Thread by @chris_herd

"We need the office because we solve all our problems at the water cooler"

People think this is a good thing?

Breaking down this office myth 🧵

Companies the leave innovation, communication, and problem-solving to chance are broken

Allowing this to happen by accident is akin to buying a lottery ticket and crossing your fingers

Trusting your organization success to this is suicidee

Ask anyone who says this:

"what the biggest problem they've ever seen solved 'at the water cooler'?"

They'll likely tell you that they've never seen it happen personally, but to trust them, people tell them it happens all the time

This means it rarely happens

The reality: trusting one of the most important processes to luck means it's broken

Solving your biggest problems by the chance of who is standing at the other side of the watercooler isn't a reason to return to an office full-time

It is a reason to build new processes

What people really mean when they say the "water cooler" are moments that happen spontaneously

Lessons that people learn from a knowledgable senior colleague or the osmosis that happens from being around great professionals, for example

But this is even more of an issue

How many of your companies most important lessons aren't being passed on to your people?

What organizational knowledge is being lost on a yearly basis as the best teacher of those lessons depart

Instead, imagine these lessons had been collected in documents

Rather than being shared with one person, it is codified in a document anyone in the organization can consume

Now it can be improved over time by anyone

That key piece of organizational knowledge exists forever in the companies repository of knowledge.

This muscle grows over it and it can never be lost

Repeat this for everything

Equally, the same applies to problems people are facing, ideas they have, or opportunities they see

Instead of one person who happens to be on the other side of the conversations having the opportunity to contribute, the whole organization does

Instead of thinking it's a good thing that one person solved an issue by luck, companies should ask themselves:

"How often does this happen, and how many times in the past has the wrong person been on the other side of the conversation"

How much have they lost as a result?

Similarly, what about people who are less able or willing to verbalize their thoughts and ideas?

How many people in your organization are participating in the conversations you've deemed so important to your companies success

Ask your team if working remotely & being able to share ideas, feedback, + thoughts in writing rather than verbally has helped them participate more equally

If the answer is yes, it stands to reason more "watercooler" moments are happening virtually than they were in person

The final piece of this is the fear companies have around junior staff

"How will they learn if they're not around other people"

You mean a generation of people who have grown up:

- building social relationships virtually
- communicating virtually
- learning virtually

Have they asked these young people how they feel about it? What couldn't they learn if every piece of organizational knowledge was documented?

"Well it's the soft skills we are worried about"

Which ones? How to run client meetings? How to write emails?

Remote-first does not mean remote only

How many of the skills you're scared about young people not learning need them to be in an office full-time?

How many could be learned by in-person onboarding and occasional visits to a physical location

Evolving away from a model that demands people leave family & friends behind in pursuit of opportunity only big cities afford is a good thing

They can still live in cities if they choose – this is one of the hidden positives of remote work: cities become better places to live

It sounds like some companies are scared of people not learning how to play office politics

This is less of a problem working remotely anyway and can be ignored

Moving to a world that focuses on performance over who you drink with after work is a very good thing

In a knowledge economy, the most successful companies are those that employ the most talented people

Office-only companies will find it impossible to compete

Fear is a blindfold

Companies refusing to learn the lessons the last 2 years have taught them won't make it through this decade