plenty of leaders that started companies and stayed in that role, or they gravitated to a similar role at another company. Successful entrepreneurs make the leap from working in their business to working on their business. Leaders in most large companies are in the same boat. They are focused on growth and the future of their company, and workers are keeping the lights on.
Whether it’s a lack of knowledge, clinging to what they know, or just being disconnected from the work being done, many managers have a very different view of remote work compared to most of the people doing the work.
Why the Remote Work Disconnect
I think part of it is a misperception that the organization of the C suite works the same as the rest of the company. CEOs who want people back in the office generally have a highly collaborative group around them that help them move the company forward. It’s unlikely that this same structure exists throughout the company. The CEO is focused on growth and fixing problems. The rest of the company is focused on repeatable processes. They have very different needs for collaboration and innovation.
Henry Ford bragged that he had a device on his desk with buttons where he could summon any of his managers when he needed the answer to a question. That arms-reach approach to collaboration has lived on for many CEOs today. Senior managers being located in the same space works well for the needs of many C suites. But it doesn’t generally work for those below that level. Many leaders are just so disconnected from that work, that they can’t see the differences in how the work is done.
Some Who Don’t Get Remote Work
With companies from PWC to Yelp ditching their offices in favor of remote work, you have to wonder what the CEOs who aren’t doing it are thinking. Here are a few select quotes that give us some clues;
- Elon Musk – CEO, Tesla, Inc., “The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence.“ (industryleadersmagazine.com)
- Cathy Merrill – CEO and Owner of Washingtonian Media, “As the economy rebounds, we need to hire and attract talent. To do so, we will need leaders on site.”
- (washingtonpost.com)
- David Solomon – CEO, Goldman Sachs, “I do think for a business like ours, which is an innovative, collaborative apprenticeship culture, this is not ideal for us. And it’s not a new normal. It’s an aberration that we’re going to correct as soon as possible,”
- (www.bbc.com)
- Jamie Dimon – CEO, JPMorgan Chase, “It doesn’t work for those who want to hustle. It doesn’t work for spontaneous idea generation. It doesn’t work for culture.”
- (reuters.com)
- James Gorman – CEO, Morgan Stanley, “Most professionals learn their job through an apprenticeship model, which is almost impossible to replicate in the Zoom world,”
- (www.dw.com)
- Reed Hastings — Founder and CEO, Netflix, “No, I don’t see any positives. Not being able to get together in person, particularly internationally, is a pure negative.”
- (www.wsj.com)
- Ellen Kullman – CEO, Carbon, Inc., “Kullman has expressed concerns about remote work that center on the collaborative juju that happens when people work together physically, ‘What I worry about the most is innovation. Innovation is hard to schedule—it’s impossible to schedule.'”
- (madisonwells.com)
All of these tend to be CEO-centric views of what’s best for the company. If it works for the CEO, it should work for everyone else. Chances are, that’s not the case. CEOs who have made the jump to remote work tend to look at the needs of workers and the bottom line for the company, not their personal work style. For those CEOs who haven’t seen the light yet, I would recommend you spend some time away from Mount Olympus and see what your workers have actually been doing for the last couple of years. They don’t need to come back to the office to move your company forward. They probably have already done that.
