Against the Slacklash

Such hate. Such dismay. “How Slack is ruining work.” “Actually, Slack really sucks.” “Slack may actually be hurting your workplace productivity.” “Slack is awful.” Slack “destroys teams’ ability to think, plan & get complex work out the door.” “Slack is a terrible collaboration tool.” “Face it, Slack is ruining your life.”

Contrarian view: Slack is not inherently bad. Rather, the particular way in which you are misusing it epitomizes your company’s deeper problems. I’m the CTO of a company which uses Slack extensively, successfully, and happily — but because we’re a consultancy, I have also been the sometime member of dozens of others’ Slack workspaces, where I have witnessed all the various flavors of flaws recounted above. In my experience, those are not actually caused by Slack.

Please note that I am not saying “Slack is just a tool, you have to use it correctly.” Even if that were so, a tool which lends itself so easily to being used so badly would be a bad tool. What I’m saying is something more subtle, and far more damning: that Slack is a mirror which reflects the pathologies inherent in your workplace. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our Slacks, but in ourselves.