Bob Iger
Appearances
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
There is some data about some of the aspects of work. We create more creativity. So there is a study done by a colleague of mine at Columbia. And she did, with colleagues from Stanford, did an experiment where people brainstorm over Zoom, and they brainstorm in person. And they come up with more ideas in person.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
Turns out then they have to then they have a list of projects and then they have to decide which are like the best ideas that they can actually do online as well. So I do think there is truth to that. Something in person works better. But again, is it 40 hours or whatever the workout week looks like that we do that? I don't think so.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
Because you can probably then also do studies or you be more focused when you can do it at home or in a big open floor office. And you probably find you can probably be more focused when you're at home and you pick the time when you're most productive.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
in doing so so there are certain tasks we do better at home and there is a certain task we do better in the office and now we just have to figure out what is the right mix and manage that well i don't think that we need to for all the tasks that we do we need to be in person even at disney not all the tasks are like together coming up with great stories 40 hours a week
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
We should not think about jobs. We should think about tasks. What am I doing in a given day, on a day in a given week? And there are certain tasks that work better alone. Deep focused work. You don't get distracted. You just prepare. And you can do that whenever you're the most productive. That for some people, that's six o'clock in the morning. And for some people, that's 11 o'clock.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
p.m at night and some do that better in a coffee shop and some do that better in their pajamas and that's what flexibility allows there are other tasks that are better maybe together like having a brainstorming activity solving a really complicated or talking about a really sensitive issue that is probably better in person
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
Now, do we do those in-person things or that's what we're better in person, 40 hours or 50 hours a week? No. Do we do the focus work 40, 50 hours a week? No. So now we have to rethink about how can we organize a day that take advantage of we're together or we give people flexibility. And that requires a little bit of coordination because I don't want to go to the office and be on a Zoom call.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
That's my nightmare. Going to the office to be on a Zoom call is my personal nightmare. Or you go in there and it's half empty. There is nothing there. less motivating because it's like you're in a ginormous office and nobody's there. That sucks. So you want to make sure if you're there, you actually do something that is with other people together. Remote days cannot look like in-person days.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
If they look the same, Yeah, you're on Zoom calls in the office and you're in meetings which should be in person at home. And that just doesn't work. You have to actually exploit the advantages of remote and the advantages of being in the office and stack it.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
I actually think that most organizations will end up in hybrid. And when you look at the data, that's actually what turns out a lot of organizations doing. They don't do extremes, one or the other. And I know remote-first companies who are doing just fine.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
And I guess we're going to see companies that are all in the office and they're doing... Maybe your friend's law firms are going to be doing fine when they do so. But most organizations...
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
I think we'll end up in a hybrid world where you actually get the benefit of those personal interactions, but also the benefit of giving people flexibility and that deep focus time that they will have when they're at home.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
Yeah, I think that's the trade-off. When you do hybrid, people have to work, live closer. Now, if you only come into New York City three days a week, you can maybe take a little longer commute on those three days than if you have to come five, but you can't live in Sydney.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
Sydney might be hard because it's a different time zone, but you can't live in, you know, it's hard to live in upstate, even upstate New York. where we would have the same time zone. So we can do a lot of synchronous work, but not together in the office. Yeah, I think that's the trade-off. And if it's for the organization, really difficult to find talent in a location.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
I think you might go for a very distributed workforce. You bring people together for like those retreats on steroids that there is group building and there is a lot of the trust building happens then in person. You can do that. People can fly in wherever for a week or two And then they go back to their work. But it depends a lot, like how hard is it to attract talent? What talent do you need?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
And then you trade off the upside of that. You can access that much larger talent pool.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
People got a taste of that it's actually possible. And really nice to have also that flexibility. So now pushing back from that new default is going to be really hard. Before the pandemic, nobody actually thought about that hard. Oh, could we do a hybrid? There were like some really forward-looking organizations that were doing that. Most organizations were like... We come five days away.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
In the summer, maybe you have a Friday afternoon off. But very few were actually really being visionary about that. But now we tasted it. And now we say, it's actually possible.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
I don't think it actually the numbers change that much, but somehow the rhetoric. Is this, as I sometimes call like this war for return to the office, which on one hand leaders who are like some, for whatever reason, want like people back and a lot of employees who don't want to go back at definitely not five days a week. Are the executives winning on that front?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
I personally don't think they will. In the end, because hybrid is, in my view, the future, and if done right, it will be successful.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
If you've been on a good sports team that has like the energy, that can really move mountains and you can achieve like really amazing stuff. So there is some good reasons to be back in the office, at least some days. Sometimes the team has to be back and we have to have face-to-face interaction and certain tasks are going to be better done if we're actually sitting together in a room.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"
But there are terrible reasons to bring people back. Leaders might have the illusion that they can control their employees better when they're in the office because they somehow think if their buttons are in the chair in the office, then they're working harder than at home.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
And they were helping to build their platform on the back of our movies and having the direct relationship with the consumer and building this global subscription business, which they did a brilliant job of, really. They deserve a lot of credit.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
I woke up one day and thought, we're basically selling nuclear weapons technology to a third world country, and now they're using it against us. Yeah. That's literally what I said.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
We will launch a Disney-branded streaming service in 2019. which will be unlike anything else in the market. With this strategic shift, we'll end our distribution agreement with Netflix.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
I will say that when we did the Fox deal, it was all through the lens of needing scale to achieve success in the direct-to-consumer digital platform space.