How to Recreate Watercooler Moments for your employees - Interview By Erin Shrimpton

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian, and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Here at A&I. We believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And we are passionate, passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview.

Foreign.

Hey, thanks for having me, Aaron. Appreciate it.

It's great. It's great to be here. It's Friday afternoon for me. I think Friday morning for you. So you're a little bit further away from the weekend. But what we might do is just before we do full intros, we might just wait and allow people to join us, make their cups of tea or coffee or whatever they're, whatever they're doing and settle in. I'm coming to you from Dublin and Ireland. And Kwame, whereabouts are you in the world?

I'm in Columbus, Ohio.

It's really nice. I always, I mean, I say this, I've done a couple of these live sessions before, and it does always blow my mind to think that I'm just sitting here by myself in my office in Dublin and I can be connected with people across the world. So it's really brilliant. But now that people have had a couple of minutes to join, maybe I'll do a quick intro and tell everyone what we're going to talk about today. So, as I said, my name is Erin, Erin Shrimpton, and I'm a LinkedIn learning instructor, as I know you are, too, Kwame. And I work predominantly as a psychologist, an organizational psychologist, and really through that work, I work as a consultant and a coach, helping people through change and helping people to change. And one of the things that I specialize in through that is it's all about connection in work and how to foster that sense of connection and to help people through change. So how about you, Kwame?

Yes, so my name is Kwame Christian I'm the founder and managing director of the American Negotiation Institute where we conduct negotiation and conflict resolution trainings that make your difficult conversations easier. We also do some work in diversity, equity and inclusion. Coming from it, coming at it from a skills based perspective, talking about how we can create connection across differences too. And so I'm excited to be here this morning because I know a lot of our clients have been struggling with difficult conversations, especially in this hybrid, hybrid work environment. And the ability to create connection and foster community digitally in a workplace is challenging. So I'm excited to tackle this with you, especially Aaron, since you have, you are what I always wanted to be, a psychologist. My undergrad degree was in psych and I always wanted to go your way. And then I, you know, I was led astray and I became a lawyer.

So it seems to me that you're bringing the best parts of the two disciplines together in the work that you do.

I try, I try to for sure and I think that's. It surprises a lot of people because I think I'm going to come at it from the, the more of the legal perspective, the hardcore, more aggressive negotiation style. But it's really focused on creating that connection, understanding the psychological barriers that are in place that are just natural for humans and helping them to overcome those too.

Absolutely. Because I think, you know, when, when you use the term, have a difficult conversation with pretty much anyone, the sort of the fear senses go up, don't they?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Any help on that is just and, and guidance and coaching and also the, the idea and the thing to remember is that everybody feels the same way. So you know, the guidance that you can give on how best to approach it is, is, is really, really helpful.

Definitely.

But today we're going to talk, we're going to probably touch on that subject, but we're going to talk. We're to going. Our heading is all about the water cooler, right? So the long lost water cooler that we, most of us seem to miss. I did a little poll earlier on LinkedIn, a quick, a quick poll to see do people actually do miss it. And yes, I think that so far the verdict is most people are missing the water cooler in some way, shape or form. Not necessarily because if it's potential for hydration, but more because what happens at the water cooler is that we get together with people and have a quick chat most of the time over something that is nothing related to work. It's just that piece of human connection. So obviously, as we all know for the last two years that has been Quite abruptly taken away from us. And so what we wanted to get together today to talk about is, well, you know, as we enter now and reenter into a kind of a new phase of redesigning the construct of work, how do we protect those moments of connection and belonging that the water cooler used to provide for us? So that's the big question today. And yeah, just where would you like to start on this big topic? Because it's certainly a big one, right?

Yeah, it's tough. It's kind of like trying to find the starting point on a circle. Right. Every. Every point seems like a valid place to start. And you're right. I think the water cooler moments, that. Those are experiences and times that we took for Grant did while we had them, we. We didn't realize just how much we needed it until it was gone. And one of the things we have to realize is that for most of us, the majority of our waking time is spent at work, which is. Can be scary, you know, that just that much time is there. So it's not just a place of where we go to get money so we can feed our families and sustain ourselves. It's not just a place where we go to get validation and increase social status, but it's also a place where we go for connection. And it's been really tough losing that. And so I think what we have to do is the word that I'm going to keep coming back to throughout this. This talk is intentionality. We have to be intentional about what it is that we're doing. The human connections that we took for granted, that just happened serendipitously throughout the course of our day. It doesn't work that way anymore. We have to be intentional about the way that we create these moments. So I'm excited to dig deep into this with you.

