In a theoretical world, everything would be obvious to everyone. The real world is not like that, because different people see things differently, because they have different vantage points, different interests, and different constraints. Most importantly, they have different pre-conceptions, because they have different experiences.

Selling a proposition that makes sense to both parties is not about exerting will over someone. It's the opposite. It's about searching for ways to do things differently that results in mutual benefit.

Traditionally, employers in all industries have conceived of their role as commanding and monitoring employees to ensure they do work, which, they tacitly assume the employee wants to shirk. It is the role of an enforcer, and it is based on a simplistic paradigm that's now officially out of date.

In 2021, the pandemic has shed new light on that relationship.

With no choice but to work from home, and with new tools such as Zoom and Teams, workplaces in all industries have found new ways to do things, and changed their conceptions about what works and what doesn't work.

The first thing people noticed is that some people are more productive working from home, and experience greater satisfaction. They are able to balance their roles as homemakers, family members, employees and change agents better because they can slice time more effectively.

They regain all the hours lost to commuting.

They gain some of the hours lost to unnecessary interruptions from colleagues.

For responsible employees who don't shirk work, the reasons for productivity gain aren't difficult to explain. What percentage of employees is that? It was already more than 0, and it's only growing higher with better tools and more knowledge of remote work experiences.

The next thing organisations learned is that not all employees had the same experiences. Introverts welcomed the isolation. Extroverts felt diminished in the absence of the energy they gained from interactions with colleagues.

The longer the pandemic went on, the more we learned. Institutional learning is still occurring because it takes at least a year for some metrics to even be accumulated and derived. The impact on the bottom line of the change in real estate requirement e.g. CBD towers will be profound, but it hasn't even been calculated yet, let alone analysed by accountants and executives.

What ftf meetings are necessary, and what meetings, virtual and ftf, are a waste of time? We started to learn that only when ftf meetings were impossible for an extended period.