What Is Distance Working?
Last week I wrote a blog post in which I talked about Distance Working, describing why I’m such a huge fan, strongly advocating and supporting it, as one of the most self-empowering and disruptive operating models within organisations. Apparently, it confused a lot of people because they couldn’t understand whether I was referring to more commonly known concepts like Remote Work, Hybrid Work, Distributed Work or Flexible Work, or perhaps the ever more popular Working from Home or from Anywhere. Oh, my!, so many concepts to talk about pretty much the very same thing, right? Well, no, there is a nuance to each and everyone of the different terms I mentioned above, so it looks like, over time, I may well need to explain each and everyone of them to help bring forward some clarity. But the question still remains, right? What is Distance Working then?
Remember when I mentioned in that same article Jack Nilles coined the term Telework back in 1973? Well, last year he wrote a rather useful blog post in which he explained what he meant with Teleworking back then. To quote him:
“ANY form of substitution of information technology (such as telecommunications and computers) for work-related travel: moving the work to the workers instead of moving the workers to work.”
He also wrote a short definition for Distance Working I thought is worth while reproducing it here as well for future reference:
“ANY form of information working whereby the worker may only occasionally have contact with the principle office, communicating via any available technologies. This includes, but is not limited to, all of the forms listed below.”
Guess what’s the most important and relevant key word from that definition? Any ideas? Suggestions, perhaps? Well, to me, it’s occasionally. I guess you may well understand better now what I mean when I’m referring to Distance Working. It’s not hybrid work, nor flexible work, but more along the lines of remote work and distributed work. Working From Home / Anywhere would quality here as well as distance working. You see? The moment you associate successfully working away from the traditional office and occasionally we may begin to understand why the confusion is there in the first place.
Either way, over time, I’m hoping to be able to explain the differences between each and everyone of these concepts, more than anything else because some of them are false narratives, like hybrid work, or flexible work, we’ve been asked by certain people to believe in order to embrace an obsolete reality: knowledge (Web) work can only happen within the four physical walls of an office. It’s the culture, right?
Not likely! In fact, distance working requires a massive shift in terms of how we view work itself: traditionally, it’s been considered a physical space, i.e. an office, a factory, if you wish, we can pilgrim to Monday to Friday, from 9am to 5pm, in order to conduct some work chores we’re getting paid for versus eventually being more of a mental state. I can work from whenever, wherever, with whomever, through digital tools at my disposal acting as key enablers.
It’s also why I have some concerns when people use Remote Work versus Distributed Work. To me, both of them are very much related to Distance Working, indeed. However, remote work has got that extra connotation of a toxic hub – spoke relationship. As a remote worker, you depend on, and report to, your manager(s), acting as a hub, within a physical office. Not ideal, specially, if you don’t want to play corporate politics and the sempiternal struggle for power.
Indeed, power dynamics can be rather intoxicating and counterproductive in the long run because of that implied toxicity based on that power struggles I just mentioned above, which is why, from the two, I’ve always preferred distributed work. Why? Well, mostly because it is distributed AND decentralised in nature about how work happens. Everyone works from anywhere, literally, everyone, not just regular employees, and the office becomes another tool, just like all others. You usually earn the merit of attention, respect and a collegial spirit of cooperation / collaboration based on how effectively you may use different digital tools at your disposal to communicate and collaborate with your peers to achieve a certain goal, or objective.
We will talk more, I’m pretty sure, about each and everyone of these concepts. For now though, thought I’d put together these few words so when in upcoming blog posts I talk about Distance Working (Whether Remote or Distributed) you know what I’m referring to. After all, it’s a good thing to speak a common language, right?
Let’s do it!
