What would you ‘go in’ to an office for

Beware the big effort for a dull return. 

It’s happening. 

There’s the call that ‘everyone needs to be in the office for this’, or ‘we need all hands’ or ‘it’s worthy of face-to-face’.

And everyone makes the effort but it ends up having a dull, disengaging, “could have been a zoom or teams meeting, could have been an email, could have been a link, could have been a PDF” feeling about it. 

We will need to be more discerning about the ‘moments that matter’. 

When do we truly need to be face to face and why? What will we make, do or happen that will reap the benefit of the effort? 

Beware promising great things with everyone on-site, but reverting to bad meeting cultures, boring presentations and events that could have remained virtual. 

This Fast Company article by Ashley Goldsmith has 5 tips to plan a return to an office. 

One of those tips is ‘Establish moments that matter.’  

Work out when it’s valuable, impactful and necessary for people to be face to face - and then reward them with brilliant experiences when they do. 

Or they’ll be even less likely to take the next call for ‘all in’ seriously. 

What would you ‘go in’ to an office for? 

You couldn’t work from there ... could you?

How many work places and work spaces might you have? 

One? Two? Three?

‘Third place’ is a term from Ray Oldenburg, sociologist and author of ‘The Great Good Place’. 

The third place came about as suburbs grew : ‘if our homes were the “first” place, and our offices the “second” place, then the “third” place was most everything in between - or the more informal places where community gatherings would occur.’

As remote and hybrid work keeps evolving at speed, this third space has the potential to become more mainstream for many of us. 

What makes a good third space? 

Think about the places that ‘encourage repetitive visits and longer stays’. 

Cafes. 
Parks. 
Bank foyers. 
Building lobbies. 
Clubs. 
Co-working spaces. 
Your car. 
A friend’s place. 

Where else would you hang out to work? 

▶️ Read more in this article by Kaley Overstreet on the third place. 

Team Building is Booming

Ropes courses, race around the world games and traditional team building stuff has all but disappeared without the face to face work of the past year. 

But if all of your online gatherings are all work and no play, it’s not bringing the relaxation, connection and laughter potential that a more human, fun experience can bring. 

Many leaders are tapping the creativity that’s come from the online team building boom. 

Whether you run trivia or other games, send a pack of goodies for a themed gathering, make cocktails, learn a fun skill or have a comedy event, there are ideas aplenty. 

Yet these experiences don’t just happen. 

🎯 Here are 5 quick tips: 

1. Schedule it: get the date in the diary so you build towards it. 
2. Shortlist ideas: identify what’s a cultural fit. 
3. Test it out: sample the proposed experiences. 
4. Try it with a team: have a few more people experience it and get their views. 
5. Roll it out wider: press ‘go’. 

You don’t need corny games ... but even those can be fun and break the zoom fatigue of always being online for work.

💡How could you better build team
in virtual times?

▶️ Read more in this Fortune article about booming businesses in team building

Connecting with no watercooler

Many people grieve the spontaneous and serendipitous connections at the watercooler. 

Lots of moments have been lost with remote work: 
interactions in the kitchen, collecting documents from the printer, walking to and from (and in) the bathroom, riding the elevator, walking to the station or car park, strolling to the cafe, walking between meetings...

So many incidental interactions and happy collisions (or avoidance 🥸) that were happening, and now aren’t. 

Alex Howland, Ph.D. suggests 4 ways to spark watercooler moments in Forbes:
1 camera off and avatar on
2 channels for non-work conversations
3 cross functional digital events
4 creative virtual worlds. 


🎯 AND these techniques work well with teams I’ve been working with:
- drop in zoom for coffee or chat, anytime
- shorts: 12 minute check ins and catch ups
- play time: virtual casual play time, reminiscent of school days, no work only play
- commute pairs: hang out with 1 other person as you begin your work, to chat, connect and share 
- cowork: mics off and cameras on for calm companionship. 

Experiments are useful. What will you try? 

It’s the creative challenge of the changing times we’re in. 

Back-to-back is bad to worse

If the view is ‘full of colour’ when you look at your diary or schedule, you could be in the back-to-back brigade who don’t get a break. 

The scheduling - and acceptance - of a day of meetings running one into the other, is tiring, inefficient and distracting. 

This Forbes article by Bruce Rogers talks more about how our brains needs a break. 

Our ability to focus lessens as the day goes on and the cognitive load of no, or few, breaks doesn’t serve us either. 

Microsoft recently made changes to their deep down default settings in Outlook for appointment durations and scheduling. You can customize them further for your own preferences and well-being. 

This is in an effort to reduce the rotten fatigue that results from a back-to-back schedule. 

But it also takes individual, leadership and cultural shifts on ‘how we do things around here’ to bring an end to the back-to-back-badge-of-busy. 

Here’s how I roll: 
- Finish early. 
- Schedule breaks
- Block out time. 
- Protect the boundaries. 
- Model better behaviours. 

There are clear ways for us to adopt to get from bad-to-better in the breaks-for-brain game. 

What are you doing to break the back-to-back?