And this has been my pushback against RTO, ironically enough. Team camaraderie is important, yes, but so is independence and comfort. I found that a single week or two a year, with my global team sharing a conference room, three square meals a day, and even non-work activities like volunteering or offroading, built a stronger working relationship than simply cohabiting a space together five days a week or working entirely remotely.

We knocked out big room planning and upwards of eighteen months of work scheduling in that brief week. We executed successfully on everything we planned for that entire year.

Teams absolutely need to meet in-person at regular intervals to remain effective, but they don’t need to be full-RTO. By making such meetups focused and organized, they become important events we want to sink our time and energy into. We relish the next opportunity to meet one another and build better stuff as a result.