How to know when your body needs to be in the room (or not)

The story of a team that made a choice

An executive told a group of us to design our in-person meeting plan. He anticipated we’d pick days of the week when we’d all commute. He said, “We’ll do whatever you choose. I’ll be back in 10 minutes to hear it. I trust you.”?

Even though we knew the executive wanted us to gather in person, none of us saw a high ROI from transporting our bodies through traffic to do our jobs. When he returned, we told him, “We unanimously agree we don’t need to work in the same building on the same day. We’ll continue day-to-day work collaborating remotely. Then we'll meet in person once a quarter for dinner to reconnect, rotating through each other’s neighborhoods.”

He was surprised and skeptical, yet he kept his word and it all worked out fine.

When does your body need to be in the room?

There's a topic that doesn’t come up in the great debate about remote versus in-person work. Yes, the topics of trust, DEI, sustainability, and cost savings are critical to the conversation and others have already articulated them in-depth.?

I’d like to (humbly) add this topic to the mix—the discipline to make in-person time use our bodies to collaborate in addition to our brains. Stick with me.

Let's get physical

You heard that right. Let's get physical—but not in the Olivia Newton-John kind of way. For example, is everyone in the same room to:

• draw on a whiteboard, shoulder to shoulder?
• build something together with their hands?
• share food family-style and refill each other’s glasses?
• engage with the space and each other in a way they couldn’t from home???

Facilitation is an art, not a list.?

If a host recycles a meeting with a predictable agenda, limited to talking or staring at a shared screen, there isn’t a rationale for requiring everyone to relocate their bodies to a specific address.?Their brains online are enough.

Since meeting in person is no longer the default, effective hosts are starting to evolve their thinking about the outcomes they expect and how much the variable of co-location contributes (or doesn't).

While it’s comforting to think putting people in the same room will make everything work smoothly, no location can compensate for poor facilitation, lack of preparation, bikeshedding, cliques, etc.?

But what about unscheduled magic?

Many say coming together in person is less about the scheduled meetings than what happens between them. That’s understandable. Sometimes passing each other in the hallway will spark spontaneous genius. So let’s think through how to reorient offices to make that outcome more likely. Now that people gather less frequently, communal space has to work harder to yield that "right place right time" magic.

Assess the scene. Is the office space inviting and draws people together? Or are employees hoteling at sterile desks? Are people sequestering in empty offices to hold confidential phone calls? Are the floors almost unpopulated, so it feels lonely, like working on a holiday? Are you meeting at the office only to go to a restaurant instead?

I would love to hear a realistic plan to increase the frequency of brilliant, impromptu conversations and decrease drive-by interruptions. ?#ThingsWeDontMiss

Both neighbors and pen pals can be close.

Putting multiverses aside, you can’t run into someone from another zip code in the hallway, yet you can tap someone’s virtual shoulder. Unless we redesign office spaces to spark connection above all, it’ll be Remote Work 1 - Hallways 0.?

Talking is only one of many ways to exchange ideas. Let's remember colleagues can grow closer over texts and chat, too. Remember letters? Sigh.

Since the pandemic, companies have built teams living oceans apart. For a policy to work it would need to create a sense of inclusion across all employees, not only the ones living near the HQ parking lot.

Your body can be remote while your head and heart are present.

Great work is possible in myriad configurations. Many professionals have thrived working remotely nurturing deep, candid, psychologically safe relationships with colleagues. They’ve achieved huge wins working from planes, boats, dentist waiting rooms, etc. Then when they get together, it’s special. It’s invigorating. And sharing platters of appetizers is nice, too. Who am I to dis a brie?

Now for some real talk—a crisis will never pause because "we'll all be in the office Friday, so let's handle it then." You must step up and handle it wherever you are. I've put out several work fires at odd hours in my flammable bathrobe.

In a less dramatic sense, how many people are physically present yet mentally elsewhere? Maybe they're distracted. Maybe the meeting isn't being run properly and the participant is doing productive work on their mobile under the table. Either way, what a waste of gas. Is there even any cheese at this meeting?

Here’s an easy checklist to gauge if it’s worth gathering bodies (not just brains) to meet.

How about this experiment? The next time someone—maybe even you—proposes bringing everyone together in the flesh, do these three things first:

1. Make it physical.

This suggestion isn’t about weird work hugs. You don’t have to trust-fall into each other's arms. This suggestion is about inventing experiences participants COULD NOT have remotely. They need to hold, move, taste, or feel something in the same place at the same time. Explain why their bodies are required to be there.

2. Make it outside of the office.

A new physical space can generate a fresh headspace. Plus, out in the world comparing one’s home office setup to a generic one becomes irrelevant. This move empowers the group to choose a location convenient (or equally inconvenient) for everyone. If someone asks why meet at location X instead of the office, ask them which items in the office are essential to your gathering. This open conversation will reveal what’s important and what’s assumed.

3. Make it matter.

Connect with the team to see how often and for how long they need to spend in person to make it productive and meaningful for all. Two days a week might be fine for some and overkill for others. If you have teammates across the state or even the ocean, then be even more deliberate about what coming together looks like. How is that plane ride/dog-sitter/life coordination worth it for the long term? Introverts and extroverts, talk-on-the-spot-Johnny and mull-it-over-Mindy both matter, so how are all included?

Democratic decisions can work.

Like our group’s decision to meet for dinner and keep work remote, any group can define a happy medium. The first step is to agree on the purpose of in-person time. To bond? Solve? Play? Learn??Be off the record? Trespass? Rehearse? Share an analog afternoon?

Perhaps meeting once or twice a year is the ideal cadence for your crew. Every team is different, even within the same department. Let's support homegrown solutions. Whoa, looks like I’m touching on another "trust your people" conversation. At its core, having agency motivates human beings.

For the practical among us, new viral strains and flu season are around the corner, so who gets to decide if it's worth it to share equipment, air, and mozzarella sticks?

I'm curious. What’s your formula?

Some of you prefer to work in physical proximity while others see little benefit. Perhaps you have the power to craft the policy for everyone else and are still sorting through details (or resistance). Perhaps you're about to go through a major mandate shift and have strong opinions to share. And maybe you're in an ideal situation and others can learn from you. I want to learn more about your perspectives and what criteria make it worth it for YOU to work in person in the new world.