Co-Author of Remote Works book || MDiv Candidate '26 at Harvard || Ex-IDEO, Google, Automattic, & Oliver Wyman
I often talk about how #remotework pushes us away from an #input to an #output oriented work culture, but that can feel abstract. Given that #twitter and #elonmusk are always in the news, let's look there... 👉 On Thursday (Nov 17) Twitter employees are given an ultimatum, and another 1200 employees quit, opting for a 3-month severance. The office is closed until Monday (Nov 21) 👉 Elon reneges on the office closure and decides at midnight to ask all software engineers to line up on the 10th floor of Twitter's SF HQ at 2 PM on Friday (Nov 18). Everyone outside SF is to fly to the HQ (literally) ASAP. 👉 Elon also asks all engineers to email "a bullet point summary of what your code commands have achieved in the past ~6 months, along with up to 10 screenshots of the most salient lines of code." How does this relate to #input and #output cultures? ⏰ #input cultures focus on the visibility of "inputs," which, in the modern world, means YOU—your time, your presence, and your subservience. Management is based on #proximity rather than #performance. 👉 Requiring employees to drop everything last minute and fly for a meeting based on a series of midnight emails is peak #input culture behavior 🛠 #output cultures focus on getting the work done. Your value is based on salient information related to outputs—like launching code, communicating about a project milestone, or closing a deal. 👉 Asking for a bullet point summary of the work you've completed in the last 6 months with screenshots is peak #output culture behavior. It's a best practice in #remote companies. Why does this matter? When a company focuses more on #inputs, it owns you. You're being paid based on your willingness to be always on call. When a company focuses on #outputs, you're being paid to do the work that ladders up to the company's goals. What type of company do you want to work for?
Well said. All about outputs. Interesting to watch what Elon is doing. Time will tell if it is smart or not.