Speaker 1: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics
Speaker 1: used by the world's most successful people to get so
Speaker 1: much out of their day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 1: and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work day.
Speaker 1: Before we get to today's mini episode, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to do a bit of a call out for listener questions.
Speaker 1: As you know, I'm starting to do a few more
Speaker 1: episodes where I'm answering any questions that might be on
Speaker 1: your mind around work, maybe remote work and working from home,
Speaker 1: about productivity, any of those areas. So if you've got
Speaker 1: something on your mind that you'd like me to delve
Speaker 1: into the research around and to answer on How I Work,
Speaker 1: drop me a note at Amantha at Inventium dot com
Speaker 1: dot au and my email is always in the show
Speaker 1: notes as well. Okay, let's get on today's mini episode,
Speaker 1: which is all around the topic of serendipitous conversations and
Speaker 1: how can that actually happen in the virtual world. So
Speaker 1: a few months ago, my CEO at Inventim Mish sent
Speaker 1: me an email asking what I thought about a kind
Speaker 1: of loose idea that she had for a new product
Speaker 1: for Inventium. She suggested that I sit on it for
Speaker 1: a few days and circle back if I was able
Speaker 1: to develop it a little bit further. So I started
Speaker 1: to flesh it out, and we tuned and throwed bainly
Speaker 1: over email for the next week, with a couple of
Speaker 1: phone conversations thrown in the mix. And then four months
Speaker 1: later we launched the idea and it's actually proving to
Speaker 1: be a most profitable product for twenty twenty. And you know,
Speaker 1: while many managers are lamenting the death of serendipitous conversations
Speaker 1: due to remote working, there are actually strategies that can
Speaker 1: be used to build them into our virtual work date.
Speaker 1: So my first piece of advice is to create a
Speaker 1: virtual hallway. One of the challenges of video meetings is
Speaker 1: that they don't allow for the ad hoc conversations that
Speaker 1: happen immediately before and after these events. There are some
Speaker 1: researchers at MIT that are attempting to solve this problem
Speaker 1: with Mingler spelled miglr so. Mingla is software that facilitates
Speaker 1: spontaneous chat with those who are free to be interrupted
Speaker 1: or stick around after the official meeting ends. Other software
Speaker 1: solutions tackle the challenge of replacing corridor conversations with ones
Speaker 1: that can take place in a virtual hallway. So donut
Speaker 1: spelled like the thing that you eat, introduces new team
Speaker 1: members who have never previously met, and also makes it
Speaker 1: easy to schedule virtual coffees with co walkers workers, and
Speaker 1: hallway ha l lway makes it easy to schedule time
Speaker 1: for informal breaks in addition to letting you put a
Speaker 1: time limit on the breaks, which are kind of feel
Speaker 1: like corridor conversations or be it with a time limit,
Speaker 1: which to me feels somewhat efficient. Now, another thing that
Speaker 1: you might want to try is renting a virtual office.
Speaker 1: So if scheduling water cooler conversations feels contrived, another solution
Speaker 1: is to create a virtual office, so using software such
Speaker 1: as Tandem tand EM, you can be working with your
Speaker 1: co workers, albeit virtually, and can interrupt and collaborate on
Speaker 1: digital documents spontaneously, just like you would in a physical office. Alternatively,
Speaker 1: a method we have experimented with at Inventium is running
Speaker 1: virtual caves so, inspired by a company called cave Date,
Speaker 1: every couple of weeks we schedule two to three hour
Speaker 1: blocks of time for the entire team. Everyone brings along
Speaker 1: tasks that they want to complete, and we all are
Speaker 1: gone to Google hangouts and have a brief chat about
Speaker 1: what we'll be working on, and then we schedule a
Speaker 1: halfway break for chitchat, which is essentially water cooler comonation,
Speaker 1: and then we just get on with it. So research
Speaker 1: demonstrates that when accountability is increased at the team level,
Speaker 1: as it is through running a virtual cave, teams actually
Speaker 1: become more interdependent, experience higher success, and are more satisfied
Speaker 1: with fellow team members. So in addition to promoting serendipitous conversation,
Speaker 1: we also get a great deal of work done. Now
Speaker 1: a couple of other things that you might want to
Speaker 1: think about now. This third tip, I just call it
Speaker 1: take five because while technology solutions abound, going old school
Speaker 1: and getting on the phone can have its advantages. One
Speaker 1: of the challenges from working from home is that we
Speaker 1: can often go for too long without a proper break
Speaker 1: thanks to back to back zoom meetings. So research from
Speaker 1: the University of Colorado uncovered that there is an optimal
Speaker 1: length of time for breaks. The researchers found that, in
Speaker 1: contrast to one thirty minute break. Hourly five minute walking
Speaker 1: breaks boost energy, shop and focus, improve mood, and reduce
Speaker 1: feel fatigue in the afternoon more effectively. So as such,
Speaker 1: try to take multiple short breaks throughout the day and
Speaker 1: use this time to either organize a quick call with
Speaker 1: coworkers or maybe call them spontaneously for some serendipitous conversation.
Speaker 1: My final tip is to curate your virtual background. It's
Speaker 1: one of the best ways to promote creativity is to
Speaker 1: surround the brain with lots of diverse stimulus, which will
Speaker 1: help derive more creative water cooler conversations. Exposure to diverse
Speaker 1: and random stimulus triggers more thoughts in the brain, which
Speaker 1: increases the number of new thoughts and ideas that pop up.
Speaker 1: So if your virtual backdrop is a plain white wall,
Speaker 1: this does not bode well for promoting creativity with your
Speaker 1: co workers. Instead, curate your background and consider changing it regularly.
Speaker 1: Australian finance reporter Alan Cohler changes the books on display
Speaker 1: at his desk every day, provoking much online conversation. Likewise,
Speaker 1: play around with quirky virtual backgrounds to promote diverse thinking.
Speaker 1: So while it's easy to lament the death of serendipitous
Speaker 1: conversation in the virtual world. Start consciously curating the new
Speaker 1: version of these conversations and watch the ideas flow. That
Speaker 1: is it for today's show. If you found this episode useful,
Speaker 1: why not share it with someone else that you think
Speaker 1: could benefit. And a big shout out to everyone that
Speaker 1: has left reviews for How I Work. It's simply awesome.
Speaker 1: It brings a huge smile to my face whenever I
Speaker 1: get to read a new review and get listener feedback.
Speaker 1: So thank you for everyone that has done that. That
Speaker 1: is it for today's show and I will see you
Speaker 1: next time.