It’s time to talk about time
Supervisors could supervise by direct, real time interaction. You could have meetings with everyone going into the same room. Spontaneous brainstorming, collaboration, and team-building could take place in the hallway at anyone’s desk or in front of the water cooler.
Before networked PCs, working together meant being together at the same time.
The upside of same place, same time office work was the ability to have ad hoc, intuitive, and effortless engagement with coworkers. The downside was the constant interruptions.
In a hierarchical organizational structure, meetings—especially status update meetings—were a huge time-saver for the Big Boss and a time-waster for everyone else.