The last 18 months have provided a myriad of challenges for businesses of all sizes. Much has been discussed around furloughing and reintegrating staff, productivity, burnout and the challenges of communicating effectively with team members over Zoom / Teams.
Having previously written about where ideas come from, I wanted to consider how remote working has affected team dynamics and the impact that has had on the generation of new ideas.
One client of mine estimated that they spent around 90% of the working day on Zoom, putting in longer hours than before and feeling emotionally drained at the end of the week. In coaching conversations a clear theme has developed around always being ‘at work’ but feeling a lack of real achievement. A study by NordVPN found that remote working employees in the UK had extended their working week by an average of 25% in the 12 months following the first lockdown announcement.
We may be logged on for longer than ever before but if we diarised each hour of that day, how much time are we really spending moving towards our personal and collective goals?
Famously Isaac Newton retreated to a remote rural location for 18 months during the time of the black death and was more productive than at any stage in his career developing his theories of calculus and the law of gravitation amongst other significant scientific contributions. Anyone who has visited Dylan Thomas’s shed on the cliffs at Laugharne will have seen a remote and very basically furnished environment was the setting for the most prolific period of his career from 1949 to 1953. Some of the world’s largest tech businesses including Amazon, HP and Microsoft came to life in American garages, so clearly there is evidence of great moments of creativity emerging from people working alone or in small groups in environments far removed from an office.
For most of us though, creativity requires collaboration. A survey of 145,000 employees by Leesman last September indicated that 28% of respondents felt unable to collaborate on creative projects with colleagues remotely. Although we spend several hours per day on platforms like Zoom and Teams, my clients have described this time as being focused on task specific matters and governed by agendas. Although the office is a place for collaboration, it is not in the boardroom that great ideas are born. More frequently in my experience it’s the informal chats in the staff kitchen, a quick exchange in corridors or the ‘thought jacuzzi’ in the pub after work.
These encounters simply don’t exist for remote workers and while companies were quick to roll out team quizzes, virtual drinks and other less formal get-togethers they still existed in the same place that all other work occurred – at the desk in your spare room on zoom.
Working as a coach has made me aware of how each one of these Zoom / Teams interactions can blur into one. Inevitably five minutes before I appeared on the screen of my coachee, there was a co-worker, client or supplier occupying that space. Throughout these online coaching sessions there would be emails and messages competing for attention. In one session due to connection issues on Zoom, we turned the cameras off and carried on over audio only. For my coachee that had a significant impact as it separated our conversation from all the others that day, just turning the camera off changed the dynamic somehow.
As we return to the office, even if only occasionally, what we can we learn from 18 months of remote working and how we can continue to be creative and collaborative when we don’t have access to the office?
Working alone:
The earlier references to Newton and Darwin are two of many examples of individuals achieving focus through the removal of external distractions. Even today you will find plenty of writers retreats available to rent by the week or month, often set in remote locations these workspaces are designed with minimal distractions to encourage residents to focus on their work.
While it is simply not practical for most of us to hire a cottage to get the headspace to be creative, the principle of creating a space to think can still apply. Protect your calendar and allow time between meetings with windows blocked out to focus on your ideas. Get away from your desk, have time away from outside demands and distractions, take a notepad to the park, leave the phone at home perhaps? If your most creative time used to be when you commuted, how can you synthesise that feeling somewhere else? Can you get up earlier and go for a drive or a cycle or just spend 30 minutes somewhere quiet and get yourself into that zone?
Working collaboratively:
Writing in Harvard Business Review Erica Dhawan and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic identified several issues that may create confusion or conflict in teams working remotely. Written communication between co-workers particularly when the messages are written quickly can be open to interpretation – with the missing ingredients of body language, tone of voice and facial expression the true meaning of what we say can often be lost. In the absence of face-to-face, video calls will always be the next best option but in larger teams a few people may dominate the conversation. Skilful facilitation is important and where possible working in manageable group sizes to give everyone a fair amount of imput.
Clarity of communication is arguably even more important with remote teams, individuals understanding the team goals and their individual responsibilities but with team members likely to be involved in multiple zoom meetings every day, clear concise ‘sprint’ meetings may be most effective. Micro-management is an understandable consequence of remote working for senior staff and a major demotivator for team members. Managers need to find the best format for staying informed whilst giving trust to their team and recognising individual achievements.
The final suggestion from my own research is allow individuals to reach outside the team when they need a thought partner, a sounding board or someone external who can absorb tensions that may occur within teams. This mentor or coach relationship can help individuals to spend a bit of time away from task-focused activities and create some space for independent thought and reflection.
Being creative and generating ideas is more challenging when businesses are under-pressure. The last 18 months have brought a unique set of issues including how we can perform effectively when forced to work remotely, with a return to full time office work unlikely for many of us, establishing the best conditions for individuals and teams to deliver original thinking will remain an important consideration.
Matt Hodgins
Ideas Academy
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