Why bringing everyone back to the office is hurting, not helping innovation

Inspiring. Entertaining. Productive.

That was the reaction to my brainstorming session. Oh, and we entirely rethought a software pricing model built around the needs of small businesses;

In one afternoon;

Over Zoom and Miro.

It's precisely the kind of output leaders want - business-shifting ideas, options that wouldn't have been on the table without a fresh approach.

So why do many companies tout innovation as a reason to re-centralize knowledge economy people in an office?

Media outlets like the Globe and Mail and CBC here in Canada have published a steady stream of stories built around the same rough narrative:

• Remote work has crested
• Business leaders say workplace culture matters
• Remote work stifles innovation because employees need more random interactions and open-ended discussions working from home.
• Companies are making offices more enjoyable and flexible to encourage conversation.

Even tech giants are behind the movement: Amazon, Apple and Google have forced workers hired remotely to start working out of an office for at least part of the week.

"The bias definitely needs to be strongly towards working in person, but if somebody is exceptional, then remote work can be OK," Elon Musk said in July 2022.

In November, while scrapping the company's work-from-home policy, he said, "The road ahead is arduous and will require intense work to succeed."

Let's take at face value the position that the need to innovate is driving the call back to work - that it's not about a lack of accountability and goals, perceived productivity, the cost of maintaining office leases that are now hard to sublet, and various cognitive biases.

I say this as an innovation professional - one who has helped lead innovation labs, founded an AI startup and run dozens of design sprints:

Innovation doesn't happen around a watercooler. In fact, informal interactions stifle innovation and distract teams from the hard work of innovating.

Why office time is a distraction: innovation begins when you or we are willing to sit in uncomfortable moments pondering a problem without an apparent cause or solution. Human beings avoid awkward and ambiguous conversations whenever possible—ever tried being the person asking a "big" question amid a water cooler chat or even in a typical meeting?

If you've ever been told, "Let's put that idea in the parking lot for now," you know the feeling.

Conversely, people are happy to avoid controversy and stick to the stuff where we and the person we're engaging with likely feel comfortable and confident discussing things we already know.

Why office time stifles innovation: The urge to innovate constantly struggles with the desire to be productive.

Productivity is the feeling of checking boxes on a list: we know what must be done and are masterful and determined to achieve it. We can always explain, if challenged, why we are doing the right thing, and leaders feel confident that things are being made.

Being in the office means being continuously ready to appear "productive" - to demonstrate at any time what we're working on, why it's important and how it's going. Indeed, conversations can be productive! Talking to someone can help you solve a problem blocking your progress.

But let's not confuse problem-solving with innovation. When we problem solve, we share knowledge to unblock progress. When we innovate, we create new knowledge altogether, because no one knows the answer.

Yet, those conversations are perceived as "innovative" because a problem got solved. Box checked, move on; let's not dwell on the matter. Suppose we have a lot of small problem-solving conversations and call that innovation. In that case, we're only pushed to confront the genuinely uncomfortable, ambiguous problems that require us to live without direction, at least for a little while.

Why remote work nurtures innovation: the possibility focus and intentionality.

Of course, it's easier in a remote work environment to be "participating" in a meeting while being "productive" by working on some other document while the meeting is rolling.

Having planned and ran dozens of design sprints (typically half a day and five full days,) it has always been hard to convince people to put down their regular work and focus on a particular problem space.

I know that remote work encourages focused conversations by the number of regular 1:1 meetings I've had to book into my calendar to connect with colleagues. It works! I have lovely, sometimes productive and sometimes frivolous chats with co-workers because we make half an hour once a month or every couple of weeks just to talk. No agenda.

But innovation happens elsewhere. It happens when we get a group together with a structure. This process forces us to look at research together, map user experiences, identify all the possible causes of a problem, and prototype various solutions. That process isn't inborn and is missing from the typical curriculum.

Innovation is a discipline, a set of practices that create space to wonder. Those spaces can be physical, but ultimately they're intellectual and can very well take place anywhere we can ponder and share.

Of course, problem-solving can be helpful! But a problem-solving conversation is just a Zoom call away.