Absolutely. And that's. It's the word I keep on using myself as well, you know, that deliberate action. And it is a loss. It's definitely a loss. The water cooler, you know, or the ability to have those moments of connection. But maybe, just maybe, this is a moment where we can take a step back and think a bit about, okay, but what is it that we need and we want that connection for? And actually, there are other things other than the water cooler and other ways that we can find ways of connecting with people. So one of the big questions that I kind of like to ask when somebody comes to me and says, you know, I'm really missing the connection or, you know, it's a problem that we are not Connected. I want to, I want to ask the question, you know, is it because you just want your people in your team and your colleagues to get that boost from the human connection which we all know is important, or is it because you actually have an objective, you want your team to be more cohesive, you want them to work better collaboratively. Because in a way, those are two different things. So getting the boost from human connection, we all know, you know, you don't need me to tell you why that's important in that, you know, it's something we've all experienced over the last two years. I heard quite a scary statistic recently about the impact of loneliness on our health and how actually it's been likened now to the detrimental effects of tobacco and smoking. Because what actually happens on a neurological basis and a neurological level is that when we feel disconnected from people, we actually, the brain starts to send out signals, you know, of distress and heart rate goes up, blood pressure goes up, cortisol starts getting pumped out. And that's all right from now, from time to time, but on a sustained basis. That's. Obviously, you don't need me to tell you that's not good news, is it? So we do need those moments of connection every day, but my question is, do we need them in work every day, or are there other ways to get those moments of connection? That's why I asked that question about, well, is it because you just want your team and your people to feel the benefit of human connection in a kind of unstructured way, or is it because you want your team to work more cohesively to a certain end? Because in a way, the solutions to those two things are a little bit different and nuanced.

Absolutely, yeah. And I will answer like a lawyer and I'll say, it depends, Aaron, it depends. It depends on what your goal is. And you brought up a really interesting point. These water cooler moments provided us with things that we didn't know that we needed and didn't know that we wanted. And it provided us with multiple things. And it's difficult for us to distinguish between those benefits. So let's focus on the two that you brought up. We have, number one, we have social cohesion, just the benefit of connecting socially with other people without any kind of agenda, just to connect. And then, number two, it's the cohesion that comes from being able to work collaboratively together. Right. When I remember with our company, we have a growing team, but there was somebody who was working remotely, and then he was determining whether or not he Wanted to come to, to Ohio. He was in Arizona at the time. And so strategically, Aaron, Arizona is the desert. It's very hot. So I made sure he came to visit in this, in the summer. Oh, you've been. Yeah, yeah.

It's like a hair dryer in the middle of the summer. Yeah.

So I said I can't let him see Ohio in the winter. He'll never come. So he came, he came to visit in the, in the summer and it was the first time we were all together and we felt that energy, new ideas were created just by his presence there. And that's when he realized, hey, there's a difference when we are together. And now of course with these new variants, now we're largely hybrid. A lot of people are choosing to stay home. And so we're recognizing, okay, listen, that collaborative aspect where we could create ideas and brainstorm and strategize together that specifically like that water cooler moment, that attribute of the water cooler moments, we're missing that. So we have to be intentional about creating that. The social side, we realized it was important, it was nice to have, but not a need to have. And so we, we don't, we're not too pressed to recreate those like on a weekly basis or a bi weekly basis. We don't need it as much. And so I think when companies start to get clear on why they want to create these water cooler moments, then they can be a lot more intentional about how to create them once they're clear on their goals.

Absolutely. That, yes, because one of the, one of the things, and this, this might sound a bit out there but one of the things that I've actually been suggesting to some teams is where the objective is actually more just to get benefit from human connection. I've been suggesting, well, maybe think about building connection in your community more then you know, find a hobby and you know, encourage your teams and work with your teams to find a hobby that they can, you know, have that and, or you know, just simple. Something as simple as when you receive a delivery, have a chat with the delivery driver and make that intentional moment. So it's kind of, it's partly an individual responsibility as well to make sure that on a day to day basis if we are going to be all working more remotely on a day to day basis, we are actually making that intentional effort to connect. Barbara Friedrichsen, she's a professor of social psychology and eminent researcher in positive psychology. She calls these, and I love this phrase, micro moments of connection. So to have those micro moments each day of connection. And it sets us up. We know through all of her research and through many other research from many other professors in the field, it sets us up for better health, it sets us up for better well being. It protects us through adverse times. So we know we need it. It's just, do we need to think a little bit differently now about the construct of work where actually some of these moments previously, if you think before 2020, and you know, quite a while before then, work was our primary source of social connection. And that was great in lots of ways. As you said at the beginning, we spend an awful lot of our time at work, but do we have this moment in our lives now where we can say, actually, I love my work, I really want to work with my colleagues and I want to spend meaningful moments of connection with my colleagues over meaningful work. However, I don't need to get all of my social connection from work. Maybe there are other ways I can do that. And that's a little bit scary because it's sort of like, well, we don't. How do I do that? Or, you know, on a day to day basis, how do I weave that in? I live here by the sea in Ireland and it's pretty cold right now, but there are still hundreds of people going swimming in the sea here every day. And I always walk by and think that's the new water cooler because it's people who are all working remotely in their, you know, we're all here scrambling away in our home offices, but during the day they're gone out, they're having a quick dip in the sea and having a chat with people. And it might not be people from their own organization, of course, but it's still a micro moment of connection. And they come back after that refreshed and ready to do their work for the rest of the afternoon. So there's huge benefit to that too.

