We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams

That's not the point. The question is if Columbus would have done his job better if he had the ability to do daily stand-ups with the Queen?

I don't think so, because the Queen probably didn't have the skills of an explorer. Great leaders have always delegated ;-)

I love this topic. On one hand, many tech giants spent an exorbitant amount of money hiring and bringing their technical talent to one location. Easy examples such as Google and especially Amazon come to mind. On the other hand, any studies on the subject strongly imply anyone farther than 50 feet rarely speaks anyway so you are better off with remote teams as they are setup with better tooling (slack, et tal).

https://goo.gl/bvNXHQ

As a single data point my experience as a hiring manager and allowing remote candidates allowed for a much higher level of talent to draw upon. Furthermore, I have had remote teams develop a great culture merely by turning on their cameras during the daily standup.

Finally, I also question the productivity of team building 'dinners' and other one-off activities. Having been part of teams with lots of corporate dinners and teams without its hard for me to really call out any specific value.

I truly do want to be convinced otherwise, but the strongest argument I have seen here so far is a vague 'Face to face is superior' when I have had great remote teams with cameras on. Anyone have a more data driven argument? Even if its a few data points?

> However, RW makes it easier for slackers to slack off; it is difficult for less effective managers to detect, let alone handle it.

This is, I think, because most management techniques don't rely on any sort of objective measurement to determine effectiveness.

Using measurements can have its own dangers if done poorly, but subjective observations and feelings about how productive or effective a team or individual is can be even more dangerous.

I've been on the receiving end of subjective judgements that have ruined a good team.

That problem is easily solved, look at the most recent message. Though a lot of the problem was caused by incredibly incompetent management.

Yeah, it's not that there are no political issues among technical people. I just feel like most technical people will generally recognize good technical arguments and work toward them as long as the arguments are framed/presented considerately, because when it comes down to it, there are cold hard facts in that world. They're approaching their work semi-rationally, so there's some possibility that you'll get somewhere if you have a strong case respectfully presented. That's been my experience with good technical workers over the years.

The primary time that pattern is subverted is when a technical person gets overly concerned with appeasing a non-technical boss. That happens because the non-technical bosses want it to happen. They don't care about the engineering. They are trying to remake the technical side in their image, which is part of why they bring in the aforementioned weekend-computer-fixer and give him a fancy title like "director and architect". This makes it so that he doesn't really have to do much if any technical work because there is plausible deniability -- he can say he was busy doing "direction and architecture" so he didn't have time to write the code. Especially true if subordinates get added.

With non-technical types, successful interaction in the workplace goes from being half-about feelings and half-about demonstrable truths to being completely about feelings. To them, no arguments matter. For example, a non-technical manager or a faux-technical person will always be looking for ways to deflect blame because admitting you're wrong is weakness, it doesn't play well emotionally or superficially. If you want them to change something, you have to make it so that there is no possible superficial negative interpretation of their actions, and then you must show them why it's in their interest to do what you want them to do with emotions, because they don't operate in a world of rationality.

Technical teams are driven to improve their product even if there is blame involved or the possibility of a negative perception somewhere because there are actually consequences to failure or inefficiencies. The program will stop, the data may be lost, etc. Non-technicals don't have this type of real consequence behind their work.

For the non-technical MBA crowd, work is entirely a dance where you curtsy to the other entity's interest in authority, power, respect, and similar emotional expectations and (in)securities in the correct sequence. The dance program must be completed successfully. If it is, the other party rewards the participant(s) with a sum of money (aka "strippers and steak"); if not, offense is taken.

People from that world hate remote work because remote work takes away 97% of their dance floor. With few inflection points for emotional manipulation, they have practically nothing to work with. Technical people love remote work because it trims their "dance floor" down so that the emotional dance area is only there on the fringes, and the technical work can take what they feel is its appropriate place at center stage.

I'm not trying to wholly discount the emotional components that come into play in the workplace or say that they're necessarily wrong. But in work that comprises something more than pampering/nurturing the right feelings, it is obviously beneficial to minimize that aspect.