Designed Serendipity

I co-led a session yesterday at The Second City with a small group of CEOs and the topic of remote/hybrid/return to work policies came up (as it often does these days). I had a thought in the moment that I couldn’t fully crystallize – but it became clear after a good night’s sleep.?

I made the comment yesterday that the best work happens in the room when people come together with other people. One of the workshop attendees disagreed – she had some examples of businesses that were run completely remotely and were doing great. ?

Here was the epiphany this morning: if there are jobs in your place of work that are wholly about running a playbook – selling products off the shelf, design jobs?that simply require you to hand the work in at the end of the day or the week, hitting the phones and the Zoom for sales calls – of course, that work can be done at a desk anywhere where the Wi-Fi is strong and the success can be measured.?

However, if your work requires you to successfully make something out of nothing – if that work hinges on the creativity of individuals coming together to work in teams – your people need to be with other people live and in rooms where that work can happen.?

Maybe what we need to consider is a level of designed serendipity.?

At Second City, this is called rehearsals: a specific place and time where the manager (our director) brings their team together (the actor/improvisors) with other key players (a stage manager, a musical director) and sometimes other stake holders?(a choreographer, a costume designer, a set designer).?

Different work requires our presence in different rooms, and I’ll make the contention that the creative work of invention and execution by teams will only thrive when we are in person together at the same time.?

So rather than focus on office work or remote work, why don’t we focus on the fact that if we want our employees to have the opportunity to build something new, something bigger than themselves, something inventive – we need to provide them with the workspace and the time to do so. ?