Absolutely. And I see Shelby has a really interesting comment here. She says, for me, it's nice to have that connection with my colleagues, but if I can have more time screen free, I prefer that and we'll find connection elsewhere? And I think a lot of people are echoing that sentiment because again, okay, I'm at work pre pandemic, and I have the opportunity to connect. We have these fun conversations. It fills my cup to a certain extent, and then I can move on. And now we realize, okay, now I can. It gives us an opportunity for some introspection to figure out what it is that we really want, why we want it, and those type of things. And What a lot of people in my company are recognizing is that they like to have those moments where we could socialize, but they actually, almost everybody prefers to work alone and work without distraction, and they work better from home. And I know for me, I'm different in that because I've always worked better away from home. In school, I was always studying at libraries because the bed is seductive and it just brings me back. The couch, Netflix, all of those things just distracting me, going to the fridge and eating for no reason. I'm not even hungry. I just don't want to work right now, so I need to. I need to get out of my house. But that's just me. I can get into the zone at work. I. And almost exclusively away from the house. That's where I work. But most people aren't like that. A lot of people prefer to work at home, and they prefer to just be able to focus in work at home and work on their schedule. For example, I have one, one of our colleagues, she is a. She's not a morning person, so she starts her day at 10, works till about 5, and then she puts in the rest of the hours over the weekend. It just works for her. That's just her schedule, you know, so being more flexible to go with people's natural energy, that's been really helpful. But then from time to time, we would have like daily or probably twice a week, we would have team meetings. So the first five or so minutes, we're just sharing gratitude, wins things that are exciting, and we have a little bit of playful banter. Then we get to business, everybody gets to work, and that, that's what works for us. But again, we have to figure out what works for each individual and each company. It's going to be, does your company invest in professional development training? If you believe that your team would benefit from a negotiation workshop, all you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form, and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely customizable, and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're especially useful in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing, and contract management. Our calendar is filling up quickly, and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year if you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description to learn more. And now back to the show.

And I think actually that that little example is such an important one because I do hear sometimes feedback of people who are on, you know, Zoom calls all day long. And it's just back to back zoom and, you know, obviously important content within the Zoom calls about whatever business they're trying to operate on, but that there's very little time or very little opportunity to just have that sort of step away from, you know, that moment of if you're in a real live meeting room where before the meeting starts, you're having a quick chat about TED Lasso, or you're having a quick chat about the weather or whatever it is. Unfortunately, what's happened with Zoom and other virtual connection programs is that those moments just are getting missed off. So, yeah, that example I think is brilliant. Just five minutes, even at the beginning or the end of a team meeting. And even if it's a big one, pop people into the virtual meeting or the virtual breakout rooms, maybe give them something, you know, a topic to discuss, but also, even just allow for, allow for that kind of slightly awkward, kind of, you know, oh, what are we going to talk about? Moment. Because that is part of human connection, isn't it? It's kind of that part of, you know, oh, what, you know, we've just bumped into each other, what are we going to say? And then you come up with it and it's. That's all part of it. I heard. Also, I, I don't know if you ever listened to the Huberman Lab podcast. So Andrew Huberman is a professor of neurobiology in Stanford, and his podcast is absolutely fantastic. If you're at all interested in neurobiology, he gives incredible detail in the science, but then he translates that into really practical tools that you can take away and how to optimize, you know, your health, your performance or whatever it is. So he talks about, he has, I think he's been doing the podcast for about a year now. So he's a lot out there already. Sleep, you know, as I said, performance, focus, pretty much anything that you're concerned about on your day to day, it's there. But one of the things I saw him post recently, which I thought was fascinating, was just on a neurobiological level, human beings, when they're listening to a narrative together of some description, or listening even to, say, a piece of music together, and this, this is based on a piece of research that's been done recently, their hearts start to beat at the same time. And oxytocin, which is a chemical neurochemical associated with, you know, positive emotion and feeling good, gets released as well. But here's the clincher as well. The really interesting thing he said that it doesn't have to be where people are in the same room together. So you can see how that happens where if you're sitting together and watching a movie together, you know, you're not talking and you're not connecting as you might. You and I might think of connect, but you're watching something together and you can kind of see how. But actually, it even works when you're all virtual. And it made me think. The takeaway for me on that one is how it is still therefore really important to have those moments when we're all on zoom calls together to hear each other's stories and to hear what's going on for each other, you know, so it might be a silly anecdote of something that happened to you over the weekend, but it also might be sharing stories about how we're all coping with the challenges that we're facing right now. You know, and then the other part of that is it made me realize and made me think about how important it still is to. For everybody to be on these live kind of all hands meetings. Because when we're all hearing the same kind of stories together, the same narrative, the same engaging strategy together, there's something in it then that connects us. So I just thought that was a really interesting vote in favor of still continuing to try to keep people connected virtually even, you know, even if it's suboptimal.

