You’re reading an excerpt of The Holloway Guide to Remote Work, a book by Katie Wilde, Juan Pablo Buriticá, and over 50 other contributors. It is the most comprehensive resource on building, managing, and adapting to working with distributed teams. Purchase the book to support the author and the ad-free Holloway reading experience. You get instant digital access, 800 links and references, a library of tools for remote-friendly work, commentary and future updates, and a high-quality PDF download.

In most organizations, trust goes in many directions. The organization trusts the individual to perform their duties, and the individual trusts the organization will provide the means to do their work, and will also fulfill their end of their agreement, such as paying for that work. There is also a network of trust among employees. Organizations that rely on knowledge work are built on the expectation that individuals will fulfill their duties to each other, so that collaborative work can happen. We trust that everyone will play their part, on time, so we can all perform well.

Anita Umesh
"Organizations that rely on knowledge work...so we can all perform well."

>> This largely applies to any organization, not only knowledge work (perhaps with the exception of the part that says "so that collaborative work can happen"). By this I mean that even in a manufacturing plant, there must be a certain level of trust that each part of the pipeline is fulfilling their duties (and this goes beyond the front-line parts of the assembly line -- it extends to each divisions' managerial chains). However, in the case of a manufacturing plant, perhaps not as much creative collaborative work is expected.

Perhaps reword "so that collaborative work can happen" to "creative collaborative work" or "innovative collaborative work"?
Your comments and feedback help improve this resource. Comments are reviewed by editors and may be published for all readers or incorporated into future updates.
Share this discussion