Office makes decisions faster … Really?

Just two days ago I wrote about the Dell CEO who did an RTO to improve speed (among other things) because decisions in the office could be made so much faster…

That might be the case – in some edge cases. Just this week I had to think about this false narrative of fast decisions in the office because we had a very similar experience:

Continue reading Office makes decisions faster … Really?

Dell CEO has forgotten how telephones work

I just read on heise online about Dell Orders All Staff Back to the Office 5 Days a Week: Read the Memo – Business Insider.

“Oh I’m curious about the reasons” I thought. And the article is really fun to read. This has the potential to be a story:

“What we’re finding is that for all the technology in the world, nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction,” [CEO] Michael Dell told staff. “A thirty-second conversation can replace an email back-and-forth that goes on for hours or even days.”

Uhm, okay. You’ve got too much email back and forth. I can SO understand that. But … has he ever heard of this … telephone thing? You can talk to remote people in real time. It’s like true magic!

And I just imagine being in the office needing some clarification for something: So I first look up where the person’s office is, I walk there, likely I won’t find that person because – well – (s)he is also clarifying things, or I just interrupt the person, have a chat and walk back. 30 seconds with an overhead of 5-10minutes.

Oh and .. let’s not even discuss WHY there are so many eMails. Can’t be lack of / unclear responsibilities, fear of taking decisions, bad processes, bad adoption of technology – nooo, never. O-M-G.