The central source of truth and why companies are getting lost. What the Jewish Tabernacle teaches us about keeping our bearing 🧭

In last week’s Torah Portion G-d commands the Jewish nation to build the tabernacle (v1 of the Temple later built by Solomon). The tabernacle's purpose was to create a central location where G-d rested his presence in this world. What in business terms we’d currently call the central source of truth. The idea of G-d and truth having a central location and our constant need to face that direction is fundamental in Judaism. 3 times a day Jews pray. With every prayer, we face in the direction of the temple. If you’re in NYC, you face east towards Israel. If in Australia you face northwest. Even in Jerusalem itself, we face where Solomon’s temple stood. So if standing in East Jerusalem, we’d face west.

Finally, when the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years they moved in a set formation. The 12 tribes set a rectangular formation with the tabernacle in the center. So whether they were traveling or at rest G-d and the truth were always centered.

The same idea goes for a Torah scroll itself. When a Torah scroll is taken out of the ark to be read the commandment is that we are not permitted to turn our back on it. We should face the Torah to keep it in our eyes and thoughts.

When we follow the above principle, everything is great. Trouble arises when we start to turn away or stray from this central source of truth. Today we’re seeing this idea play out in the work world. Every company creates a mission statement and values that stand for what the business exists for. But even before that, in order for a company to be successful long term, it needs to have the following front and center. Your job as a company and company leader is to make your employees happy and successful. This is your guarantee that your business will succeed. When turning away from this simple principle, things become tainted.

And when things become tainted it’s easy to get lost in the fog. What made perfect sense and remains the truth is harder to see. Replaced with bias and politics it’s hard to keep an eye on the truth and navigate out of the storm.

The truth, principle, or company mission may still exist but it’s no longer used or valued as it was originally. It also creates a misconception of reality. No better recent example over the past years than #fakenews. The news has become so biased and politicized it’s impossible to know what’s actually true. Anyone interested in the truth is stuck listening to both positions and coming to logical conclusions based on hearing all sides. But of course, that’s easier said than done when listening to opposing-positioned arguments. I’ll try to connect this idea around two topics where we’ve seen companies flip-flop. Going from one end of the spectrum to the other and back a few more times.

Remote work vs hybrid vs RTO

Back in 2018, Buffer released its first edition of the State of Remote report and has done so each year since. What you saw in this report and 2019, as well as, reports from earlier years from Gallup in 2017, for example, was that people working remotely LOVED it 🥰. To call out a couple of stats to show this. In the Gallup report, 51% would switch to a job that provided flexibility. Another point is that full-time remote workers were 31% more likely than office-based workers to strongly agree that they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day. In the Buffer report, 90% of respondents stated they’d want to work remotely forever.

So what’s important to keep in mind about the data shared above? Something quite crucial. The respondents of these reports 1) chose to work remotely and 2) experienced true remote work. We’ll get into more on this shortly. So people, like me, who had been working remotely before CoVid, would leave better-paying jobs for flexibility (I took a $15k salary cut originally to do so). We thought #wfa was the bees-knees 🐝. And we had 0 desire to ever RTO. That’s my life to the point.

Fast forward ⏩ a few years and CoVid happens. Let’s rely on the 2021 Buffer Status of Remote Report. No surprise here that people still LOVED working remotely. But the vital stat I want you to look at is 45% of respondents to this survey were remote due to the pandemic. And this is the root cause of all the opposite sides of the pendulum data points we’ve seen over the past few years. I’ve been quite vocal that any data about remote work during and immediately after CoVid was worthless. The experience of CoVid #wfh and thus its data was too tainted to be accurate. So all that data about people being burnout remotely, 70%+ of employees wanting hybrid with the office 2+ days a week, and similar simply can’t be relied on.

Why? Because a majority of respondents of the various reports the past 3 years 1) didn’t choose to work remotely 2) didn’t experience true remote work They experienced the world burning down, people dying, forced isolation, and oh yea, they didn’t work from the office 3) their companies didn’t redesign how they operate to be remote-first (still most haven’t) so they could experience what us OG remote folks have.

So, yes, they are working ‘remotely.’ They aren’t commuting 60 minutes to an office each day. But they are not experiencing what the best of the future of work has to offer. So the understanding of what #wfa and remote is has become tainted. If you’re unsure if your company is confused simply look at the great remote companies like Doist, Gitlab, HelpScout, and other remote OG companies share about what they do. Yes, your company isn’t Gitlab but focus on the principles behind the actual activity. Don’t focus on the fact that Doist’s CEO, Amir Salihefendic, has practically 0 meetings in his calendar week after week. Rather focus on the idea that he and Doist believe in deep work and productivity is based on contribution; not presence. Sounds wild that a CEO of a 100+ person company making probably tens of millions in revenue has 0:0 synchronous team meetings, 1:1s, all-hands, etc.

