Sir Martin Sorrell vs. Remote Work

Today's incredible statement about remote work is by tech millionnaire Sir Martin Sorrell - who is one of the world's top marketing executives:

One thing could prevent our decline and fall: getting back into the office 🤦 Sir Martin Sorrell in The Times

We communicated a couple of times years ago, and he seems like a good guy. But unfortunately, anyone who is making predictions about which countries will come out on top in 2050 (!!) clearly doesn't understand what this transition is about.

My Commentary

No one can really say with any certainty how the dominant countries will rank even a year from now. I also wouldn't rush to make predictions about the rise of the digital ad spend, but of course he wants to keep momentum going.

The one thing that could prevent our decline and fall is understanding our true nature, the real key to understanding why our entire society is set up in an egoistic way. This is the only reason why we have inequality and all the other social issues - it's the human ego that keeps us focused on our own benefit.

The Times Entrepreneurs Network shared this excerpt from his article: "Future historians may judge that hybrid or flexible working, which emerged during the pandemic and has since become widely established as the norm for people who previously worked in an office, is emblematic of our own decline," he writes, comparing the post-pandemic decline in productivity in the West with the reasons for the fall of Roman Empire.

Future historians will not judge us about hybrid or remote working. The only thing they will be astounded by is our unwillingness to change, despite everything changing so rapidly around us. Despite being the most sophisticated group of people to ever inhabit this planet, historians will wonder why we tried to keep going back to how things were before the pandemic - as if the whole Covid crisis was a random fluke. Well, it wasn't. The pandemic came to teach us something about ourselves and we got the message loud and clear while in lockdown - we were all on our best behavior for a while there.

But the minute things appeared to be going back to normal, bosses took back having the upper hand so they could force employees to do certain things like coming back to the office. So no Sir Sorrell, remote work is not "emblematic of our own decline". The "post-pandemic decline in productivity" is because Covid showed us that we could live a different way, where we have far more balance between work and family.

Some celebrity millionaires like Kevin O'Leary made the right decision to go with the flow instead of aggravating good employees (like his female CFO) by forcing them back to the office. In his interview with CNN 's Erin Burnett, he said he doesn't care where or when they do their work as long as it gets done. And productivity is up.

So maybe all this hybrid business is more suitable for the kind of people we've become over the last few years. We've changed and the world has changed. It's really time to accept this as a fact and not mainly look at things based on our own agenda.

I can understand why leaders with a few good decades under their belt would want things to go back to how they were back in the day - women strutting around in mini skirts and high heels (I was one of them .....), secretaries or "personal assistants" bringing coffee. An office is a place where you can show off your new clothes and latest hair style etc. But after being inside each other's homes during the pandemic - all that's changed. We've all become far more authentic when it comes to how we present ourselves.

He is right that the virtual economy will grow, but not the economy he's focused on. I'm talking about the social economy where people will be judged by what they do for the collective.

What's really going on? We're being taught to have deeper and more intense feelings and emotions for other humans. People who are all for virtual communication know that sometimes it's precisely in this new kind of connection where we can actually express deeper emotion, even more than with physical contact. Because in a virtual connection people feel safer and free to express themselves. There are also far less distractions, which allows us to be totally immersed in deepening our connection.

The bottom line is that we've changed and it's not a random thing. There is a great purpose behind all these shifts and the more we go along with it, the better off we'll be.

Smart advertising executives are picking up the new vibe and adjusting themselves to it.