There is cheering on LinkedIn.

Two different executive coaches took emphatic stands for treating adults as adults, not caring when work gets done as long as it’s done, one specifically lauding Spotify’s building-size billboard that the company would remain remote.

Well, yes, of course adults need to be treated as adults.

With the flexibility to oversee both their professional and personal lives.

Of course.

As this debate has evolved, that’s one “side.”

The other might be best exemplified by JPMorgan’s announcement earlier this month, as reported in the WSJ, that all employees, save for limited exceptions, would be required to work full time from the office beginning in March.  Including those staffing call centers who’d been working remotely some days.

It is my experience that micromanaging human beings doesn’t work for either the manager or the managed.

And high standards, with clear measures and accountability, supported by a culture of learning rather than fear, do far more to drive results.

So there’s that.

And that’s a lot.

But neither of these positions, the Spotify stance, we’ll call it, nor the JPMorgan stance, seem to address the more nuanced aspects of this issue.

And in this article, the CHRO of Spotify hints at some of them.

Examples of just a few of the questions we need to ask if we are to have business success that benefits both the organization and the people who make it run:

  • How do we grow and nurture people, develop them, if they’re not having the experience of daily watching more seasoned leaders handling challenges, influence, and any number of human business exchanges, thereby learning by osmosis? What does quality, informal mentorship look like in this case?  And if it’s not as effective as when everyone is in the office, how do we make up for that?  Through what vehicles?
  • If team collaboration suffers when everyone is not in office, if communication is not as efficient and there are consequences as seen in results, and if the cohesion and accountability isn’t the same, how can we change that rather than merely enforce one side of a binary solution that isn’t a solution at all?
  • How do we attract — and retain – top talent when so many have grown accustomed to remote work and will not return to what was the norm pre-pandemic? Do we know and understand what truly matters to team members when it comes to remote work and can we provide a substantial part of it even if we require them to be in office more of their time?  Can we make it better than all-remote?  And, if we say we’re comfortable sacrificing top talent, are we prepared for the business consequences?

Let’s ask these questions and attempt to solve for them.

Will it be an easy fix?

No.  But you’ll gain far more loyalty by trying.

Business — and the world in which it exists — is too complicated for simple ping pongs between two opposites.

For more on working with me directly, you can find most of my consulting and coaching offerings here and here.

If you want to move your team to a more anticipatory and accountable level of performance, drop me a note for working together to Build a Self-Correcting Team℠: sarah@sarah-levitt.com
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