For two years now we have been working from home, from the same country or from other countries, wherever we want and wherever we can. Somehow, the rule is that there aren’t many rules anymore. Attempts by companies to establish a framework where people come to the office one, two, three days every week are more or less successful. Of course, these are industries where working from anywhere is possible.
In 2020, when I worked from home, I had one of my most productive periods. I didn’t miss the traffic, those “meetings” at the client where I would go just to have somewhere to come back from, because that person had forgotten, left Bucharest, left the country, without postponing the meeting.
Since last year, however, I have been coming to the office. It’s pretty quiet, most colleagues prefer to work from home.
But I realise that one thing is missing: the emulation of ideas when there were more of us in the office.
I used to love talking to colleagues, telling them about different ideas, brainstorming, talking about places we visited for the next event or course, listening and noticing when they came with different perspectives, thinking together.
I find it harder on Zoom or phone. Everyone’s attention seems divided. The temptation to be present on call but doing something else on laptop/phone is great. The quality of the outcome of meetings seems low to me, often.
Even in a 30 minute meeting, it seems hard to focus and give our attention only to that one topic.
In face-to-face meetings, my feeling was that we focused differently. The likelihood of reading, writing while talking to someone was lower.
I had a colleague, Laura, to whom I used to say “let’s think together”. We create together concepts for events that clients appreciate. She had ideas, she knew how to give me feedback, to help me see from other perspectives. And that’s no small thing. It was that collective creativity that yielded novel results quickly, which was rewarding for everyone.
Such interactions can happen online if the parties involved already have a way of working, a high degree of understanding, appreciation, empathy, trust, patience, if they listen to each other, respect each other. When online interactions have these characteristics, I enjoy and appreciate it.
How do you tap into that creative energy of the group coming together face to face?