I’m becoming more and more convinced that teams working remotely is a bad idea.

I know in 2020 this is heresy in the tech industry. In the midst of COVID-19, organizations are really starting to consider the idea for the first time. The idea is that with greater autonomy and trust comes greater productivity. But at what cost?

The assumption and I assert it’s a false one, is that you care for your people best and help them achieve their greatest potential when they have the freedom to take ownership of their time and creativity.

While I believe there’s some truth to that, it’s not the full picture. People achieve their greatest potential…on a team. Managers of remote employees try to simulate team culture. But they’re working from a deficit. Teams are involved in each other’s lives. Teams sweat together. Teams sacrifice for each other. Teams push each other to be better. And no matter how hard you try, you can’t get that sitting miles apart talking once a day through a video screen.

Imagine any great coach announcing that for practice, each player would be provided with the nicest equipment to train and work out at home. They’d be expected to work just as hard and come game time, they’d better be ready.

Ridiculous.

So what makes us think any team could be successful like that. They may be good. But they won’t be great.

I suppose one could argue that it shouldn’t be the goal of an organization to get the most out of their people. As if expecting them to work would be taking something from them. The reality is everyone has the innate desire to work hard on a team and give everything they’ve got for a worthy cause.

The lure of a remote job sounds really great. But I can’t help but think when someone is passionate about what they do and who they do it with, you do everything you can to push the ball forward at the highest level. And that means getting in your car and showing up saying, “What can I do?”

And when everyone on the team is doing that, great things can happen.