Absolutely. And again, the key word is try. It requires effort. You know, I know both of us, we have families and I know for me with my, with my wife, there was when, when before we had kids, those moments of spark connection, all those things, it was really easy. We just exist in the same spot. And then we have fun and hang out and now we have kids and being at home is work now, you know, and so we have to, we have to be intentional about carving out time for us. It takes, it can be done. It just takes more work. It takes a lot of effort to create those. Those same moments. And I see we have a lot of good stuff happening in the chat. I. I'd like to see what. For the people who are listening, if you could put into the comments, what is the thing that you miss most about the water cooler moments? Just put it in the chat. What is, what are the things that you miss most about those water cooler moments? It doesn't necessarily literally need to be by a water cooler. It could in the hallway, just passing. What are those things that you miss most and we see somebody says we're using a cool tool called Gather, it kind of does the trick. Oh, it's interesting. Erin, have you heard of that one?

No, I haven't. Yeah, it's always the challenge. That's a really good point, Flavius, because it's always the challenge with a tool like that is, you know, look, it's great, but then actually getting people to change their mindset to use it. But it's always if there is, if, if it actually solves a problem and if it does solve this problem of keeping people connected, then people will definitely use it. So what are people saying here? Body language.

That's a big one. That is a big one. Lacking that context. Laughter yes. LAUGHTER I do miss that one.

Casual chit chat. Yeah. The organization is less hierarchical. That's interesting. You know, and I presume you mean when we were all in an office together learning about people's families. Shelby, that's, I mean, my last memory of at the water cooler is, you know, the moments of, in, in my last kind of office job moments of actually being at the water cooler and meeting other people who all had similar age children to me and discussing how much sleep we all got last night.

You know, or how little. How little sleep, that's more.

Operative word. Exactly. Wow. We have loads of ideas here. Networking.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Receiving a frustrating email and then having two minutes to connect. Yeah, that's. Yeah. So that's really interesting. Especially. Are you familiar with John Gottman's research on relationships? He has the book, one of his many books is the Seven Principles of Marriages that Work.

Sorry. Yes, I do.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. And so one of the things that he talks about is repair attempts in relationships. And so, yes, of course, anytime you spend time with somebody or they're going to be missteps, are going to be times where you offend or annoy or frustrate other people. But one of the, the, the hallmarks of a good relationship is the ability to repair the damage that was done. And it's a lot easier to have those heart to heart conversations in person because of, like Nick said, you have body language. You could read the tone a lot better and everything like that. You could just walk down the hallway and say, hey, Aaron, I, you know, my email might, can we, can we chat for a second? A lot harder to do it in this virtual environment.

Totally. Yeah, it really is. Yeah. And one of the things I'm using, maybe that app Gather would help with this, but I often use things like WhatsApp voice memos rather than emails. You know, just to kind of. If it's not appropriate to have a call at that time. But still, you're having. I actually had a water cooler moment with a colleague just before we came on, actually, and the two of us were doing a quick to and fro of a, of a WhatsApp voice memo just to, you know, and there was a couple of jokes thrown in there, and it just meant we could have that quick chat. But the nuance of what we were trying to say was communicated so much better and in a much more human way than it ever could have been with an email. Yeah, there are alternatives, but look, we're. We're never going to replace what we're talking about here, are we?

No, never. Never fully. Never fully. And I, I know, exactly. And I remember when there were some people, you know, we have those, those moments where you meet somebody in person where you've been collaborating with them on Zoom for like a year or more. It's like, oh, my gosh, you have like, you're, you're a fully formed human. That's interesting. You know, oh, you're that tall. I didn't realize that, you know, those type of things. We were, we, we realized that, okay, when we actually get to see each other in person again, we're like, oh, yeah, this is different. This is different. We're doing the best that we can with what we have, but it, it takes effort. And I think really what we have to realize is that this is new for everybody. And so the research is, is still coming in and we have to think of ourselves like scientists. We have to experiment, generate these hypotheses and try different things. And a lot of times people procrastinate because of fear. They, they don't want to put things into action because they're not 100 sure whether it will work. But the reality is we're not sure what, what, like, what would work at all. Nobody is. So we have to keep on trying different things, get feedback from our team and keep on iterating until we figure out what's. What works best for us.

