A couple of days in the office
The office is not a productive place to work for many of us, but maybe that's not what an office should be about.
- It can be a place to seek validation from people who you never knew were exposed to your work.
- Offices can help provide short bursts of social interaction at frequencies that work for us.
- We design offices as places to work, but maybe we should design them as places to mingle.
After many years, I recently spent two consecutive days in an office. It was an interesting experience. I didn’t know who I’d meet, since most of my colleagues work remotely as well. We’re also a big company now, so I don’t know many people. So, I met every person for the first time or after a long time. I must admit I quite enjoyed that. Let me tell you more.
The office as a validation centre
These days I produce content regularly and I’m also working on my book. But when I work remotely, I only get reactions from immediate coworkers and clients, or followers on LinkedIn. I write long-form pieces. You know that’s not a popular form of content these days. I write not for popularity, but to express myself and to keep my writing muscle strong. Yet, the lack of wider reactions and validation sometimes makes me feel as if I’m shouting into the void.
So, when I spent a couple of days there, the office acted as a validation centre of sorts. Almost every colleague I met seemed to know about asyncagile.org. Maybe some of it was people being polite. Even then, it was heartening to know some of those anonymous visitors that Google analytics tells me about. Several colleagues stopped by to have a deeper chat. While one colleague spoke about how they’re following the “meetings as the last resort” philosophy, I discussed audit trails with another. Some others were interested in the notion of decision velocity and defaulting to action. A colleague, who is also an author, had suggestions about what I should call my book.
If only for my ego, it helped to know that people see some substance in my ideas. In a large company like mine, async-first work is still a fringe movement. Think of me as an activist for that movement. And every activist rejoices when they see their fringe movement make tiny inroads into the mainstream. That’s how I felt in the office.
Still not a great place to work
Before I sound too romantic about the office, let me be clear. I couldn't complete any work during those days in office. Some of this is down to the person I am. Even at 10% occupancy, the white noise of the office doesn’t allow me to focus. I’m also very accustomed to remote work. My mind and body now associate my home office with productive work. I struggled to achieve a deep work mindset during those days in the office. The tools I take for granted were missing - my dedicated keyboard and trackpad, my big screens and my customised, quiet workspace. It’s amazing how, once you’re used to a certain work environment, or a way of working, you may struggle to adjust to another context.
As the Washington Post recently said, offices are better for mingling than for focussing. I couldn’t agree more. There was some magic to meeting my old friends and being able to shake their hands and give them a tight hug. I talked so much that by the end of two days my throat hurt. There’s only so much social interaction that I as an introvert can handle, so I’m good for a few months now. But I wouldn’t mind visiting an office once in a while, just to socialise with colleagues.
The trouble is that the design of most offices still assumes that people will work there. And a few people always will. They probably need the library and the remote pod that Clive Wilkinson architects have illustrated in their model of a modern office. For the rest of us, here’s the hope I have.
“It will take a different mindset on management’s part, but if leaders can embrace the idea that remote work is for concentrating and headquarters is for cooperating, offices might become very different, and vastly superior: more meeting rooms, more social spaces, more natural light, more greenery. Executives might not shorten the long commutes remote workers are desperate to avoid, but they can rethink what their offices offer employees and make those treks more worthwhile.”
Thoughtful office design may well be the next big thing that makes location-independent work an inclusive, fulfilling and connected experience for all of us.