Question: Who benefits most from the status quo?

Answer: Those who have benefitted most from the status quo.

Jun 01, 2021

People at the top love how they got there.

It’s an interesting moment here in the not quite #beforetimes, but not quite #aftertimes either. As vaccination rates rise in some places (76% of people 12 years old and older have gotten at least their first dose in my county) and restrictions ease in most places, vaccines or no, lots of business leaders are weighing in on what the workplace and work locations of the future-is-now will look like.

Which means there are hot takes from leaders that claim employees who prefer #remotework deserve to be paid less, are less engaged, risk being left out of advancement and always always are less innovative and creative…in other words, it’s all a “pure negative” as Netflix’s CEO called it.

So forgive me for being a bit skeptical when a survey of college seniors says the vast majority want to work in-office and in-person. I mean, sure, wouldn’t you say the same if you heard from some of the business world’s most powerful leaders that they think poorly of you if you want to work remotely, and you will suffer consequences for it?

You may notice something interesting if you go on a hunt for more CEOs saying more stuff like the links I provide above. Most of them are white. Most of them are men. I have yet to find a woman of color spouting this narrative, although I’m sure such a woman exists. But by and large the people who are super anxious to get back to the #beforetimes status quo are the people who were, demographically, best served by that status quo.

I mean, of course.

Let’s be real: How many white, male CEOs do you think had to do the lion’s share of working-childrearing-household mental labor-ing at home in the #beforetimes? Are you guessing 0%, because I am. And if that’s the case, then ask yourself how much more mental bandwidth they had during this pandemic to be annoyed by Zoom calls rather than terrorized by trying to figure out how to keep an eye on both their kids zoom-schooling and their work Slack? I’m guessing a lot.

The status quo served them, and they thrived. Pandemic life in a world where you probably still have resources to address life’s tedious time-sucks leaves you experiencing the inconveniences without benefitting from the flexibility.

So forgive me (again) if I don’t think their comfort level is the thing we should be prioritizing over everything else. That’s why they are paid the big bucks. To get uncomfortable in the service of bigger better goals.

I don’t have to believe today’s mostly homogenous CEOS are consciously explicitly wanting to return to the status quo because it keeps out the single parents, the disabled, the geographically-constrained, the caregivers, people from certain neighborhoods, people who went to certain kinds of schools and so on, but they certainly don’t consciously explicitly care about making the workplace and advancement within it more accessible for more people. And they should. They really should.

What do you think?

Last week-ish

Luckily last week I watched and read a couple of things that gave me hope that there are some non-status-quo thinkers out there in leadership. First I attended the How I Built This Summit with Guy Raz. (Some of you may remember or know that I helped NPR get this event off the ground its first year, 2018.) Guy asked a panel of CEOs that included Sadie Lincoln from Barre 3, Cynt Marshall from the Dallas Mavericks, and Chieh Huang of Boxed about their experiences with remote work. Guy definitely asked in a way that would have opened the door for any or all of them to complain heartily. Instead they each proclaimed that, as leaders, it was their job to rise to the challenge and figure out how to make it work. Not one took the easy route of saying effective creative remote work was impossible. Imagine that. Well, maybe I can imagine that because each of these CEOs themselves represented a break from the demographic norm.

Elisa Camahort Page (she/her) @ElisaC

I LOVE that the CEOs on the #leadership panel at #HIBTsummit, when asked re: #remotework challenges by @guyraz, took ownership of learning to rise to the challenge. No one took the easy route of saying remote effectiveness is impossible. (@barre3sadie @cyntmarshall @Astrochieh)

Then just this weekend, Robert Glazer, CEO of Acceleration Partners, told the story of Erik Huberman, CEO of Hawke Media in his weekly newsletter (one I look forward to every week, I’ll just add). It’s a story of moving into a brand new million-dollar space one year before the pandemic struck, and leading off by asking employees what they thought and felt before planning for the aftertimes. Even if that meant not maintaining the new space. Now, Robert’s company has been remote-first, remote-always, and Robert’s book, How to Thrive in the Virtual Workplace, comes out this week, so he has a penchant for stories like Hawke Media’s. Still, I find it heartening to hear his and Huberman’s voices.

I absolutely know that some people prefer in-office work. I know that some things are easier in-office. But don’t let anyone tell you it’s a choice between returning to the rigid ways we worked before COVID or introducing utter chaos with everyone working willy nilly from wherever they want whenever they want. Those are not the only choices here.

Like those #HIBTSummit speakers, if you’re the leader, it’s on you to rise to the challenge of figuring out what works for you, your staff, your company…and will help you be part of a more inclusive and talent-rich future as you grow.

Those are my 2MM cents, how about you?

Coming this week-ish

This week I’m back to the podcast, and I AM going to tackle that minimum wage topic. I’m also going to tell you what happened when at a young and tender age I decided that career #1, the only one I had planned for, turned out not to be for me. It’s just another piece of my #originstory.

Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on all of the above. And as always I appreciate a share of this newsletter or my podcast.

This Week-ish with ElisaCP

Discussion about this post