Absolutely. I mean, one of, one of the things. Yeah. And I think one of the things that I find a little bit frustrating about some of the kind of the media content that's going on at the moment is just, you know, trying to predict what it, what's going to happen with the world of work. And one of the things I keep saying is exactly what you've just said there, Kwame, is just, hey, let's just give ourselves just a moment to kind of first of all reflect on what's going to work for us right now and what's going to. What's, you know, we've. The last two years is not representative of what the world will be like in the next two years. Because the last two years we haven't been able to connect. We haven't been able to connect with our colleagues, of course, but we haven't even been able to connect with our friends and family normally either. So. So don't forget that this is, you know, it's now really, and as we optimistically emerge from the pandemic, that where we will begin to start to experience what, you know, kind of quote unquote, normal life is going to be like. And that's where we get to start to go, okay, well, actually, what works for me here is a couple of days at home focused work, where I still get my micro moments of connection from elsewhere, and then a couple of days where I do go and whether that's meet people in an office space or wherever else, you know, because maybe we don't actually need an office. Maybe we need, you know, a nice promenade to walk on so we can have a walking meeting. You know, there's. It's all up, it's all up for grabs. But I think it is all about, as you say, that experimental approach, just working out what works for all of us. But one, one thing that I know that does work with when you talk. So, you know, when we talked earlier about whether we build kind of the human connection moments just for the sake of the human connection and for the benefits of that, or whether we're building cohesiveness on teams, an approach that I know does work with the cohesiveness on teams point is to get people to work on something together that is meaningful to them. So one thing I'm constantly saying is that connection does not just happen because you bundle people into an office together. You know, we've all been in offices where there's been tumbleweed and there's no connection happening. You know, actually what really drives connection is meaningful work and something that you're on a shared mission together. And so the thing that strikes me is this exact conundrum, this exact problem is exactly a meaningful project for people to work on together. So for teams to work together on and go, right, let's get our heads together here. Let's do some joint reflection on what works for us all. Let's, you know, let's work out what our end goal is. Here, what are we trying to achieve? And let's take a bit of responsibility and work together on trying to find a really good solution here. And what you find is, because that's, it's sort of a culture change approach, and that's one of the things that I work on quite, quite a lot what you find is when people work on something like that together, that's where the connection happens and they start to, you know, connect with other people around them and other people outside of their immediate team because they now have a reason to do that rather than focusing in on, you know, just the colleagues that you usually speak to. And it's just something that I've noticed over time, well before even this pandemic started working on culture change programs and working on, you know, that approach to managing change really, really drives connections. So just a thought, and I'll leave that with everyone today, just, you know, is there something that you can do with your teams to try and drive that connection?

That is such a nuanced point and very meta as well, because we're realizing, okay, so we're having a problem of connection. So collaboratively working on how to solve that problem of connection is in itself a solution to the problem of connection. That's brilliant. That's brilliant. It makes so much sense and it's incredible. I mean, the studies abound on how collaborating with people can help help bring people, cultures, communities together, like bonding together to, to meet a common objective. So I think that's a really simple way. And again, I think we have to slightly, maybe this isn't the right way to describe it, but lower our expectations because we're not going to find the perfect solution. But in getting to a better solution and working together to a better solution, that is in itself moving us in the right direction. Even though there's no such thing as perfection, there is a such thing better.

And that's where we're moving 100% that. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I absolutely love that idea because, you know, I think we're. We've all been through such a lot in the last couple of years, and we all just sort of now almost want to just get back to or get to something that feels stable, don't we? Isn't that, you know, that's. I think that's the predominant feeling now. But the reality is we do still have a fair amount of uncertainty to navigate with, you know, with, with the way just, even just in the world of work, you know, leave everything else outside, even just in the world of work, because we can Never really go back to the way things were now that we know that we can operate this way. And I think it's really interesting, I was speaking to somebody recently who said that their whole office space is open, but there's still only about 20 of them in there. You know, a huge big building, there's still only about 20 of them in there, and they're all welcome to go in. Which shows to me, you know, those people are voting with their feet. It shows to me that people, people ultimately still do want to work remotely. So that means that we will miss the water cooler moments. But obviously there is a benefit to them in another way that it's just outweighing that, you know, the management of our work and home lives, the ability to focus in on our work, because as you say, most people do prefer to just work alone and get their work done. So it's all about this time of reflection and working out okay, over time. Maybe in the last month, did I actually spend a little bit too much time stuck in my office? Should I really push myself to go out and, you know, meet in the office? I think that's one of the questions posed, which is, do we reframe the office now and think of it instead of, you know, instead of a place of work, it's actually a place of connection and a place of getting people together.

You know, this is great. This is, this is exciting. I'm having many revelations now because we're hiring new people and we were thinking about getting new office space, like just expanding within the building that we have. But what we've recognized, especially since the new variant came up, a lot of people are saying, yeah, I'm not going to do that. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna stay home. And so now, even though we have enough people to fill the current office space, it's only just me and another guy who comes in. Everybody else is working remotely. So I'm saying, well, maybe we turn our office space into like in the past where we had dedicated office space, now we just have open offices that we, you know, sanitize every time somebody uses it. And people come in when they want because again, most people are, are opting to spend the majority of time away. And for me, as a, as the, the leader of the company, sometimes it, I have to fight, fight my own insecurities because I'm like, I can't see you. Are you really working? But I can see the job getting done. I can see the job getting done. And that's really what we have to focus on too.

