The controversy over return to office mandates and hybrid working is driven by a larger, less recognized underlying mega trend: the changing nature of knowledge work.

It began in the 1980s with the introduction of mass market micro “personal” computers that became what Apple Computers founder Steve Jobs called “bicycles for our mind.” Bicycles are personal vehicles. However, for knowledge work, there is no need to travel to a destination as one would with a bicycle or other vehicle. The personal computer expresses the knowledge generated by its user and is capable of transmitting it instantly most anywhere thanks to an equally revolutionary innovation that came the following decade: the commercial mass market internet. And a decade later, the smartphone.

These information and communications technology developments have removed the need for dedicated office space. Steve Jobs’s brain bicycle replaced the automobile and bus to physically move knowledge workers’ bodies along with their thoughts. The “high speed” Internet as it’s commonly called is replacing what were designed as high speed highways that became less so as they exceeded their 20^th century carrying capacity.

Many knowledge organizations are struggling with this powerful force of change that rapidly accelerated with the social distancing disease control measures of the COVID 19 pandemic. The source of their struggle is largely misconceptual. Knowledge work has fundamentally changed. The location where it is done is no longer as relevant. But the issue has instead been framed as if location is the paramount “workplace” issue.

It’s far bigger than that. The challenge knowledge organizations face is adapting to the larger shift in how knowledge work is done and the best way to structure and manage it going forward. They must judiciously determine when co-located activities are needed and when they are not given that being co-located comes with substantial costs to both knowledge organizations and their staff members.