Hello, I’m Michael Sliwinski, founder of Nozbe - to-do app for business owners and their teams. I write essays, books, work on projects and I podcast for you using #iPadOnly in #NoOffice as I believe that work is not a place you go to, it’s a thing you do.
Stories from running an all-remote Nozbe team and resulting lifestyle of working from my home office or from anywhere really. Now described in detailed also in my new #NoOffice book.
After “interrupting with meetings” it’s time for the second video of Two Michaels arguing. This time we discuss a common myth that when working remotely you cannot create spontaneous or impromptu conversations. Let me know what you think:
I run my company completely remotely. We have no office. That’s why whenever I visit a city I try to maximize my stay by checking in with people I know are from there. Is anyone from my Nozbe team there? Any of our partners? Customers?… and I try to schedule in-person meetings so we can hang out and enjoy each other’s company for a while and strengthen our personal bonds. Here’s a recap of my recent day in Wrocław:
Last week posted a short video on my new YouTube channel about playing tennis in the middle of the workday. The video wasn’t meant to show off my fantastic lifestyle of being able to take a break in the middle of a Wednesday for some sports, but to highlight that in my company, Nozbe everyone can do that. Everyone has that flexibility:
Now that the COVID Pandemic is over, what’s gonna happen to knowledge workers? Will managers force them back to the office? Or will people push back and demand flexibility? Who wins?
Tomorrow my friend Mike St. Pierre is organizing a very cool virtual conference: Non-profit Productivity Summit where yours truly (that’s me!) will be speaking again about hybrid work, explaining the Pyramid of Communication and more. Below you’ll find some spoilers from my talk and an invitation to sign up for the summit! It’s free and there are many other cool speakers lined up!
Before the covid pandemic hit I was promoting Nozbe’s way of working - our #NoOffice lifestyle. However people were skeptical about it. They’d pull out the it’s good for you but it won’t work for me argument. Now that the pandemic is basically over, some companies are reluctant to keep working remotely and I believe that the ones that will insist on strictly going to the office will eventually lose, however they keep brining up the same arguments:
I recently watched an interview (embedded below) with key Apple execs - Craig Federighi and Greg Jozwiak - done by the Wall Street Journal and the part that really interested me was their stance on #NoOffice work. Well, it hasn’t changed much since I wrote about it a few months back (the action starts at 23 min 45 sec in):
I just came back from our semi-annual Nozbe Reunion and when talking to my team and other people around me I realized that flexible workplace is inevitable. I mean, if you want to hire the best, they will demand flexibility when it comes to both WHEN and WHERE. When they do the work (flexible working hours) and where they do it (in the office, at home or hybrid). Companies that won’t offer this kind of agency to their team members will lose. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon. Sooner rather than later.
There’s a management technique “old-school office managers” use which is called “management by walking around”. As a “#NoOffice company” I cannot do that, but what I can do and what I recommend you to start doing is this: “meeting by walking around”. Basically, when you’re having a meeting, go out for a walk and have it while walking around:
Thinking again about Apple’s resistance to letting people have flexibility to work from home and their cringy ad that inspires people to quit, one thought keeps coming back to me. Some adults (bosses) don’t get it, that adults they work with (employees) should be treated as adults (who can make their own decisions). Why is this not a common situation?
