Only connect

This is the first of three posts focused on impact isolation is having on the way we get work done. It's focused on how we communicate with each other. The next two posts will cover collaboration and leadership. To get the background on the series, read this introduction first.

OK. Communication. It's probably the most obvious of the issues we’re facing; leadership and collaboration are both related, of course – perhaps even subsets of the wider issue – but here I want to focus on the simple act of conveying information to one another. It affects all of us and, like our own faces, it’s something we’re having to confront more than we ever thought we’d have to, and it’s not an entirely pleasant experience.

Early on, amid the flurry of video calls and the daily logging on at my new makeshift workstation, I felt zoned out on Zoom. I felt a bit like Bowie looked in The Man Who Fell To Earth. See:

A grid of squares on my screen. Phone at the ready. That here-we-go-again look in the eyes. A few weeks in, everyone has realised that constant video calls make us tired. There's a bunch of stuff being published to explain why, most notably this piece on BBC Worklife. Of course, there's the thing we're going through, and why we're having to video call so much in the first place. But there's also the increased cognitive load. This thing is making us work hard in ways we’re simply not used to. Or, to put it more technically, as Dr Robert O’Toole, a teacher of design thinking at Warwick University, did on Twitter:

The mind is working overtime to fill in the information gaps, replacing all of the otherwise barely noticeable sensory cues that we get when we converse in close physical proximity.

Sounds about right to me. On video, we have to think consciously about anything and everything we want to convey, as well as about any signals we do or don’t receive. We normally do this automatically, so the whole thing leaves our brains knackered. It's like we're doing Joe Wicks for our minds, but without the ebullient teacher to keep us positive, or the cool down to avoid the aches afterwards. And some of us are doing this all day, on one call after another. A couple of people I spoke to said they barely move for hours. One was regularly doing 16 hour days.

All this is affecting our ability not just to communicate, but to truly connect. It's harder to understand and to make ourselves understood. Writing this I kept thinking of E M Forster's line from Howard's End:

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.

So what can we do about it? How do we "live in fragments no longer." I think there are three things we can think about.

Acknowledge what video can do, and what it can’t

Cast your mind back to before lockdown. Was your day full of meetings? Did you complain about how many you had? Of course you did. We all did. Yet still we had them. Thoughtlessly, endlessly. Lockdown seemed to hit just as we were waking up to this drain on our time and energy. One of the last things I worked on before being made redundant was a set of guidelines to make meetings more purposeful and efficient. Bruce Daisley nailed it in his book: meetings are a tax on business and we all deserve a rebate.

Yet what have we done now? Trapped ourselves in days of back-to-back meetings that drain us of our time and energy even more. I wonder if really, deep down, we like meetings. Or rather, we like the lack of effort it takes to have them. I think we especially like meetings now because we’re social animals and otherwise we wouldn’t see anyone. So it’s understandable we default to video so much, since it seems the next best thing to being in a room with someone. Except it’s not the same, and I think it may become bad for our health and the health of our businesses unless we admit it. We’ve created a working week where the Monday morning board meeting and Friday’s virtual drinks all take place in the same format, and so does everything in between.

Thing is, it’s a format that serves neither of those bookends very well. I spoke to one person whose Monday morning board meeting lasts four hours. Who can concentrate on such important stuff for that long? What energy can anyone have left to actually do anything after that? And besides, it’s not really a board meeting, it’s a series of updates. Faces filling our screen because they're speaking, making us listen. It's a broadcast medium. Discussion is difficult without careful choreography. The video format allows people to be in the same place but it’s hard to get them on the same page. Another interviewee of mine absents themselves from virtual drinks now, since it’s so hard to keep a natural conversation going there too. There’s a reason quizzes have become so popular – it gives something formless a structure. An agenda. Without one, nothing really flows. Apart from the drinks, of course, as no one has to wait for a round anymore.

But maybe we should ask: if we can’t see each other without exhausting or frustrating ourselves, is the trade-off worth it? Perhaps what we should be doing is weighing the pros and cons for the task in hand, and managing our own expectations about what is possible. We've all done the false starts and ‘after you’s; the glitchy, stilted nature of group conversation on video isn’t bug, it’s a feature. So when we’re choosing how to speak to someone, or a group, we should think about what we really need from that interaction. It may be as simple as, a sense of belonging. But this is a very different outcome to, say, agreement on a course of action the CEO wants to take. Perhaps we need something more than an agenda to discern the difference. Video might still be the appropriate or only possible tool, but maybe we need more careful planning of the dynamic we want to create.

