Reframing “Working and Playing Well With Others”
I found zenhabits.net when I was googling (never thought I’d use that as a gerundive , or is it gerund, Chris?) to find websites that address minimalism. I also came across a couple of sites by a couple of minimalist twenty-somethings (http://www.lucasallmon.com and http://www.betterthanyourboyfriend.com.) A guy named Tynan authors the latter blog. His bio reads as follows: Hi! My Name is Tynan… I’m an egomaniac vegan pickup artist who sold everything and is traveling around the world. I generally do whatever I want whenever I want, even when I’m pretty sure it’s a bad idea. I like singing gangsta rap, writing, working out, working on my business, traveling, and finding adventure. I always wear a sequinned hat with stars on¦ OK, so maybe Tynan is a little non-mainstream kind of dude. However, I’m picking up that there is a trend emerging around earning a living , or at least making money to support oneself , in an unconventional manner that does not link one to a specific place. There are others who have decided to “sell everything, travel around and support themselves on the road and they are able to do it-or so they claim.
When more and more people opt for flexibility in work, which could be as simple as, working at home, I wonder what “working and playing well with others will look like in the future. In the good old days when everyone worked in the same location , or at least a finite number of multiple locations , you could actually see if people were, in fact, working (and playing well) with others. With situations like Lucas Allmon where he may never even meet a client face-to ,face, the only thing anyone will see are the results , not how they are produced. And that scenario may drive the control freaks of the world off the proverbial bridge. About a year ago, I wrote a blog about my first job. I had a boss who believed that if you are not sitting at your desk with your pencil poised, you were not working. That was a long time ago and that is a good thing because this example of control freak behavior would not work today.
I’m sure no one would be surprised that the management cognoscenti have coined a term for people who work together in multiple locations and who may never see each other but are accountable for a collaborative work product , that term is a “virtual team. Here’s the deal. A virtual team is no different than a traditional team. Apart from the fact that members of a virtual team may never meet face to face (they could teleconference or use SKYPE), they still need clear goals and expected results, defined roles and responsibilities, established systems and procedures (like how they will communicate and make decisions) and clear definition of the kind of relationship the team will have in working together , that is, its sense of community. As I think about it, the longing that some have for a different kind of relationship is not only possible, but there are a number of great practices for building effective and satisfying relationships that still apply. If only some managers could get over the control thing¦