Creativity in a Remote World
Steve Jobs decided to build the bathrooms in the Pixar headquarters right in the atrium of the building so people would be forced to walk through the office creating informal conversations.
These unexpected interactions were supposed to spark creativity because, quoting Jobs, “when people run into each other, when they make eye contact, things happen”. For the same reason, the new Apple Park is circular, so people are forced to walk through the office leading, again, to unexpected encounters.
It’s probably farfetched to assume that the recipe for the enormous success of the Pixar movies it’s in their office architecture. But, the fact is, that it inspired lots of office designs since then. From the giant Google to more small companies all over the world. Studies were done, data was gathered to engineer ways to “force” people to interact in the “office of the future”, despite the world around being already digital and we could work from any place not necessarily from the office.
But then, 2020 and the pandemic kicked in and the “office of the future” became our houses. People started to work from living rooms, sleeping rooms, or even kitchens… And more important for this matter: people started to work alone.
Does this mean creativity is dead?
It doesn’t seem to be the case. A study from the University of Cologne, suggests that remote workers are not necessarily less creative as long as the right communication media is used: video conference seems to have practically the same performance as face-to-face work, while chat communication underperforms the other two.
There are many aspects that may affect the creativity of individuals and consequently the creativity of teams as a whole. The home office spaces may be one of them and it’s one of the aspects that companies don’t have that much control over. Nevertheless, back in 2020, Google immediately supported employees to buy gear for their home offices.
But the real problem might be the interactions. People need to trust each other to work together. Back in the office, theories like the Allen curve helped to understand the space to bring people together. In a remote world, communications easily fall back into chats reducing the more reach interactions of video conferences and the trust between people that had never met in person.
We know that a mix between technology, unscheduled interactions, and collaboration frameworks might help, and without these three combined it’s hard to have a highly creative remote collaboration.
We also know that productivity is at the top. But the main concern should be with innovation. Creativity can be a solitary act, but innovation, on the other hand, comes most of the time from collaboration. Will teams be able to continue to innovate and disrupt at the same pace at the home office?
