The discourse continues about Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer’s, February 22nd decision to “ban” telecommuting, more of it negative than positive, with such pundits as Richard Branson and Bill Gates chiming in on the negative side of the argument. Some wonder if a male CEO would get the same scrutiny, others question her empathy for working mothers, and a few even accuse her a return to the dark ages. I won’t go there because too much of it is heavily focused on the impact on productivity rather the longer view and more sustainable goal of healing and rejuvenating a culture that has lost its mojo.
I believe that the decision is a good one because the values she’s attempting to make operational is collaboration, teamwork and more connection between Yahoo employees. She’s looking for ways to increase innovation, camaraderie, and shared intentions, not so much productivity, which interestingly, all the counter-arguments singularly addressed. I personally believe that this country’s priority on productivity that began toward the end of the 20th century is what has whittled away at our lead in innovation – fewer people, doing more at the least cost does not encourage out of the box, visionary thinking. Many of my MBA students taking the Organizational Culture and Emotionally Intelligent Work Environments course at JFKU often select Google as their case study for its culture of innovation and perks. It is the latter that makes coming to work more convenient than staying at home, and being there enables the human connection that virtual collaboration cannot replicate.
Todd Esig, in his article for Forbes, Bodies Matter: The Inconvenient Truth In Marissa Mayer Banning Telecommuting At Yahoo writes:
“The new policy also reminds everyone of some things modern life almost requires us to forget: screen-relations technologies, like video-conferencing, enable mediated simulations of direct bodies-together social connection; all screen-relations have limits and possibilities different than those experienced while being bodies together; and the processes that construct the tech-mediated experience of other people are different than those used when relating directly to another person.”
Although I’m a big user and proponent of virtual learning environments and online communities of practice, I’ve long had a personal concern that technology is outpacing our ability to apply it in effective and moralistic ways. It is a tool, not a replacement, for how we connect as human beings. We are social beings and screen interaction will never replace the perspectives, knowing, and energy gained from being physically, mentally, and spiritually present when interacting with each other in agreement or conflict, in learning or teaching, in service to or passion for a common purpose. In its early days, Yahoo had that kind of environment, much like Google does today. If that’s the kind of culture and place to work that Mayer wants to create, if that’s the “dark ages”, more power to her!
