AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL LEADERS

TLDR crowd : Just read the Bold

I’VE BEEN STAYING UP LATE AT NIGHT Lately, I’ve been staying up late at night thinking about the future of work, work-life balance and how the corporate world needs to change….okay that’s a lie. I’ve actually been staying up late at night because my 1 ½ month old son cries every 2-3 hours but the aforementioned thoughts have taken up a big part of my thinking space…

CONTEMPLATING THE FUTURE OF "WORK" AND Over the past year those of us in the corporate world have learned that sometimes we love "remote" work and that sometimes we also hate "remote" work. But an undeniable truth has surfaced. We are in a point of human history (and have been for some time) where we are "living in the future" and the technology is there to not just hold together a global economy...but help that global economy thrive without the burden of a constant physical presence however we just never thought about what it could look like on the scale of which we were forced to evolve in 2020.

I'VE CONCLUDED THAT WE MUST APPLY DESIGN PRINCIPLES That being said we've learned that there are some aspects of creation, celebration and collaboration that don't function as well without the physical presence of others. Some level of joy and innovation that can't be fulfilled without after-work drinks, in person brainstorms and industry conferences. But what I've realized is we've never been forced to think about "work" at this scale since the industrial revolution. Stop...and think about that the basic framework of how we work has not been redesigned at wide scale since the 16th century.

TO OUR WORK ROUTINES, WORKPLACES AND THE WAY WE OPERATE With the help of modern technology a lot of things can remove the burden of physical presence---text messages and instant messages can become the new casual "drop by" conversation, videoconferencing creates instant access to teams across the world erasing inefficient travel times, commutes and costs and various collaboration tools actually make the act of creation for things like "decks", documents and presentations more efficient. However we do need physical time together. We need to build the trust that comes with forming business partnerships and the joy of celebration and physical togetherness to persist for us to truly thrive in the post pandemic world of "work". We just don't need as much of that physical presence with our coworkers that we do with our partners, children, parents and those we consider to be family. We need to rebalance.

SO LET’S STOP TRYING TO DEFINE A "GRAY AREA" AS BLACK OR WHITE Instead of falling back to what's easy and clinging to life before March of 2020 or on the flip side just passively accepting the emergency measures of the past year and going "remote" I want to urge every leader, employee, politician and really every person who cares about this issue everywhere to think...really deeply think about the future of our society when it relates to the type of work that is called "office or corporate work".

AND START DESIGNING "WORK" TODAY FOR THE NEEDS OF TOMORROW We have an incredible opportunity that not many groups of people in history get. The opportunity to apply the concept of design to one of the most major forces in our everyday lives, a force that shapes how society is structured geographically and functionally. We can help create thriving communities across the country instead of centralized urban economies, businesses in small towns can benefit from corporate salaries spending our resources in a decentralized way, we can improve the parent/child relationship AT SCALE and we can create really interesting physical work environments designed for collaboration and relationship building instead of containment, dystopian and unnecessary monitoring.

BY ADOPTING TECHNOLOGY, TAKING ONLY THE GOOD FROM THE PAST AND BETTERING OUR SOCIETY FOR THE FUTURE My ask to all of you is to work together to truly design the future of work. I ask you all to think about what benefits our companies, our employees and our communities as a whole instead of rushing to revert to a world that was clearly inefficient or rush into adopting emergency measures that were put in place. We have the opportunity to create a better world, let's not let it be wasted on haste...I think I may speak for most us when I say I'd rather see it be refined by design.