CEO Gladwell doesn't seem to care about Gladwell magazine
Malcolm Gladwell inadvertently became a social media hero after speaking out on a podcast about the trend to work from home. While we usually treat online turmoil as a low profile, it's important to note how Gladwell's remarks ignited a fire. The topic of remote work has sparked strange moral divisions, almost religious debates, in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic.
For what you already know, most workers know that going to the office and sitting down is neither essential nor important to their productivity. I am discovering. Cubicles all day. That realization has given workers new bargaining power, but some have been forced to learn the tricky art of working from home without feeling weird or lonely.
This trend is creating unexpected and unpleasant economic shifts. Nearly every big city skyline is basically a pile of these cubicles, and if many or most of them are no longer needed, the geography of the city will have to undergo major changes in the next few decades. old way.
Gladwell has been outspoken about his new role as CEO of a media company that produces podcasts, making a pretty strong case for one side of the issue. He told podcaster Steve Bartlett: Feeling a sense of belonging and need.
"And we want you to join our team. It's really hard to do if you're not here. Work from home." I know it's not in your best interest to come to the office, but if all you're doing is sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, that's the work life you want to live. Don't you want to feel part of that?"
I know one or two of these. "Sitting in my pajamas in my bedroom" pretty much summed up his 20-year working life, since he never had the taste to work on his laptop at Starbucks. (Even on duty, I would rather stay at the hotel.
When the people of Fortuneheard wind of his remarks, they spent "much of my adult life" working in a coffee shop, and hating his desk.Gladwell's fans—and I remain one of them—would say that he worked in the office of the famous New Yorker. I also know was known for being invisible, and we could both be in the 99th percentile when it comes to "avoid the office" qualifications.
Gladwell's CEO doesn't seem to think very well about Gladwell magazine at the moment.Is this just hypocrisy? I think the evangelical sense of mission as a boss is real, he no longer has a problem finding the most comfortable place to churning a sea of copies, his problem is the CEO's problem, The podcast he appeared on was called "The CEO's Diary."
Not surprisingly, the podcasts produced by his company represent the majestic and grandeur of the "storytelling" movement. But if he can put a vintage 2006 Gladwell on the "Professional Blowhards Who Make Fish Wraps" podcast, he'll see the other side of the new religious schism with almost equal zeal. I think you might find me arguing that
What I want most is for people to stop treating the shift to working from home as a moral phenomenon. Folks, you're whining about the weather, the labor market, I think COVID has revealed what we all know to be true, a lot of office work is like a construction site Not particularly heavy on the "work" part, much of it is real-time activity welded to the screen: work tasks, Slack windows, instant messages, cat memes toggling.
60} The Internet productivity surplus that economists have squinted at since the turn of the 20th century is now realized in the form of work. However, the workers are arguing with the boss over who will catch it.It is natural for experienced remote he workers to feel complacent about reducing the environmental and social externalities of commuting, and this is an indisputable drawback. So it's probably natural for someone trying to create cohesion in the business they own, pouring life into office space, computer terminals, and break-room amenities to think morally about their point of view.
My advice to the CEO is to adapt to the weather. While there's nothing wrong with employers insisting on commuting as a condition of employment, their complaint is essentially that it doesn't work. Tough darts, chum.
It was probably fairly easy for the magazine's surly Gladwell to file a copy on the mythical New Yorker and feel involved in its fate. Impressing is a challenge for him as a boss, and he should be able to understand that all he's really saying is that he failed at it.
National Post
Twitter.com/colbycosh
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Monte McNaughton: COVID-19 has changed the future of work
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