We should also acknowledge, openly and with each other, what we miss when we speak over video. Almost everyone I spoke to agreed that with no body language or non-verbal cues to go on, effective communication between participants was almost impossible. As one agency lead said, “it’s hard to read the room when there’s no actual room and you can’t read anything.” So be mindful about the role you need to play in a meeting to get the most from it, and acknowledge any assumptions you’re working to. And it works both ways. There may be a narrative emerging that lockdown is an introvert’s dream, but it takes a particular kind of person to force themselves into a video conversation without being called upon. Hosts should be explicit about the contributions they want and attendees need to acknowledge their self-consciousness so they can overcome it. One person, who I think of as very confident, revealed themselves to be self-conscious about their speaking voice and accent, and worried that this was how they were known. It's hard to bring your whole self to work when all you feel like is a disembodied voice.

Another question is, how do we know when we’re having an impact? The best illustration I heard was from someone who started a new role while in isolation. They were introduced to their new colleagues by virtual calls, and immediately found it impossible to have what they described as an ‘emotional impact’ on people. With nothing to grab hold of, no eye contact or sense of personality, or even clothing style, this new starter couldn’t identify allies. They found themselves becoming over-sensitive and self-analytical on calls. As a result, every call came with high stakes attached, leaving them more drained than they would have been normally.

This obviously isn’t the case for everybody, but all of us will speak to people we don’t already know at some point: freelancers, for example, or agencies conducting chemistry sessions. So, what should we do? One person says they’re limiting their video calls to three hours a day. Any more than that and they won’t get anything else done. Limiting attendees sounds like a smart move – something my former agency was already trying to work on with meetings. Others are writing more, taking more time to craft emails so they can act as a repository of all the necessary information. For this series, I spoke to some interviewees on the phone, and I found it a good way to listen well. I could take notes without feeling I was ignoring the speaker. And my brain could wander in a way that was harder on video, making connections I wouldn’t have otherwise made. Whatever the approach, we should acknowledge it will take more effort or time, but it's worth it to accommodate the shortcomings and hidden costs of sleepwalking into Zoom after Zoom after Zoom. Save the video for when you really need to see each other, and be aware that you’ll have to take from it what you need.

Look for opportunity in the constraints

Presenting is an obvious casualty of lockdown. I spoke to one person who uses their hands a lot when presenting, drawing shapes in the air, giving their talks a spatial dimension. I spoke to another who is hyper-aware of their role as a change-agent in their organisation, and has developed a style delivering talks in-the-round, using his body to show vulnerability (or at least, the absence of threat), and inviting people physically into ‘his world’. This kind of nuance and non-verbal signal feels impossible now.

But I spoke to another whose experience of presenting via video made me wonder whether the constraints of the medium could actually prompt a kind of best practice that’s easily forgotten in person. I train people in writing persuasive presentations and it’s astonishing how automatic people’s behaviour is in this areas. Too many slides and too much time spent on them; not enough story or time spent working out why you’re in the room. Perhaps, with video, we might pay greater attention to these things because they become more obviously critical to success. When we can't rely on chemistry as a natural by-product of proximity, we become more mindful about generating it intentionally

I spoke to a founder whose agency has already pitched for new business during lockdown, and with great success: after a two-hour call the client awarded them the business there and then. Why so? According to the founder, video forced them to think through the mechanics far more carefully. They developed a clearer structure and articulated more explicitly what the client was going to see, for how long, and in what order. They paused more often, engineering moments for feedback, discussion, and clarification as they went. This in turn changed the dynamic of the presentation. Usually, pitches should balance content and performance – the client buys the team as much as they buy the answer they’re given. In effect, the pitch is an approximation of what it would be like to work with the agency. So, rather than try to replicate the performance as it would have been in the room (in effect, an approximation of an approximation), the agency returned to this underlying purpose. The two-hour call ended up more discursive, exploratory even, and covered pretty much everything the client could ever want to know. They experienced exactly what a working partnership might be like.

What’s ironic here is that by working with the platform’s constraints, the team acted in line with presentation best practice. Too few teams go into a room with a clear idea of what they want to achieve. This agency knew it had to avoid silence, and so focused the content and structure on creating an open discussion. This created plenty of opportunity for people to voice their concerns and preferences, and the team built consensus as they went. They stopped short of a full creative solution, too, leaving room for the audience to arrive at their own conclusions – which are always more compelling than any we try and sell. This is what Jeremy Bullmore meant we he advised presenters to turn their audience into 'willing accomplices'. We shouldn't be afraid of making an audience work - their brains like it. Think of a good presenter the way a good TV script leaves room for you to work out what's going on: give your audience 2+2, not 4. The agency's approach to the pitch meant they did this brilliantly. In the founder’s words: "We wanted to force a discussion, not win an argument. We aimed to create an environment where the answer didn't matter." They knew the content was good. Forced to use a medium that inhibited their performance, they made chemistry their goal.

