工作场所之争：回家还是坐班？

    梅耶尔在雅虎的改革广受争议，影响也很难确定。雅虎最近的业绩报告显示，公司的净利润同比出现了显著的增长(虽然营收略有下降)。不过，2013年初，就在雅虎宣布结束远程办公计划后不久，百思买也终止ROWE政策。

    但是，企业顾问、《陌生人的必要性》(The Necessity of Strangers)一书的作者艾伦•格雷格曼表示，单纯讨论是“在家工作”、还是“在办公室工作”，“有点迷失了更重要的东西”。“这两种方法都没有抓到本质，当我们能与更多人联系在一起时我们能够做到最好。”“合作非常重要”，这是主张在办公室工作的主要理由，但如果员工“没有足够的新点子来达成合作，他们还是不得要领。”他说：“我们的公司需要鼓励人们定期站起来，探索周围的世界。”毕竟，公司需要新的点子。“如果我们只是在办公室里混混日子或者是在家工作，同样不可能获得这些新点子。”

    为此，格雷格曼经常带领团队探索博物馆、城市街道、市场和其他地方。我采访他的前一天，他刚去了史密森国立肖像馆(Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery)和美国艺术博物馆(American Art Museum),研究民间艺术家(等等)以及他们如何认识自己和自己的身份。听说他也会带客户去动物园研究动物行为，然后请他们谈谈观察心得，这样的观察可能有助于应对客户。

    “开始时人们都会看着我'你是这个全世界最古怪的人'。”他说,等到结束时，他总是会听到“哇，太棒了，我从没想到过我会用这样的方式思考。而且只要走出办公室就可以实现。”（财富中文网）  

    Mayer's change at Yahoo was widely debated, and it's hard to determine its impact. In its most recent earnings statement, Yahoo reported that earnings are up significantly, year-over-year (though revenue is slightly down). Best Buy (BBY) ended its ROWE policy in early 2013, shortly after Yahoo ended its telecommuting program.

    But the working-from-home vs. working-from-work debate "kind of misses the big issue," says Alan Gregerman, a business consultant and author of the forthcoming book, The Necessity of Strangers. "Both of these approaches kind of miss the notion that we can be most successful when we connect with more people." There's "a lot that's cool about collaboration" -- the thinking behind work-from-work policies -- but if employees "don't have enough fresh ideas to collaborate around, they kind of miss the point," he says. "Our companies need to encourage us to regularly get off our butts and explore the world around us." Organizations need new ideas, after all. "We're not as likely to get those new ideas if we simply hang out at the office or work from home."

    To that end, Gregerman often leads teams on adventures to museums, city streets, markets, and other places. The day before I interviewed him, he'd gone to the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and the American Art Museum to study (among other things) folk artists, and how they felt about themselves and their identities. He's also been known to take clients to zoos to study animal behavior and asks them to come up with observations that might be helpful for dealing with customers.

    "At the beginning of all these things, people look at me like, 'You are the weirdest person on the planet,'" he says. At the end, he often hears "Whoa, that was awesome, I never even imagined I could think in those ways. It's just by getting out of the office."