Why pandemic is being the best thing can happen for your business. Kill your Offices, Managers & Meetings:

Yeah, don’t read it back it says what it says… but don’t get me wrong (and sorry about the clickbait, I made it on purpose because I think everyone working in a company or managing a Business should read this and let me explain.

(Warning: don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the pandemic was good, or play down or frivol with the dramas we are all going through, so first my apologies if someone felt offended.)

My first point to affirm this is the next, Nature, Evolution, or God (you choose) for the last 3.500 million years has «remove from the middle what’s not good» I mean, if something stops serving it’s purpose on this world nature get rid of it (and my apologies again about all the people including myself who has lost some dear one cause this freaking virus, and someday I’ll write about that also jus as a reflection but maybe it’s so deep for this time in the morning, and don’t think I’m some kind of little Adolf Hitler here or even near to his theories please)

So why I said that on the subject of this post?

Offices, Managers & Meetings.

Or what I called since year 2000 OM&Ms, I just copied and adapt this term from Jason Fried and you can see his TED Talk here who inspire me on my early days of being a Manager.

So lately and talking with ex-coworkers and friends and even under the worst pandemic ever known on the century they told me their managers force them to go to the office, so my opinion about is that they deserve «to die» (NOT LITERAL) and I’m not talking about essential people who don’t have another option that going to their workplace, doctors, people in supermarkets, essential services, no I’m talking about jobs like creative people, thinkers, developers, project managers, consultants as me, strategic people, etc…

And my point here is even before the pandemic it wasn’t necessary and the costume to go to a place from 8:00 to 17:00 was something so of the Industrial revolution when to ensure productivity the only way to ensure the people were doing their job was that, and they’re still a lot of jobs like those and are necessary.

«Work is something that is done not a place to go»

So let’s start from the beginning;

Offices or «workplace»:

Why nature is killing them? Simple, there are places where people go every morning, sit down in their cubicles and try to do work, companies spend thousands or million euros or dollars to put there meeting rooms, expensive equipment, offices to have lunch, coffee machines, fancy ping pong tables, phones, infrastructure (servers, screens, laptops or desktops) so you can go there and do work, right? But if you as I do ask the people where they usually do work the most common answers use to be; Starbucks, later at night at the kitchen, my terrace, at the living room when the kids went to sleep, on the airport dead times, and so so… but not that often «at the office» (when I say work I mean real work, when you have to produce a presentation, a proposal, write a memo, or any task given when you need to THINK) for me meeting people even being necessary some times (less than you think) and to do some things like those you need plenty attention, relaxed mind, and focus, and what happened at the office usually? People come to your table to tell you about the last Sunday football game, what he did the weekend or their freaking problems that used to be amazing interesting right? Have you ever live in that situation? Sure not on your offices I’m sure you’re different of mine, or your Manager or boss (not your leader) just have some híper important question for the human survival and just grab you and bring you to his office and have you there 30 at least minutes talking about human and divine things, or you have that coworker in front of you bla bla-ing all the time like a parrot 🦜 about his or her domestic issues, no?

So well your companies spent a lot of money to build a place to work when literally is impossible to do anything right?

So if you agree with me that model is not too well designed if you look at it from a service design perspective but is my opinion and you can leave me yours in the comments below.

So what makes Pandemic and nature with those places? Kill’ em all except from those illuminated companies that still think (maybe because the managers learned than to control what the people do you have to see them, even being adults, professional or responsible) well I measure on my managing times productivity not for the number of hours my team spends on their desks but for what they produce, results, deliverables.

So to conclude this point the pandemic is not killing the only office but also heating chairs employees that made a way of life staying sitting at their desk looking Facebook or just planning their new trip in summer if the can.

And well I have the luck to always work for companies that understand my philosophy and let me practice but there are still thinking contrary to me, and sorry but in my opinion, they are gonna die I hope not literally but could happen two things:

• They are gonna lose their talent «I’m not willing to die cause of a job»
• They are gonna keep the people (chair heaters) that are not going to produce results ergo I don’t know maybe they are lucky and keep on business but I don’t think so.

The next thing is Managers.

The figure of the managers, supervisor, you name it reminds me of the times of the Galeras trust me, I’m an adult and I don’t need no one to blow me on the nape to do my work, and I said managers, not leaders that’s a totally different term, people who inspire me, make me think from a different perspective, challenge me and so, YES! That’s what I want in a manager.
So what a «manager» nowadays is? Basically, a guy who is there to ensure you’re doing your job well, and how they do that? Easy not letting you do your work, or telling you how to do it (not mine you know I love you) especially in those companies I mentioned. And how? Calling you, asking you has is going this or that thing, telling you how to do your work (which is good don’t Bad interpret me if they have some value to ad) but supposedly they hire you as Steve Jobs said:
I hire people to tell me what to do because they know more than me, if not just hire an executive assistant.
(*) is not an exact quote, and my apologies to executive assistants I don’t have anything against you I just simply don’t need them but are people are there too busy to manage their own agendas, so my love and respect ✊.
So this is what bad called Managers and supervisors unless they mutate on leaders and learn new skills to manage people time, organize their minds and time and don’t spend their day supervising and let the team do their work they are gonna die on corporations or go to other industries where that skill is needed, production chains or similar where they need a foreman or overseer.
So maybe you don’t agree with me, let me know your opinion. I respect it and we could discuss a bit about it :)
Meetings

Yes! This is my favorite one, and what is a meeting (not a productive meeting, just the usual meeting) well it’s a time slot of 30 minutes, an hour or so (cause current software doesn’t allow to schedule a 3 minutes meeting) where a group of people meet sometimes too often to discuss a subject, well that’s good, isn’t It? Yes BUT if they are well prepared, have an objective that makes it necessary to all the people is there to be there, and has no up reporting purpose, I mean you can send an email with a report written in ten minutes and don’t have to spend an hour sitting there listening to other people things, common!!! We are in the 21st century and there are tools as slack, email, chat, etc… and don’t have to interrupt people when they are working to report you now unless is a vital subject for human survival can wait on WhatsApp o DM until I’m done with what I have on hand, isn’t it? Or if you want to inform me of something what about email me and I take care of it when I can?
Well, I don’t wanna get too long on this I think you’re a smart guy enough to get me.
So this is what I think pandemic is the best thing could happen for some business and the ones that don’t adapt to the new circumstances are going to disappear or die.
So that’s all for today, I wish you a nice day and hopes you find something interesting on the post or at least something that lets you thinking or create some “change” on your way of managing your business…
Best for today