By now you’ve probably already binged Tiger King on Netflix. If you haven’t watched this epic mind bender about the owner of a tiger zoo in rural Oklahoma, I won’t spoil the ending for you because it’s something you have to experience to believe.
What stuck out to me most about the series was actually the last line in the entire documentary. Joe is reflecting on everything that has happened, the choices he’s made, the outcomes of those choices, and what it all meant. With a broken voice he says, “I was just wrapped up in having a zoo.” The screen goes to black and the credits roll.
Rewind two weeks to when everyone in the United States who was able to do so frantically packed up their offices and went to work from home. What has happened with the emergence of remote work during the coronavirus pandemic is a radical reimagining of what it means to live and work in America, and one that will define a generation. What does it mean when an entire workforce that has worked, managed, and been managed in a physical space suddenly retreats home and continues working?
An office can function very much like a zoo - obviously one without all the drama of Tiger King (hopefully). There are roles we all play, boundaries visible and invisible enforced, ways of being we assume are the best way to operate, and assumptions about what’s best that take root over time and grow into the structure of our bureaucracies. In any (and possibly every) office regardless of the industry, there are many unspoken rules that can manifest as a compliance-based, top-down culture, when what is needed now more than ever in today’s world is a culture of empowerment, autonomy, and commitment to quality outcomes.
We now have the ability to have an arms-length view of our respective office dynamics. Working remotely, we can hold up the culture of the office like a prism and reflect on the refractions of light in an honest way. From a safe distance to honestly assess, we can weigh what works, what doesn’t, and what our cultures teach us about how to treat each other based on our titles and roles. We can ask ourselves what really matters most - about the work we do, about the power dynamics baked into every culture, about how we work, how we interact, how we structure our days.
I was just wrapped up in having a zoo.
After the credits rolled, that statement stuck in my mind for a few days. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what is possible if we question our assumptions about the way things have to be. New problems require new solutions. What ways have we lost out on human potential by being more focused on compliance with the way things are rather than imagining the ways things can be if we stopped being so wrapped up in the zoo?
Wherever possible and fortunate enough, Americans are now working from home and getting the job done. This time has shown us that a company is so much more than the physical space we occupy - it’s a shared consciousness. It is made up of you and me building something amazing together.
Hopefully someday relatively soon, this pandemic will be over and America will be fully back open for business. What if we trusted each other, relied on each other, and empowered each other all the time as much as we are right now in this unprecedented moment?