> One thing that's really helped us is that, by consensus...
This is why the things that work for you don't work for others: Communication requires that all (or at least a significant majority) of parties agree to a protocol. It's not enough for a lone employee to start putting up Do Not Disturb when the culture insists on real-time responses.
I read somewhere that the crazy hours on Wall Street (purportedly 7 AM - 11 PM for new employees) are not because it takes 80 hours a week to get work done, but that there's a kind of social proof that one must demonstrate in order to be part of the "club". (Nobody's saying that you can't work 9 AM - 5 PM, they're just saying that everyone who was ever successful with the company put in the long hours, and you want to be successful, don't you?)
Similarly, it seems that Slack and other real-time communication removes some of the defenses that employees once had against these implicit demands. Note I'm not just talking about demands made by management of employees, I'm also talking about demands that employees put on themselves. (All it takes is one or two employees answering messages in the middle of the night to change people's expectations of when they'll get a response.)
As we enter an era of knowledge work, we're going to have to get better at recognizing and avoiding the social dynamics that can cause distraction and wasted time.
This is why the things that work for you don't work for others: Communication requires that all (or at least a significant majority) of parties agree to a protocol. It's not enough for a lone employee to start putting up Do Not Disturb when the culture insists on real-time responses.
I read somewhere that the crazy hours on Wall Street (purportedly 7 AM - 11 PM for new employees) are not because it takes 80 hours a week to get work done, but that there's a kind of social proof that one must demonstrate in order to be part of the "club". (Nobody's saying that you can't work 9 AM - 5 PM, they're just saying that everyone who was ever successful with the company put in the long hours, and you want to be successful, don't you?)
Similarly, it seems that Slack and other real-time communication removes some of the defenses that employees once had against these implicit demands. Note I'm not just talking about demands made by management of employees, I'm also talking about demands that employees put on themselves. (All it takes is one or two employees answering messages in the middle of the night to change people's expectations of when they'll get a response.)
As we enter an era of knowledge work, we're going to have to get better at recognizing and avoiding the social dynamics that can cause distraction and wasted time.