The donuts aren't working

Photo by Dominika Roseclay.

Bosses, if you work in an org of more than ten people, you've got two major problems right now. And they are getting louder.

Connection - as in, nobody knows anyone anymore. We have to introduce ourselves at the start of meetings. And even when we've met – maybe during the interview process – it's on a very superficial level. So while we're not opposed to collaborating, the pre-conditions for collaboration aren't present.

For starters, we'd have to know someone had been hired to help out on that project. And short of the quarterly (monthly? weekly?) hiring email from HR, it's really hard to keep track. Which brings us to...

Alignment - as in, we've all been working in our tiny digital boxes. And while that's been great for productivity, it's been shit for strategy. Bosses can carry the individual, team, or departmental pieces of it. But what happens when those bits are set to collide with work happening in the tiny digital boxes we can't see?

If you're living with these challenges, you know. They aren't small problems. They're existential. If these problems were outside of our control, that would be one thing. Sometimes work is like that.

But the executive version of the serenity prayer goes something like, "if this a problem I can fix with a new policy, watch how quickly I write one."

Donuts and the possibility of more donuts to come

You want connection and alignment? Get everyone back in the office. Let's see bums in seats 3, 4, 5 days/week. That'll fix it right quick.

We're hearing from the bosses and people and culture teams asked to implement the Bums-in-Seats directive. Even when they, themselves, are skeptical. Even when they, themselves, face long commutes. And child care complexity. And grumpy employees. The message is clear: Figure out how to get everyone back in the office. Pronto.

So they turn the snack budget back on. Bring back the catered meals. Update the policy docs. Remove the home office improvement budget. And hope that will jumpstart a flywheel. People come into the office and find other people there. And that makes even more folks come in. And pretty soon, we're partying like it's 2019.

That's the plan anyhow.

But if you're in one of those offices 3, 4, or 5 days a week, you already know. It's not quite working out that way. And hybrid work is exacerbating things.

If the people in the office aren't the ones you actually need to connect with, what's the point? And if less than half of staff bother showing up for the in-office, non-streamed All Hands meeting, how are we ever going to get aligned?

Is this as good as it gets?

It's not only the execs who want an answer for connection. When we talk with people early in their careers, their need for it is palpable. Urgent, even. They value the flexibility, but also want to get to know their coworkers. Some of that's professional: they want to build a network, they want their boss to see them. Some of it is personal, too. Work is a great place to meet people - future friends, future partners. At least, it used to be.

These days, there's a slack add-on that pairs up two coworkers at random for 15-30 minute conversation. It's called donut. And we first encountered it pre-pandemic in our bigger enterprise clients. They were looking for a way to help far-flung colleagues feel less far-flung and more collegial.

So people sign up for donuts. And attend the Friday trivia nights on zoom. And even though it means real clothes, and real commuting, they come into the office. One part skeptical, resenting that it's been forced on them. But also one part hopeful and wondering if it will actually be good.

Occasionally a randomly-generated meeting is good. And it is cool to see people in the office that they've never met IRL despite working on the same team for 10 months. There are these sparks of connection. But then they have to go into separate phone rooms for separate zoom calls. And it all goes stale.

No free lunches

Bosses, here's the thing. Groups of humans have a kind of inertia. When they are in motion, they tend to stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force. And it can feel like you get amazing things for free. But when they are stopped, they will tend to stay stopped. Unless acted on by someone putting in considerable energy.

That's you, by the way.

A key job of management in an organization is to figure out the organization's priorities, and then operationalize them. To turn them from great ideas or goals or aspirations into the lived experience of the people on your team and throughout the organization. Prioritization, process, hiring – you have lots of tools at your disposal to make things happen. The question to start asking for very clear answers on is: which things?

When it comes to great ideas and aspirations, the executives talking about going back to the office all want to talk about Serendipity. It's their one-word answer for why everyone needs to go back to living in their office pants. That intangible innovation engine of bumping into each other in the snack room. Striking up a conversation that leads to a collaboration that changes everything.

Our advice is: don't buy it. And if you're an executive, stop selling it. The research is, at best, mixed on whether offices can genuinely foster it at all. It's not that serendipity doesn't happen, or that it isn't magical when it does. It's that it's very hard to operationalize, and there are other things that need your attention right now.

Connection, alignment, cohesion, seeing each other as human beings. Those things matter, and, importantly, they are things you can act on. The need for those things is what's actually motivating a lot of the push to get back together in person. But sitting in the same office, on its own, won't be enough.

If your people don't have any structure for engaging, they won't get beyond politely waving. Not right now. And if your people have been working just fine from home for the past two years, well there is no faster path to activating collective rage on twitter. Particularly when their own boss is one of the people complaining about it.

We're not dunking on donuts

What does operationalizing look like in practice?

If human connection is a thing we're missing, sitting in zoom rooms at the office won't cut it. Zoom fatigue sucks, even with all our coping mechanisms.

Instead, start by asking which connections we're investing in – one to one, me and my team, our team and their team – and design from that place. If we're going to be in the office anyhow, that might be a joint problem solving session, or lunch on a patio. Get rid of the screens for a while, give people some structure for the conversation, and build ways for large groups to break into small groups. Everyone's cynicism shields will be up – don't ask your team to do things you won't do alongside them.

If alignment is a thing we need to invest in, the weekly team status calls aren't up to the task. It's too easy to do those on autopilot, and to tune out of the updates our colleagues give the moment we're done speaking.

Instead, start by asking where that alignment is needed, and design from that place. Are we out of alignment with the org as a whole, or with another team, or with each other? If we're going to be in the office anyhow, where is there an opportunity for us to have a shared experience? Shadow a sales call, or a user research session. Pull the CEO in for a refresher on what the hell we're all doing here. Go read three competitors' websites and run through their onboarding. Whatever focuses us on our shared sense of direction. And then come together afterwards to debrief as a group.

If the right people aren't coming into the office on the same day, that's a design problem we need you to tackle head on. If other meetings are interfering with the time investment we need here, that's a problem we need you to solve. If the meetings are going to be longer than an hour, we're going to need you to supply actual, real-life donuts.

We are not staunch back-to-office advocates. At all. And we don't need you to be either. But if you're cashing a management paycheque, your people need you to do some heavy lifting right now. Advocating up, about the needs of your team, and pushing back on unnecessary burdens, for sure. But also designing the time we have together, to make it worth coming in.

- Melissa and Johnathan