“Home is behind, the world ahead, and there are many paths to tread, through shadows to the edge of night, until the stars are all alight. The world behind, and home ahead, we’ll wander back and home to bed.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

“We’re home. Home! And this is my room, and you’re all here. And I’m not gonna leave here ever, ever again, because I love you all, and oh, Auntie Em, there’s no place like home!”

Dorothy, Wizard of Oz

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Of course we go back to the office, right? We have tread the many paths, through shadows and witches and flying monkeys. We confronted the sudden, changing world, and now it is behind us, and the office awaits because we love everyone and there’s no place like the office and we will never, ever leave it. 

Cut. Take 2. 

The house I grew up in was pretty big. The streets I played on were super wide. The trees I climbed were giants. It was a house I lived in when I was in grade school. 

I hadn’t seen it for thirty years, so I decided to visit for nostalgia sake. The house looked small. The streets seemed narrower. The trees were of respectable height, but they didn’t quite loom as in my memory’s eye.

Some say that you can never go home again.

So, which is it?

As the dust of the pandemic settles around us, can we go back to that which was so dear (office and space and meetings and morale boosts and break rooms) or can we never really go back?

The question confronts you, and/or it confronts your C-Suite peers and you would like to add value to their considerations.

Allow me a different take on the question, and a particular decision-making paradigm, and let me invite you to process the question with me.

‍Why We Think People Want To Return

We left the office because we had to. We don’t have to return to the office (generally speaking). 

When leaders introduce change, others will always ask why (even if not out loud). It’s a fair question. Change without a compelling reason is always a failed effort. Change with great reason becomes anticipation. 

We think people want to return for three reasons, and we put some really great sounding labels on it.

• People want to get back that sense of belonging. We call it culture.
• People are tired of working together remotely and want to experience that sense of team again. We call it collaboration.
• People want to be able to focus on their work again. We call it productivity. 
  

Slight problem. Studies are showing employees that return to the office from remote work are disappointed.

Culture doesn’t feel the same (check out my article next week on “When Culture is Overrated”). Collaboration is still relying on technology over face-to-face meetings (for instance, employees who work in different buildings, or now, different cities, and still utilize video conferencing). Productivity is reported as less, not more, than what was being accomplished remotely.

I’m sure there are studies that can offset these. The “return” is in its early stages. But the point remains: When asking if we should promote return to the office, we need to dial in on two actions and not on common assumptions as above.

Name The Lack Or The Loss

Returning to the office is a major change just as implementing remote work was a major change. The latter was unavoidable. The former is a decision within your control. 

Most always, change is driven in part by the pain of lack or loss. You want something you don’t have; you want something you once had. Leaders currently are assuming that employees want to get back to the type of culture, collaboration and productivity that they once had. Do they? Is culture “stationed” or is it pervasive regardless of form? 

I like to look into people’s eyes as much as anyone, and I know the power of appropriate touch which I miss in my remote work. But is it really affecting my ability to work with others effectively?

Does the measure of an employee’s productivity indicate significant loss, or is the belief that more gets done when people are together an opinion rather than an actual conviction?

In debating the return to the office, hard data and employee surveys are essential inputs. We cannot assume a lack or a loss. We must validate it. And I suggest we test it. 

Unless you are able to name the lack and loss concretely, a return to the office could be conducted on a trial run. We iterate our projects. Perhaps we need to iterate this process. 

‍Identify The Opportunity

Change is also driven by leveraging opportunity. 

For some of you, the question of returning to the office is not a matter of getting back something, but a window into doing something unprecedented, or at least, not previously experienced.

What lessons were learned in remote work that, if implemented upon a return, will propel your company and workforce forward or would actually improve culture and collaboration and productivity?

What advantages of returning to the office do you know that your remote force has not yet considered, and how will you communicate that in a compelling way?

In other words: What is it about returning to the office that will cause workers to really want to get back to the office?
You are working with people. People have desires. Desire creates space. Space needs to be filled, or else we enter into a feeling of lack. To fill that space, we must make choices. A path must be selected, and other paths let go.

Please read that last paragraph again. Once you assimilate it into your context, you hold the upper hand. In a return to the office, can you create a longing that can only be filled by that return? Can you put forth a path that makes all other paths sacrificable?

The decision to mandating a return to the office is answered in a simple two-box grid. Unless you can name the loss of staying remote, or can identify the opportunity in returning to the office, no change from your current reality is merited. 

When I drove by my grade-school house, an older man and his grown son were sitting on the porch. I got out of my car and walked up to them. I explained that I had grown up there, and they told me that they were the ones who had purchased the house when my parents sold. 

They had been there far more years than I had ever lived; and though my memories were precious, theirs were far more in number and, likely, just as precious. I had grown and moved on. They were there to stay.

And so it is with your office. Have you grown and moved on, or do you need to reclaim it for generations yet to be born?

I’m here if I can help you think this through.