The Persistent Chase for Eyeballs
One thing that constantly strikes me is how, in reporting a news story, the media leaves out pieces of the puzzle that actually inform the debate and call for more nuanced thinking. There have been many cases recently of people trying to make balanced points on complicated subjects and the media just seizing on one side of the debate and presenting it without full consideration.
It happened again this week with Elon Musk. It seems like lately everyone is on a tear to rip the man down. Why? This week, we heard about his WFH memo, where he wrote:
“Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla. This is less than we ask of factory workers.”
First of all, whoever leaked this is a weasel. Have the you-know-whats to tell your boss to his or her face that you disagree with a stance. Leaking is the weak man or woman’s way out.
I’ve said many times that I’m a huge fan of WFH, and here at Outsell we pioneered this way of working going back to the late ’90s. The world was on dial-up, for heaven’s sake, and we were able to work effectively this way! However, my team is not serving coffee or making cars for a living. It is pretty hard to do either from your living room sofa or home office desk.
What got lost in the Elon frenzy? Equity. Why is it okay for the executives to WFH when their front-line workers can’t do the same? At Outsell, we do let everyone WFH, but the key word there is everyone — the policy is consistently applied to all team members. (We went through a period before COVID where we tried otherwise, and it was a challenge that took more time to manage than it gave back.)
The rules have to apply to everyone equally, and when you have different types of staff — particularly in big corporations — you must have open and honest conversations about what that looks like in a WFH or hybrid environment.
Lost in Musk’s memo and the ensuing press frenzy is this basic idea of fairness. So, if I were running Tesla, I might feel the same way. Would I have worded it differently? Yes. Would I have imposed this strict a policy? Maybe not. But I would sure as heck have an open and honest conversation with my exec team about why they should get to WFH when the folks putting the company’s cars on the road still have to report to the factory floor every weekday morning.
It’s another reminder that Mr. and Ms. Media are all about clicks and audience, and the more terrible the story, the more people will want to read it. The news is insidious these days, and you have to really, really look at the quality of what you take in. Because the odds are that under the headlines and the opening paragraph, there are super important distinctions to be made that are getting lost in the persistent chase for eyeballs.