Picture a world without the internet. And no voicemail. And no email.
Business hours were 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., excluding the commute, which could easily stretch to an
hour each way, and everyone was expected to be in the office five days a week.
Companies functioned through receptionists who took messages on pink message slips. If you were in sales or on the road, you called in a few times a day to retrieve them. Gentlemen wore suits and ties. Women wore professional attire. That was the norm.
This was the late 1980s into the early 1990s.
Then, around 1992, Dockers launched a campaign encouraging professionals to dress “down” on Fridays. Levi Strauss & Co. followed by mailing a brochure titled A Guide to Casual Businesswear to 25,000 HR managers across corporate America.
And the debate was on. Some leaders argued it was unprofessional and would start a slippery slope. Others believed it would create a more relaxed, collegial workplace.
At the time, it felt like a big cultural moment. But here’s the thing:
It was never really about the pants.
What We Really Had Was Proximity
What we had back then wasn’t better fashion. We had forced proximity. You learned by sitting near people who knew more than you. You overheard tough customer calls. You watched how leaders handled conflict.
You walked down the hall and asked, “Do you have a minute?” Problems were solved at the copier, and ideas were refined in the hallway.
Junior talent absorbed norms without formal training programs; collaboration wasn’t scheduled, it was ambient.
And from a business acumen perspective, that matters.
Because proximity reduces coordination cost.
It accelerates trust formation. It speeds up informal learning. It makes teamwork the default, not the exception. The office wasn’t just a place. It was a performance system.
Fast Forward to Today
Today, collaboration is intentional instead of inevitable.
Meetings are scheduled. Learning is structured. Mentoring must be assigned. Cross-functional exposure must be engineered.
And when teams gather in person, it often feels like an event rather than the operating system.
And please believe me, this is not a rant about hybrid work. Flexibility has advantages. Technology has unlocked enormous efficiency. Many tasks can absolutely be performed anywhere.
But business acumen requires evaluating tradeoffs, not just benefits.
When proximity disappears:
- Coordination costs increase.
- Trust takes longer to build.
- Junior talent develops more slowly unless leaders are highly intentional.
- Informal problem-solving declines.
Teamwork becomes something you work on instead of something that naturally happens. That’s a meaningful shift.
Casual Fridays as a Signal
Casual Fridays didn’t cause hybrid work. But they symbolized something subtle: a move from collective norms to individual preference.
From “this is how we do things here” to “what works best for me?”
Preference is not wrong.
But high-performing organizations are not built primarily on preference. They are built on shared standards, shared expectations, shared experiences, and often shared presence.
Culture rarely collapses overnight. It drifts. And drift in business is expensive. Not because people don’t care. not because anyone is lazy, but because systems matter.
Proximity was a system. If we remove it, we must replace it with something equally intentional.
I speak with business leaders around the world, listen to their issues, and strategize with them about solutions as part of developing business acumen skills. Based on research and insights, here are five things to think about when struggling with the new norm of the work environment:
Five Business Acumen Takeaways
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Evaluate Second-Order Effects - Every cultural shift has hidden operational consequences. Leaders must assess not just the morale impact, but also the coordination, development, and performance implications.
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Proximity Reduces Friction Costs - Informal interactions lower the cost of problem-solving, accelerate trust, and improve decision speed. Removing proximity increases system friction.
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Learning Is a System, Not an Event - In-office environments enabled passive skill absorption. Hybrid systems require engineered mentoring, shadowing, and structured exposure.
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Norms Drive Performance - Shared standards create predictability and cohesion. As norms relax, leaders must clarify what performance expectations remain non-negotiable.
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Teamwork Must Be Designed - When collaboration is no longer ambient, it must be intentionally architected. If you don’t design for teamwork, you drift toward isolation.
Summary
This isn’t about bringing back suits and ties. It’s about recognizing that teamwork isn’t nostalgia. It’s infrastructure. And infrastructure, especially the invisible kind, is Serious Business.
