My theory is pretty simple.

The C-suite anxiety over work-from-home is a symptom of an inability to actually evaluate performance. Which is itself a failing of the business. If the business could evaluate performance, it wouldn’t have the anxiety. And demanding that people physically come into the office doesn’t solve an inability to evaluate performance.

Across the board, blanket demands about physical attendance are usually revealing a business that doesn’t have a handle on the work itself: how it gets done, and how good it is or isn’t.

Evaluating performance isn’t easy. But it’s actually the one thing an organization is supposed to be able to do. If “business” is its own abstract discipline, then that is core to it. The blanket demand to return to work out of a broad fear and distrust is antithetical to it.

Organizations and their leadership can be evaluated on their performance too. But that requires a skeptical and critical eye. Not head-nodding from the board of directors.

Critical thinking remains the key to most things, along with a healthy dose of skepticism, balanced by a willingness to concede upon closer examination.

The open problem, to be fair, is one of mentorship and social dynamics. But honestly, that’s not what the return-to-office demand is about. Look at the conversations. It’s an admission that they don’t know how to evaluate performance. And a backwards idea that physical surveillance is how that should actually work. And most importantly, a lack of the critical thinking and self-awareness that any true business should have about itself.