Vanessa Van Edwards shares research from 11 companies showing that where you sit matters more than you think. Low-performing coworkers reduce nearby colleagues' productivity by 35%, while high performers lift those around them. Strategic seating can spread good habits and boost team output.
The number one indicator for performance was actually who you sat near, who you sat next to. They did this across 11 different companies with thousands of different employees, different sizes, different industries. And what they found was a low performer is contagious and infects the people that they sit near and they lower their performance by 35%. And high performers are also contagious. You sit next to a high performer and your own performance boosts, which means that the lowest and the highest are affecting us, right? So it's very also important, one, where do you think you are, right? If you think you're a low performer, like there's certain things I'm bad at, I'm actually better off sitting next to a high performer to catch their high performance vibes. High performers are actually more powerful than low performers, but I also wanna make sure that I'm strategically thinking about my team and who's being contagious and whatnot. All my team members are high performers, otherwise they wouldn't be on my team, but we have to remember that even our efficiency, our productivity is contagious.
