Fw: The Telecommuting Myth and ignorant remarks

[Tim Altom <taltom -at- SIMPLYWRITTEN -dot- COM>]

Good grief, Eric, I'm not preaching so much as explaining my own view of
things. And it's apparent that we don't share it.

It could be a definition of "team member". My use of the term "team" is
nebulous at best, but it's the best I can come up with. Perhaps
"organization member" would be better. By "fully participating" I don't mean
" fully participating in getting this thing out the door" or even "fully
participating in my quota of face time".

What I AM talking about is hard to define and harder to create. But it's
akin to the Notre Dame football team. Sure they want to win against every
opponent. But on the back of every ND player is the burden of a century of
expectations of winning. They carry the honor of ND every time they take the
field. Sure, they work out alone sometimes. But a long succession of ND
coaches have infused the ND way into their players, and it's made ND one of
the most consistently feared football teams in the nation. It's not just
hard-nosed football, but "football the ND way". They room together, practice
together, eat together, and fight together, to become a team. It's like
being in a tight, supportive family, a family in which the shared family
values are more important than any momentary purchase or problem. And
they're not brainwashed into it. They delight in being a Notre Dame player.
See the movie "Rudie" for an example.

There's no way a bunch of isolated players could be brought together
occasionally and expect to field such a pile-driver team. They could
"telecommute" and get individually stronger, read their playbooks, and get
together for scrimmages on their own, but they still wouldn't be the Notre
Dame team. In the military the same notion is called "unit integrity".

I don't think you can foster this level of mutual commitment by telephone.
Such unit integrity is built slowly as stories circulate and leadership has
a chance to tug each person into a special place. When I mentioned The
Cathedral and the Bazaar, it wasn't to advocate working alone and sending fi
les to one another; it was to point out the power of a shared vision. The
Open Source world has a single shared vision that arose spontaneously. In a
company, that vision must be communicated, and that takes time. "Let's get
this software done well" isn't a vision, and it isn't a basis for a
long-term, happy company. It's an immediate goal.

I'm sure you and many others have contributed significantly to many projects
over the years. I'm not talking about projects, my friend. I'm speaking of
the environment within which projects live. Certainly just working in an
office doesn't mean that the environment is visionary. Most offices, most
companies, aren't visionary. What I'm saying is that while being onsite
doesn't guarantee a shared vision, being remote almost guarantees that you
won't have it. Vision doesn't travel on wires; it travels via human beings.
It's communicable, like a germ. It needs to jump from host to host.

For a definition of "vision", consult the second of my references.

Tim Altom
Simply Written, Inc.
Featuring FrameMaker and the Clustar Method(TM)
"Better communication is a service to mankind."
317.562.9298
http://www.simplywritten.com



>So, you're saying that those of us (many with considerable experience)
>who _think_ we're fully participating are mistaken and somehow
>deluded? If that's not patronizing, I don't know what is.
>Listen, Tim, I've been a cog in a wheel with my quota
>of face time and chit-chat with people who didn't know my name
>in the elevator, and I've been a _team_member_ from afar.
>I'll guarantee you that I know the difference, just as I know
>that I'm being patted on the head and patronized because my experience
>doesn't mesh with your prejudices.
>


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