From personal experience, I disagree. Some of the people I enjoyed most and worked best with were offsite. One I met in person after many months. Another I n

From personal experience, I disagree. Some of the people I enjoyed most and worked best with were offsite. One I met in person after many months. Another I never met in person. Nonetheless, we could joke and get along quite well on the phone. These were people who got stuff done. And they figured out that I did as well. We could trust each other. On the other hand, there were people on-site you couldn't trust unless you practically stood there staring over their shoulder. Different settings may work better for different people. But when you start telling them what does and doesn't work and mandating your solution -- then you have a problem. P.S. Hmm. Now that I think about it, in a prior job, some of the people I worked best with were at plants in different states. I never met many of them, either. Being at plants that, you know, actually made stuff, they understood very well getting stuff done. When they said they'd do something, usually they did. If they couldn't, they let you know and why. I appreciated this, and I didn't use my headquarters role as an excuse or reason to blow them off. We got along well. I've found "having a beer" to have little correlation with working well with people. I remember now the one fellow who wanted to "have coffee" -- just long enough to make sure he could do next year's calculations after I'd left. P.P.S. I did not downvote you. I think this is a difference of opinion worth expression or even debate. Over the course of my career, one of the most frustrating things has been to work with people who not only hold such a differing opinion but who give zero consideration to and have no willingness to discuss differing opinions. For example, I'm perfectly happy to let others work in open space, if that's what works for them both subjectively and objectively. I couldn't care less. I just don't want it prescribed -- mandated -- for me.