And it is hard, I think, I honestly think the people who need the most support as we move on and continue to try and recreate this new world of work will be leaders and people leaders, particularly people leading teams, because it is very, very hard. All of a sudden the world changed and people are expected to lead teams in a totally different way. You know, it's, the tools are completely different. And yes, we just have to work out and kind of use that experimental approach. But actually on a day to day basis, when you're kind of actually trying to get the work done and being held accountable for having work done, you know, that is a stressful, a stressful situation to be in. So I think there's one plea that I make to organizations and to senior leaders in organizations. It is to support those team leaders, that team leader population, especially on this point. One of the other things we were going to discuss, actually that I was thinking about there was onboarding, because that's an important one, isn't it, for this time. New people joining when everything is remote. How do, how do we create cohesion for new people?

Oh, the answer to that is simple, with difficulty.

I thought you were gonna have an amazing solution for me there.

Yeah, that, that was, that is my solution. Right. Just that. Admit that it's tough because we're going through this as we speak. You know, I, I, our number two here, our chief people officer at A and I, Kadian Comer, she's been doing a really great job job at creating this environment and onboarding people because we want to make sure that we are introducing them to the team so they feel like they're part of the team. We use slack and so we have these text messages going essentially between team members throughout the day. And one of the things is we don't want to overwhelm people as they start. We joke, but it's absolutely true. Kadian is protecting the new employees from me because I'm always go, go, here's an assignment, let's get moving. Because it's fun for me, this is. But we have to recognize that onboarding is going to, we have to be very intentional about the way that we onboard because we need to make sure that people understand what the company is about, what our values are, what their role will be and everything like that. Because again, communication is more difficult with this hybrid work environment. So if you have people that you've never met before just throwing assignments at you like, well, who, what is the org structure here? The serendipitous Moments that can help people to understand the environment, they don't happen anymore. So we have to be on board, we have to be more patient with the way that we onboard make sure people can, like they find their feet before they start, you know, before we throw them to the fire. Sink or swim used to be my, my old mentality. I'm like, oh, they'll figure it out. That's not very compassionate, you know, so we need to, we need to adjust that approach and, and slow it down, build that foundation before we ease people into the, to the, to the work.

And it probably is. Sink or swim probably is easier in an office based environment where you can just, you know, tap your buddy on the shoulder and say, hey, listen, he's just asked me to do this. What is this all about? You know, where that's harder, obviously in a virtual world. I do have an idea on this one. It's actually something that I've done with teams in the past going through change, but I think it could work really well in an virtual onboarding setup. So one of the things that I always try and do with teams who are going through change is to help them to really understand the wider context of what's going on. Because often when you dig deep underneath what's happening, it's often this sort of fear there about, you know, not understanding the wider organization. So I set, working with the team leader, I set the people in the team off on what I call, you know, a scavenger hunt. And we give them basically three questions which we developed together. But it's generally around, you know, what is the ideology of this business, what's the strategy and what are our priorities right now? Okay. And with those three questions, the whole team are sent off and connected with people across the whole, from different pockets of the organization, including senior leaders, maybe even customers. So they're given sort of, and connections to certain, certain key people across the organization. And they're asked to find out the answers to those questions and then bring it back and assimilate it and play it back. There's a couple of key, really important steps in this one. And the last one that I mentioned is one of them, which is the replaying of the information helps that person to kind of assimilate what they've learned through all the different conversations. And it helps to connect them better to the wider organization. It gives them an opportunity to connect with people who they wouldn't have otherwise connected with. So that's, you know, that's a good networking opportunity and it gives them Just that bigger view of what's going on, rather than, you know, you can get very insular when you're working on a team and it gives them that bigger view. But one of the things that I think that actually this could really work well in an onboarding context, because you know what happens when you're onboarding. You get given a load of, you know, here's the purpose of our organization, here are the values, here's the strategy. And, you know, you get given a load of stuff to read. What we know about learning and about understanding of kind of complex information is that you learn that so much better through conversation and through interviewing someone and through going and meeting somebody else. And what's to say that that can be via a zoom call, it can be on a phone call, you know, so I wonder whether something like that, you know, just give people a break for two weeks and just say, right, you've joined the organization. But for the first two weeks, we don't expect anything of you.

You.

The only thing we expected you is to go on this mission and find out the answers to these questions. We're not going to give you any hints. You need to find out the answers to these questions through the conversations with the people who are introducing you to.

I wish we had this live two weeks ago because I think that's a brilliant idea and it's. It's effective. It checks a lot of the boxes that we discussed earlier. And it's fun, too. It is. It is. That would be really fun.

