The Biggest Problem With Remote Work

Attachments

1. Remote Work Is Worse for New Workers
2. Remote Is Worse at Building New Teamsto Take on New Tasks
3. Remote Work Is Worse at Generating Disruptive New Ideas
Companies need a new kind of middle manager: the synchronizer.
In the past decade, the innovation gap between on-site and remote teams suddenly reversed. Today, the teams divided by the greatest distance are producing the most significant and innovative work.
Railroads’ Complexity and Span Helped Precipitate the Middle Manager
The most important factor is that remote scientists have figured out how to be better hybrid workers. After decades of trial and error, they’ve learned to combine their local networks, which are developed through years of in-person encounters, and their virtual networks, to build a kind of global collective brain.
The synchronizer—or, for large companies, a team of synchronizers—would be responsible for solving the new-worker, new-group, and new-idea problems.