If we have learned anything from this year-long pandemic, we’ve certainly learned how to operate our businesses and our jobs remotely. A year ago I thought Zoom was an adjective used on old Batman cartoons (BAM, POW, ZOOM!) and now we are Zooming all over the place. For Teams users, there is no I in Team, but there is an I in Internet and if you don’t have a fast connection with Teams, you will surely have your face locked in some funny or embarrassing expression eventually,
We know how to get on video calls and do our jobs. But, if we are not careful we will lose our ability to collaborate and to innovate. When I first started Altair over 20 years ago, I created a folder called “Hallway Conversations”. This was the folder where I would capture any notes or thoughts derived from ad hoc conversations with my fellow employees. Many new product ideas came from these Hallway Conversations. Some of us called these Water Cooler talk (but the water cooler was more for talking about the OJ Simpson trial or the latest episode of Seinfeld).
I wonder if Jeff Bezos had a “hallway conversation” that involved starting Amazon Prime. Maybe someone was walking down the hallway and said, “Hey Jeff, I just renewed my AAA Auto Club Membership with a bunch of benefits and it got me thinking, what if Amazon had some kind of membership…?” Or an IT Manager said, “Hey Jeff, I noticed we have a whole bunch of servers that are just sitting around with unused capacity 75% of the time, what if…?”
I’m not suggesting that these same interactions can’t happen virtually. However, I have noticed they are much less frequent than “Hallway” conversations. So, what do we do about it? I happen to believe that even once the pandemic is gone, we’ve opened Pandora’s box. I do not believe the work landscape will ever go back to how it was. To compete for workers, employers will have to offer some level of flexibility to work from home that we’d not offered before. So, work from home, in some form is here to stay. To improve our collaboration and innovation, we have to foster the communication. Set aside dedicated (virtual) brainstorming sessions. Require monthly entries of new ideas into a virtual suggestion box. Add an agenda item for innovation to weekly meetings. Encourage communication. Get Intentional. Have virtual Hallway Conversations. Build time in some of your meetings for open rapport. You must be plan and be intentional about it or it will not happen.
A marketing blog. 