You know, and I've, you know, and I've done this, as I said before, with teams going through change, and again, they report, always report back to me afterwards that they just actually really enjoyed it. And especially when you get to do it with a group of people and you get to, you know, meet people. And again, even if it's an intro to a senior leader, often for somebody more junior who's joined an organization, that can be a very intimidating thing to have an intro to a senior person in the organization. But if it's through this kind of medium where there's a little bit of fun underlying it and underpinning it, it's a really great way to. Yeah. To kind of interject that human connection into. Into the picture.

Yeah. And somebody asked, what are the. The questions you used again?

So the themes of the questions, I usually kind of encourage people to come up with the questions, as in the leader who. Who I would work with to come up with the relevant questions, but it would be around the ideology of the organization. So things like what are the values here? What are the, what is the purpose of our organization? Then the second one would be about the strategy. So you know what's important right now for our business and what are we shooting for and then what are our priorities? Because often you'll find strategy and priorities might be slightly different in that there may be priorities that an organization is looking at at that time. Whether it might be to do with a particular issue around, well being, it might be to do with the inter diversity inclusion agenda. It's really interesting culturally to understand what is that organization prioritising right now? And again from an onboarding perspective, what is the most important thing that people need when they first join an organization? It's to understand the culture. It's to understand really what the culture is all about, not just what the values on the wall say or on your laptop. It's really to understand how do we do things around here and how do you find that out through conversations with people. Well, so that's, yeah, those are the sort of three questions that I, or the three themes of questions. But you know, you can kind of tailor them as, as, as fits for your, for your team and your organization.

I love it. That's, that's great. I'm definitely going to use that for sure and know how it goes if.

You do, because I'd love to hear.

Yeah, we'll do, we'll do. And Aaron, I have a question for you. I'll pose it to the, to the audience first. Let's see what comes up in the comments as well. So let's see for the listeners who are, are out there, what are some of the biggest mistakes that you've seen made as it relates to trying to create water cooler moments? Other than just not trying, I think that's the biggest one. Just like zero effort. That's the big one. But what are some of the mistakes that you've seen made that are avoidable? And then as people are putting their responses in the chat, Aaron, I'll, I'll throw it to you. What do you think?

So you want me to answer first, you mean?

Yeah, I think that people are typing right now.

I actually would just echo what you said, to be honest, because I know that there are, there's, there's a really good comedy skit here in Ireland of, you know, trying to work out the, the best way to recreate kind of team bonding virtually and all of that. And it obviously can get a bit cringy, that's for sure. And people are Getting a bit sick of it. So I think maybe misjudging that, you know, if people are already a bit fatigued of zoom pizza evenings or whatever that may be, maybe just, you know, give those things a rest. But actually, as you say, it's still important to try, and people will still get benefit from these things. So I think that's it. Just, you know, working out the mood and to work out. Are people up for this? Are they really up for it?

Mm, yeah. Up for it. And is there. Is there an appetite for it too? Yeah, yeah.

And Shelby says making it mandatory. I think that's actually a better way of putting what I was trying to say, which is, you know, I think some people are up for it, some people aren't.

So that's great. That is, as a leader, I'm taking some notes. This is good. No commitment from management. That's good. Inviting too many people to the call. So personal connections don't really end up happening. Yeah, Forcing the interactions between team members, not letting them happen naturally. Forcing it. I'm seeing a trend here. It seems as though people like free choice. Free will seems to be a common human trait here. Limiting those moments based on the role. For example, frontline staff being too busy, not important for their onboarding from management. It's big. Asking to do something personal like going to an appointment or just talking or just taking care of household chores. Yeah, this is. This is really great. There are a lot. Really great.

And this. This again, shows me that's why it's so important at this moment to ask. Ask people to come up with a solution that would work for them, rather than. Because there's such that theme of we don't want to be forced into kind of this forced fun or forced water cooler, but we do still want connection. So actually maybe coming up with that together and having, you know, having responsibility for that, and that does mean that they have to be empowered by a leader to do that and have the, you know, have that accountability. But, yeah, I do think having some sort of responsibility ourselves to work out and. And that requires, obviously, the reflection time to work out what actually does work for us.

Yeah. And I think it requires a lot of humility from leadership too, because people often look to the leaders for, like, the answer for all of these problems that we're facing in. In companies. But this is a situation that is unprecedented. Nobody has gone through anything like this, so there's really no guidance. And so I think the. The more leaders are willing to concede that point and admit, hey, hey, I'm trying to figure this out too. Can you help me? We create again, going back to that meta example that you gave. Now the leader is part of the problem solving process with everybody else because they are willing to admit, I don't have all the answers. I'm new to this too. Let's work together to figure out what works for us.

Absolutely. And that creates psychological safety, which is, again, really important. It's important in every aspect of, of the workplace. But, you know, in a virtual workplace, it's super important to know that, you know, and especially in the context of what's been going on in the last couple of years, it has felt very. It's like a scary sort of context that we're all operating in and to know that our leaders are human and are fallible and are willing to say that they don't really have the answers. Actually, that helps because it makes you go, okay, well, none of us know, so let's all work this out together.