Effective communication makes relationships work, and vice versa

It’s not just non-verbal cues we used to take for granted. The spaces in which serendipitous communication used to happen have gone as well. Desks, corridors, lifts, coffee queues. One strategist said it’s reduced the opportunities for any exchange of ideas, those ‘what are you working on?’ chats that spark a useful thought. One team leader said he wasn’t “able to have an opinion on someone else’s conversation anymore”. This might seem minor, but these small talk moments have a disproportionate impact. Leaders use them to informally direct the shape or focus of a project. Teams use them to reinforce and even start relationships. And they’re useful for influencing stakeholders – the stakes seem lower when you bump into someone informally.

But lockdown has made these moments extinct overnight. The small interactions that keep work moving simply aren’t possible any more. This is particularly challenging with cross-functional teams, or with projects that require constant support. I spoke to someone working on a service design project for government. The wider team had had its kick-off and agreed the objectives for the discovery phase. Inevitably, issues bubbled up; the consensus they thought they had didn’t seem quite so strong a few days after the workshop. But by then, lockdown had kicked in. Away from the office they struggled to maintain contact and influence with the project sponsors. And while the core team could still get on replicating their discovery remotely (see next post on creating together), they felt two opposite impulses at the same time. On one hand, they were pretty stretched and aware they didn’t want to go too far into a project without ironing out these niggles. On the other, they sensed stakeholders expected rapid progress, and the relationships didn’t feel strong enough for them to appear to questions decisions everyone felt had been made. Conversations in this kind of ambiguous scenario are more common than we realise. They require credibility and trust. The team lead felt they hadn’t earned these yet, so for a while they felt unsure which way to jump. Pushing for formal time together felt wrong. And Slack - the usual go-to tool to hammer out issues - didn’t work either. It’s great once a project is underway, but not a good place to try to explain nuance or establish a rapport, especially if stakeholders are new to the platform.

Eventually, the project righted itself, largely with the team recovering its instincts and asserting itself. But it seems there's no getting round the fact that creating a smooth path for projects will take more work. Just as with non-verbal cues and body language, we’re seeing just how reliant we were on the serendipity afforded by physical space and workplace culture. There may not be anything that can replace that, so for now it may be all we can do to be aware of its absence. If managing stakeholders is harder, then being upfront about that too will help. One of the most challenging things about this situation is all the extra time and work it requires to get the standard things done, so calculating what’s a cost and what’s an investment could help you keep your energy and sanity in the black.

Best practice and principles

When it comes to communicating under lockdown, there are no easy answers and few shortcuts. But in some ways, it strikes me that some old-fashioned principles still stand. The harder you make your audience work, the less effective you'll be. But the less work you want your audience to do, the more effort you need to put in. That's always been the equation, only now the format and techniques we have at our disposal have changed. We should recognise that what we used to do may not translate. It may take time and effort to learn the new rules - the way we adjust our understanding of grammar when we learn a foreign language.

The agency founder I spoke to had adjusted, and he focused on unifying their work and their performance (perhaps connecting, in Forster's words, "the prose and the passion") and ended up winning the pitch. The service designer I spoke to has adjusted too, and told me he refers to something known as Postel's Law to remain a good citizen within his team and organisation. Postel's Law is a guideline for creators of software protocols, to govern the computers should communicate with each other over the Internet. It states: "Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send". Remembering and acting like we're connected to everyone else is a good way of staying sane. If we adjust too, maybe we'll focus more on what particular situations require rather that assume we know what to do. And if we accept this, in our preparation, and the number or type of interactions we submit to, maybe we'll avoid draining our energy quite so much as we are now.

I'll leave you with some final thoughts on this topic and some things to try within your teams.

• Admit what your tools can’t replicate and adjust your expectations.
• Take time to define the constraints of the platform you’re working with, then see how you might embrace them, or even use them to your advantage.
• Acknowledge that some tools will drain your energy. Try to limit when you use them, and what you use them for.
• If you want to bounce stuff around, reduce the number of senses you ask your brain to work with. Phone conversations focus on listening and can create more thinking space. Close some tabs.
• Be clear with what you want to achieve, and what you expect from others. Is it time to make a key decision, or create a sense of belonging? Think about the inputs you need and the structure that will allow for them, then work out the most efficient way to get it. It might not be another video call.
• By reducing the number of things you say yes to automatically, you may be able to maintain valuable small interactions with people you don’t directly work with. Use Whatsapp or Slack for small 121 conversations, but make sure to create the context for them too. 

Thanks for reading. If you have any experiences or suggestions you'd like to share, I'd love to hear them. Please do comment below.

The next post is about collaboration, and working creatively in partnership. Or, as one CSO put it, "properly working together". Click here to read on.