Organization · strategy stress test

Return to office, hybrid, or distributed

Leadership wants people back. Your senior individual contributors are the ones with offers elsewhere. What do you mandate?

A full mandate is simple to announce and hard to hold. A hybrid redesign takes work to design. Staying distributed is where you already are. The people who decide whether any of it works are the ones who could leave.

You (leadership) versus Senior individual contributors. Payoffs are modeled, not measured.

Your opening moves

• Full return-to-office mandate. Five days, everyone, with a start date.
• Hybrid redesign. Anchor days per team, written team charters, and a review in six months.
• Stay distributed. Keep the current arrangement and invest in how it runs.

The assumption you control

Share of senior contributors holding a live outside offer. The rehearsal shows the value at which the best opening move changes. Twist: A competitor announces fully remote hiring.

Concepts at work: War of Attrition, Bargaining Game. See the glossary and all rehearsals.