Now let’s connect this to the biblical source. The Jewish people would bring various offerings & sacrifices to Solomon’s temple. Some of these meat offerings they were able to eat after the ceremony was completed. But there were guidelines on where and when to eat the ‘leftovers.’ We see that if a person brought their sacrifice and had in mind they would eat it on the 3rd day (sacrifices had to be consumed within two nights and days) it would become tainted. The meat was still meat. The act of the sacrifice was still there. However, the atonement or blessing to have come from that sacrifice was missing.

The CoVid #wfh experience as being remote work is the same. It’s tainted. If you read articles about everyone wanting hybrid you may think that remote work has a minimal future and the office will have a comeback. Many big companies are pushing RTO. What you need to do is look through the fog at data starting to come out now that we’re moving past CoVid. And where some older companies are embracing the better practices of the future of work. Just released is the 2023 Buffer State of remote report. And surprise surprise, 91% of respondents want complete flexibility in where they work (meaning no central HQ). That’s 8% more than currently works that way. Wait?!?! But I thought the 3-2 hybrid model was what everyone wanted.

Employees are the heart ❤️ of every company

Over the past year or two, we’ve seen companies like Google, Salesforce, Twitter, and others flip-flop between being employee-focused to revenue and shareholder-worth-driven companies. Companies like this have lost their bearings post-CoVid with the shaky economic situation. Executive teams are focused on maximizing efficiency and tightening the purse strings. Moving away from investing in employee engagement and happiness towards asking without asking their team to become workaholics or fire those that refuse to.

Google had been the leader in how to build great employee-focused environments. They spent millions of dollars doing research like Project Atlas to make itself the company everyone wanted to join and no one ever wanted to leave. All clear skies until CoVid. Multiple times Google has given in to the overwhelming desire of employees to have flexibility in their work location, to then go back on that and try forcing RTO. They receive public backlash when internal petitions against this surface on social media. Forcing Google to once again back down. The latest this week is the true definition of the phase catch-22. Google has started requesting its employees to mix up their schedules when they come into the office. Why? Because there aren’t enough desks and Google execs have told their team to accept sharing a desk. How could this possibly be? While executives aren’t gaga about the future of work, they simply can’t pass up the money saved by downsizing their office footprint.

They’re not alone. Salesforce was perhaps the first major tech company to embrace #wfa and the future of work back in 2020. Allowing employees to work where they wanted and completely redesigning some of their office space for the new purpose of an office. Then the famously leaked all-hands where the team walked back on #wfa and shared some unflattering things about remote workers. This past week news was leaked that Salesforce looking to implement new employee productivity guidelines to help with its next layoffs. Don’t get me wrong, employee reviews/feedback are very important. Unproductive employees who don’t improve should be moved on. However, when doing it in the current climate it sends a clear message to employees. Work harder! Work more hours! Get more done or else!! 🔫.

These companies are taking steps back from the sparks of the Renaissance coming to work. Where we finally go from living to work to working to live. This was the greatest gift CoVid gave to us. They are walking back from focusing on making their employees happy.

I wonder and speculate if this will be the ultimate undoing of these tech giants. #wfa is the future. We are far from it being optimal and ideal for both company and the employee. Except for those chosen few. But it’s the future and there is no stopping it or putting it back into the box. CoVid and the economy have obviously blinded these company execs from seeing the central purpose they so long strived for in employee happiness.

20+ years ago the executive team at Blockbuster Video saw the future in front of their eyes. The internet and the cloud. Internet speeds were as slow as a turtle and the cloud was something only a few had access to. Computers were bulky and needed to be connected to a physical phone line. They mostly sat behind a company firewall. And the computer was used more for work than pleasure until AOL started to change that. They got caught in the present. Losing sight of their central purpose of providing entertainment in customers’ homes. Customers didn’t have fast wifi and tablets that they could watch a movie from bed. And people enjoyed the in-store experience of seeing what videos are in, buying candy, and movies coming soon. So away went maximizing entertaining customers at home, to how to maximize revenue by bringing people into a store.

Will moving away from the central source of truth and mission for these companies today cause their vision of the future to become tainted? Leading them into oblivion. Maybe. Or maybe they’ll exist but mere shells of their past, like AOL and Yahoo today.

Subscribe, so you don't miss anything. You can also follow me on LinkedIn & Twitter for similar awesome content.