All CEOs Agree: Where Work Happens Matters [Free Assessment]

Work Where The Work Is

In this scenario, both CEOs obsess about where work happens but use the word differently.

The remote-first CEO prioritizes consistency about when and how employees should “visit” digital environments for work. Coordinating IRL time is also important, but happens less frequently.

On the other hand, the bank CEO spends so much time thinking about physical environments that they neglect clarifying what digital tools should be used and when.

A practice I call “doing the work where the work is.”

Why Digital Location Matters, Even For In-Office Companies

The intentional design of digital work is critical for improving knowledge worker productivity and autonomy, regardless of your stance on office presence. In “​A World Without Email​” (and ​HBR​), Cal Newport says:

“There is a great advantage for those organizations willing to end the reign of the unstructured workflow and replace it with something designed from scratch with the specific goal of maximizing value production and employee satisfaction.”

Failing to focus on the digital “where” would be a misstep for office-favoring CEOs for four reasons:

(1) There’s no such thing as fully in-office. The odds that every employee will be precisely where you think they will be at all times are ​essentially zero​. Travel disruptions happen. Kids get sick. Remote work exceptions remain.

(2) Even with in-office cultures, work increasingly occurs in digital spaces. We meet virtually, use digital whiteboards, and send too many emails.

(3) Intentional ways of working improve organizational health, which I ​proved​ while at McKinsey.

(4) The most powerful AI applications rely on knowing where to find information and understanding established processes, making digital clarity even more critical.

So let’s explore what "doing the work where the work is" looks like in practice.

Building A Consistent Digital Work Environment

I’m a fan of Rishad Tobaccowala’s ​newsletter​, “The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past.” Riffing on that title, I believe the future of work must also happen in more consistent containers.

Here are five examples.

1. Request Line: Communication Norms

The foundation of any effective digital workplace is clarity about which mediums are used for what messaging. Without this, employees waste precious cognitive resources figuring out how to communicate. For example:

• Email for formal communications with external parties
• ​Asynchronous videos​ for demonstrations or walkthroughs
• No-warning phone calls for truly urgent matters

Communication channels can also relate to physical places.

When I was at WeWork, individual buildings had predictably named Slack channels so any employee who wanted to chat with the local community team could just “visit” that channel, ask their question, and leave.

The key isn't which specific tools you choose—it's having explicit agreements about their purpose, making those agreements visible to everyone, and making sure your most senior leaders visibly follow the rules.

2. Edit Inline: Collaborative Documents

Remember when document reviews meant emailing versions back and forth, manually tracking changes, and sorting through confusion over the "final" version?

Cloud-based editing has streamlined this process by providing a single digital space for collaboration. Multiple people can work together, see edits in real-time, and comment directly within the document.

Despite this, some clients still choose to download and email me documents instead of tagging me in the online version. Does that happen to you too?

3. Staying Aligned: Project Templates

As digital collaboration matures, teams need structured environments that can organize multiple types of information while remaining flexible enough to adapt to evolving needs.

Platforms like Notion, Asana, and AirTable, and Coda provide customizable, templatized workspaces where teams can:

• Create dashboards showing status at a glance
• Maintain documentation and track meeting notes
• Document processes with step-by-step instructions

Tools like Zapier or Make can further automate information transfer. For instance, client feedback from various channels can trigger new records in a central Notion database, enabling the support team to work solely within Notion without checking email or Slack.

4. Hard Line: Enterprise Infrastructure

Platforms like Microsoft SharePoint can do the same thing for larger organizations with complex security requirements.

At McKinsey, each new project has a consistent SharePoint site structure. This saves time and cognitive load for consultants who switch projects frequently, and helps organize materials even when consulting teams are sitting in clients' offices. My former colleagues there have even been awarded ​a patent​ for a novel way to share files securely with clients from these project sites.

5. Blurred Lines: Digital and Physical

At the frontier of digital work environments are those that provide a feeling of physicality, like being somewhere in real life.

The product I find most interesting is ​Roam​, which uses a map-like approach to digital rooms and floors for individuals and projects. Documents and integrations with other applications can also persist in a given room, including AI agents programmed to “drop by” at specific times.

I asked MD ​Lexi Bohonnon​ why Roam’s physical representation of work was resonating with users, and she gave a surprisingly anthropological response:

“There is a psychological connection created by object permanence. It takes less cognitive effort when we don’t have to think about where something is.”

These tools acknowledge our human desire for spatial context—e.g., I can see the CFO is on the Finance floor—while embracing the reality of distributed work.

Moving Beyond the False Dichotomy

The elevator story illustrates the unnecessary division in how we talk about work. The bank CEO believes physical presence is paramount, while the software CEO prioritizes effective digital systems.

The truth is that both perspectives have merit, but neither is complete.

Organizations aiming for success in the future of work should build strong digital environments first and then add in-person benefits where they matter most.

Physical presence should enhance digital workflows, not replace them.

Take Action: Find Your Work's True Home [Free Assessment Below]

Here's how to start applying the "do the work where the work is" principle in your organization:

1. Audit your existing work: Where does work naturally live digitally? Where are colleagues forced to switch contexts, manually move information, or search for what they need?  
2. Start small: Choose one workflow that would benefit from a clearer digital home and experiment with establishing norms and templates around it.
3. Communicate the why: Help your team understand that ​the goal​ isn't control—it's reducing cognitive load and making collaboration more intuitive.

BONUS: To help audit your team's digital workplace and behaviors, here is a free, ​Ten Question Digital Workplace Assessment​. Let me know the results if you try it!

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Remote-first leaders have created effective digital workplaces out of necessity. Traditional office-based companies should learn from these practices and add the benefits of culture, belonging, and collaboration that physical spaces provide.

After all, the path to the future starts with doing great work, no matter where you are.

What digital environments have you found most effective? Where do you still struggle with clarity and consistent behaviors?

- Phil

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