Right?

I love this, the, the comment from Shelby here because I, I relate to this a lot. I want the connection. I just don't want to have to do the connection.

Yes, yes, yes. It's almost like, yeah, I'll do it, but now that you told me to do it, now I don't want to do it. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. That choice is an important aspect. Sure.

And also, you know, the mood on your, on the day to day. Some days it depends as well. You know, some days I'm, I'm in this, in this kind of midway balance between extroversion and introversion. So I have days where I am perfectly happy not to see anybody else at all get on with my work and then just, you know, reserve my energy for my two very energetic young children. But then there are other days when actually I know I need to. That connection with people. I know I need to chat with people. And that can be really hard because you can't always predict how you're going to be feeling, you know, tomorrow or the next, next week. So that is the hard part of the intentional piece that we've talked about because you can get deliberate and get planful about making those connections, but you don't always know when you want, when you want to connect with other people. So just, you know, that's where, that's where having a bit of a community locally as well is important because, you know, always know you can pop out and have a chat that with, you know, the barista or person in the post office.

Yeah, absolutely. And again, this goes. Goes back to self awareness. Different people need different things at different times. And just recognizing what you need and being more intentional about recognizing that the social cohesion that we used to have and take for granted doesn't come naturally. Recognizing when you need it and how to get it. Something that I've been doing just outside of work is I've been doing a better job of reconnecting with old friends, which is something that I should have been doing just in general, you know, like the friends you run into. It's been three years, like, why haven't I talked to you? I like talking to you. And so setting up weekly calls with friends, those type of things have been really, really helpful to, to again, get that. The, the socialization that I've been missing.

I think that is. Do you know what. And I do think that might be one of the things that we look back on all of this and say that moment in time we realized we probably did spend too much time at work. And actually we, you know, at the. Or commuting or whatever it is, you know, too much time doing things at work that maybe we didn't need to be doing.

Yeah.

And now we have more time to connect with our families and our friends and to set our lives up in that way. I just, I do. Maybe I'm an idealist, but I do think that that would be a nice thing to come out of this.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I know a lot of companies have realized, oh, you know, this thing that we used to do was completely unnecessary and nobody liked it. Let's not do that anymore. But then I know other companies who, where a lot of the needless meetings have been replaced with needless zooms.

You.

Know, so it's about finding that balance and being, being real and just recognizing that as we go through this, we're going to learn things about what we need right now and also what we did and did not need in the past. And being humble enough to recognize, oh, hey, I, I was wrong, now I've learned and I can adjust. And that's just a normal part of being human, a normal part of developing. If you don't look back on some of the decisions you made in the past and say, what was I thinking? Then you're probably not developing as a person as you should. So there's no shame in adjusting when adjustment is necessary.

That's really true. And you know, as the years go by and, or even as the months go by, you need different things. Don't you so just to constantly check back in with yourself and go, you know what? I, you know, I actually, my needs have changed, so I'm going to try and set things up in a way that meets my needs now rather than two. I mean, I did a bit of an exercise on this earlier this month because I was kind of reflecting on, you know, two years ago, even as I went into 2020, what would I have been looking for? And actually so much has happened in the last two years and it's actually allowed me to have more insight into what is really important to me. So that's enabled me to set up, you know, and begin to try and set up and I certainly am not there yet, but begin to try and set up the sort of the life and the structure around my life that enables me to have those. That connection that I need, but also to do the work that I want to do, but also to be able to connect with, you know, family and friends as well.

Absolutely. This is great. I, you know, Aaron, when, whenever I do these types of things, it's it always, I don't know why it surprises me, but every single time I just learn so much just chatting with people like you with the podcast that we have. We have. We've had over 400 episodes of of Negotiate Everything, Negotiate Anything and we. I learned something new every single time and this has been no different. And so I want to give a shout out to everybody in the, in the audience who put, who were had so many thoughtful comments. I, I'm glad that we can go back and, and review this because I think this, this live that's going to exist into the future into the comments. I mean, this is just an incredible resource that we've collaboratively created together. So I just want to thank everybody.

Yes, absolutely. And as you said, I'm so glad that the comments will still be there because we haven't managed to get to all of them, but we will go through them later and take a look and come back to you if there's anything that we missed. So, yeah, thank you so much. It's been great to get all of your engagement and Kwame, brilliant to have have this session with you. You've given me lots of great ideas and food for thought. So, yeah, I think I'm feeling up to. Are you feeling optimistic about, you know, we may, we may be saying goodbye to the water cooler. Water cooler in an everyday type of sense, but I'm feeling optimistic about being able to continue to maintain great human connection. Are you?

Absolutely. As long as we keep on being intentional about it and trying and working together, I think. I think we can get through it. So. So I'm excited and I'm even more excited to get you on the podcast too. This is a great demo.

Looking forward to it for sure.

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