When the Water Cooler is at Work but You Aren't
Do you believe in the power of the office water cooler conversation? Where, as legends have it, ideas are born, promotions influenced, insider tips exchanged, ties strengthened, and social capital created?
The Great Experiment of 2020 has made everyone examine their beliefs. Some leaders are worried about losing out on serendipity. Certain high-fliers miss the chance to spread their influence. Others are relieved at being able to get water without bumping into someone else.
If no one, except the water cooler, is located at the office, should something be done to recreate the water cooler conversation?
Here's how leaders & culture shapers can think about this:
1. First Principles: re-examine what you used to get from these interactions. What do you want to retain? Now design for that.
2. New Triggers: Coffee/water/loo breaks were natural triggers for conversations. Find reliable new triggers for a remote world. You could use beginning/end of calls to allow for random chats; so budget buffer time for that.
3. Deliberate Orchestration: Enable speed networking. Consciously introduce people and help them interact. Start threads around culture, recommendations, trends.
4. Community Management: Have a microsite/channel along with an in-house community manager to ensure mixing by prompting conversations for different segments. We've seen this work well.
5. Do Nothing: Such conversations are often under-the-radar. Don't assume the lack of a water-cooler means a lack of conversations. People may have already moved to other, private channels. Encourage them and get out of the way.
And for individuals, we advise:
1. Invest in Online Social Capital: This is the time to show up on channels that matter to you, and establishing a presence. Remember: consistency & repetitions are more important than one-off perfection.
2. Take Advantage of Equidistance: With no geographical clustering, you are at one message's length with every member in your company. Send that message.
3. Make Yourself Useful: Share valuable tips on in-house channels, ask if someone needs a hand with a project, volunteer in-house.
4. Reconstruct Offline Groups: Had a yoga class where you widened your in-house circle? Miss the coffee breaks with floor mates? You can do much of these virtually if your friends are game.
5. Make It Systematic: Have a list of people/teams you want to connect with. Do a round-robin around that list regularly. Connect with them as much as you can. It'll sound like extra work...which it is. But once it starts to work, you'll keep at it.
And thanks for joining us at the CTQ water cooler! We have never had a water cooler ourselves, but we'll tell you all about how our random conversations are enabled in another post.