Managers Will Shift The Narrative On “Feedback” Based On Their Feelings About In-Office Work

It gets very two-faced.

Before we get too deep into this, let’s just say this up top: a big reason for return to office (RTO) isn’t “increased productivity,” because in reality productivity has been declining for literal decades at this point:

Our long-running, drastic reduction in productivity hours

The real reason for RTO is that managers like to be deified, and they like to have their peons nearby for control and relevance and fear-based management:

Managers And Executives Want to be Deified

That’s what drives the whole thing. But that’s not fun or right to say, so we needed new narratives. The big narrative became “spontaneous collaboration.” I’ve been working for 20–22 years now in knowledge work jobs. I think I’ve “spontaneously collaborated” maybe three times. It’s honestly easier to…