It depends on what you do. Some activities like teaching are open by nature. Interruptions are ok and even desirable. Design, politics, sales, could have a gre

It depends on what you do. Some activities like teaching are open by nature. Interruptions are ok and even desirable. Design, politics, sales, could have a great amount of work done in the open. Now, in activities like programming, writing, science, you are suiciding yourself in the open, constant interruptions and the theater. I have done programming in the open but choosing my partners, one, two or three people that I admired, but it was almost an intimate relationship, far from what people consider OO. In Soviet Union it was more important what other perceived you were doing that really what you accomplished, so everybody created the farce of working a lot, but the productivity levels were terrible compared with the West. Their work was simulating they were working, and like good actors, some even believed their role. In big buroucracies managers find very hard to identify what other people really contribute to the work so they start using external cues, like how much(time) this person works, how busy he looks, the sense of security and so on. "what's the alternative? Everyone get a 4-walled office?" I work from home. So do the people that work for my company. I created my company programming, so I could identify the value of the people that work with me. I could trust them, they could manage them selves, and also they are more productive when they don't have anyone breathing over their shoulders. Of course, it is no lala land. It takes experience, knowledge and work to be able to implement something like this.