Several months back, Scott Berkun's publisher sent me an advanced copy of "The Year Without Pants" to read; it is a pretty silly title and as you can see, the cover is pretty wild too (I love it). Scott's last book, Confessions of a Public Speaker, was just splendid, so I thought I would take a look. I was hooked immediately, as Scott offers a compelling story of the year he spent at Wordpress.com, a fast growing and wildly unconventional company where employees work from wherever they wish, there are few meetings and rules, and many of the conventional trappings are removed. At the same time, because Scott is such a compelling writer and so honest about things, he doesn't whitewash things, he describes the ups and downs and the tensions.
And if you read this book, you will also learn that some of the beliefs that people have about the future of work likely won't come true. Yes, people had enormous freedom and were massively creative -- but at the same time -- they couldn't escape the constraints of being in an organization.They still needed some hierarchy (Scott was a team leader and he had some bosses too), there were agreements about standard ways to do -- and not do -- things, and everyone wasn't always delighted with how things unfolded. His team was unusually functional and creative, the descriptions are wonderful, and the book also is filled with great pictures and other graphics that show the real people and the places they worked, and the kind of work they produced.
I read, or more accurately, start to read, several business books each week. Most aren't very good, to tell you the truth. This is the best book I have read since Adam Grant's Give and Take. If you read this book and Tracy Kidder's classic Soul of a New Machine, you can learn a lot about how work is changing (at least in some places), but also, about how it is still the same too. The technology certainly changes how and where we work, but we are still humans, we are social creatures, we strive for meaning and creativity, and we are all limited (and propelled) by our personal quirks and the attribuites of our species.
P.S. The Year Without Pants comes out in a few weeks, but I suggest that you preorder it, both because you will want it and because preorders will help this book get the attention it deserves. I am going to preorder my copy right now.
First time I got to know the concept of team management at Wordpress was when I was having a discussion about google analytics with our developer at the café across from our office.
The guy sitting there couldn't (luckily) overhear our conversation. "I can help you, if you'd like. I am a Wordpress developer," he said.
Ok, this seriously felt like destiny. He told us about his flexi-time and how he's trying to make it happen as a performance artist in Berlin.
I think people nowadays are able to craft their careers and also get hired to do things they really enjoy doing. They just need to be open about how they work and what they like. Also, from the team perspective, if you're open as a company about how you do things, you might find people to fit exactly your culture.
I love that I am part of a team that is trying to make exactly that happen. Help people find the others by helping them show what they're all about.
Posted by: Kathmography | December 02, 2013 at 08:07 AM
I just bought the book myself and can't wait to read it. My agency is also virtual, and if there's one thing I've learned over the past nearly-four years of its existence, organization and hierarchy are still very important if you want to deliver results to your clients on time, every time. So yes, while the magical promise of the future of work has been fulfilled in many companies, the reality is that it does look a lot like the *traditional* models of work!
Cheers,
Marjorie R. Asturias
Posted by: Marj_asturias | September 30, 2013 at 02:37 PM