Issue #6: Managers or Mentors?
What does management look like in a remote world?
In a recent piece for The Atlantic, Ed Zitron argues that it looks very different. While I think the air of inevitability he gives these trends is overblown (and his dismissiveness of middle management's value is a bit extreme) the actual application of the ideas would make many organizations better. I pulled out some interesting take-aways & excerpts below (excerpts in italics):
There are too many managers in Corporate America
In a 2016 Harvard Business Review analysis, two writers calculated the annual cost of excess corporate bureaucracy as about $3 trillion, with an average of one manager per every 4.7 workers. Their story mentioned several case studies—a successful GE plant with 300 technicians and a single supervisor, a Swedish bank with 12,000 workers and three levels of hierarchy—that showed that reducing the number of managers usually led to more productivity and profit. And yet, at the time of the story, 17.6 percent of the U.S. workforce (and 30 percent of the workforce’s compensation) was made up of managers and administrators—an alarming statistic that shows how bloated America’s management ranks had become.
Remote work changes the role of management.
With a shift towards remote work, the myriad tools used to track & ship work, and a cultural shift towards producing value over looking busy, managers need to do more than just make sure their employees are working.
“Hall monitor” management, as a practice, is extremely difficult to execute remotely, and thus the coming shift toward permanent all- or part-remote work will lead to a dramatic rethinking of corporate structure.
Many office workers—particularly those in industries that rely on the skill or creativity of day-to-day employees—are entering a new world where bureaucracy will be reduced not because executives have magically become empathetic during the pandemic, but because slowing down progress is bad business.
'Mentors' are the future of management
Remote future naturally reconfigures the scaffolding of how work is done and how workers are organized. The internet makes the world a much smaller place, which means that simple things such as keeping people on task don’t justify an entire position—but mentorship and coaching that can get the best out of each worker do.
A predominantly remote future will challenge the need for layer upon layer of bureaucracy in American work by rejecting the assumption that “management” is the only way to grow in a company.
Right now, we basically have only one track (management), and it actively drains talent from an organization by siloing and repressing it in supervisory roles. Employees may rise into management, then leave to go make more money managing somewhere else. What we need—and will likely see—are more organizations opening a different track for people who are very good at their specific job, where these people are compensated for being great at what they do and mentoring others.
What I’m talking about here is a fundamental shift in how we view talent in the workplace. Usually, when someone is good at their job, they are given a soft remit to mentor people, but rarely is that formalized into something that is mutually beneficial.
. . .
It's worth noting that some companies do actually do what Ed is suggesting already, or at least elements of it. Google, Facebook, Square and other major tech firms have two distinct career paths for engineers: the Individual Contributor (IC) and Manager/Leadership paths. ICs can grow their career, have great influence, and make a lot of money, without management being a criteria.
Perhaps it's time to normalize these distinct paths, beyond just major firms and beyond just tech.
In the News
Remote Work is up up up. LinkedIn published some data about the growth of remote work - and which 10 cities are seeing the highest percentage of remote work applications. The numbers are staggering. According to the report:
30.2% of all applications to paid U.S. job postings on LinkedIn went to remote work opportunities in August,
That's more than 3x the rate of remote job applications (9.8%) in August 2020, and up nearly 10x from January 2020, where remote jobs only made up 2.8% of applications before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the U.S.
30% of job postings! Talk about a shift. Check out the full article to see which cities made the remote work list (hint: think warm climates)
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Hybrid Tools From Zoom. Zoom, the hugely popular video-call tool is rolling out improvements to it's platform, with an eye to the world of hybrid teams:
Smart Gallery. Meetings with some people in-office and others on a video call can be awkward, with it hard to see/hear everyone equally. Smart Gallery takes a step towards improving this critical hybrid-work experience, by employing AI to create individual video feeds of in-room participants, providing remote employees with an individual, clear view of each participant.
Hot Desking. To help companies transition to flexible work schedules where employees aren't in-office every day, Zoom is rolling out a tool that allows employees to book desks and spaces using an interactive map, with AI-recommended seating arrangements down the road.
Expanded Hardware Portfolio. Good hardware, that can handle the A/V needs of hybrid meetings, goes a long way towards creating a successful hybrid environment. To that end, Zoom is continuing to expand its Zoom Rooms Appliance portfolio, partnering with Poly Studio, Logitech and more.
Other highlights:
Enhanced Zoom Whiteboard - for both in-meeting and asynchronous communication. The white board seems like the holy grail of remote tools, so we'll see if Zoom's improvements hit the mark. They're also partnering with Facebook to build a Zoom Whiteboard integration for Oculus Horizons Workrooms, a remote tool we talked about in issue 2.
Expanded translation and transcription. They're planning to extend Zoom’s automated transcription to 30 languages and add live translation to 12 languages in the next year. It could be a game-changer for companies with distributed teams across many countries & languages.
Check out the full list of improvements here.
Tips & Recommendations
Last week I talked about the Microsoft study on remote team collaboration and innovation, with a call for companies to act now to build bridges across and within their teams. I thought this Fast Company article had some useful tips in that direction: Five ways to recharge your creative juices from home and help your team do the same.
...and one more thing
To celebrate the Digital Nomad lifestyle, we feature a couple photos each week of someone enjoying their freedom and flexibility. Email us your photos to be featured!
This month, I'm sharing some photos of my own journey as my wife & I make our way across the country in our converted van. Below: Bryce Canyon & Zion National Parks in Utah
