As usual, Aniyia says what I keep saying, but without all of the cynicism and belligerence. https://twitter.com/operaqueenie/status/1264946120599322624

What I talk about a lot with other managers is finding the balance between being giving the team autonomy and being accountable for what the team does. As a manager, I can't really be accountable unless I have some oversight of the work.

Companies that want to maintain a top-down hierarchy are going to push their managers to maintain that oversight with remote teams. That is often going to look like more rigid process and more surveillance.

One of the most important lessons I've learned about business operations. Failing in a predictable way is often preferable to execs than having things be unpredictable. If that feels incredibly short-sighted to you, I agree with you. But it's also reality.

The other model of productivity that has been gaining ground is one where you give your workforce more autonomy and incentivize them to produce quality results. I believe this is the more sustainable model for many reasons. But it is less predictable.

The key question is whether companies will figure out how to execute this model with a remote workforce. Many companies weren't doing a stellar job at it when they had everyone in the office. I imagine things are much more difficult when everything has to happen over video conf.

My impression is that the sales role has a big advantage in the sense that there is direct financial incentive to overperform. Creating those incentives is harder and more indirect for tech roles like engineering, design, etc. https://twitter.com/SeracMark/status/1264959885474750464?s=19

It's not just that though. One thing I've been talking about for years is how tech work is *non-linear*. It's not like an assembly line. Sometimes we do a lot of work and it looks like we produced little value for the company. It's an investment that takes time to pay off.

That's one of my definitions of competence for technology leaders btw. How to keep teams focused on what produces value, but with longer time horizons that recognize the non-linearity of tech work.

These are conversations that I've been having about leadership that still exist with remote teams. It's certainly not clear to me how things change with the challenges of a distributed workforce. But right now everybody's still talking about how meetings are supposed to work.