Chasing Productivity & Creativity in WFH

SPEAKERS
Paul Harvey, Frank Butler

Frank Butler  00:17
Hello busybodies, welcome to another episode of the Busyness Paradox. I'm Frank Butler here with Paul Harvey

Paul Harvey  00:22
Good day

Frank Butler  00:23
And on today's episode, we are going to discuss an article that came out of the Bloomberg business week on JP Morgan Chase. They had interviewed Jamie diamond. And something that really surprised me on this one was that they were saying that they're experiencing productivity declines with work from home. And that sort of was a little interesting, because we've seen a lot of examples of companies doing much better in terms of productivity, much happier employees. But in this particular context, what is what stood out to me was that the younger employees were actually struggling more. And I was just like, Whoa, like, What's going on here?

Paul Harvey  01:05
On Mondays and Fridays, apparently, in particular

Frank Butler  01:08
Right. I'm thinking partying at that point 

Paul Harvey  01:10
Exactly, no hangovers.

Frank Butler  01:13
But you know, it's very interesting to me, you know, with younger people, because they, the younger people, more likely had some sort of online education, you know, they've taken an online class, they've probably had some sort of online something or another, or their been conversing with friends online. So I was just sort of shocked about this. And I think that's something that's interesting to figure out is, why are we seeing this? And maybe think about what can be done during that context? Because I think you don't want to necessarily make everybody wholesale come back to the office. But at the same time, what can we do to you know, improve our work environment? For those that do want to work at home? For those that want to be on the...be in the office.

Paul Harvey  01:57
Yeah, you know, I think a good first step is to try to hypothesize a little bit on what's going on with these younger employees. Why them in particular, because like you said, this is the exact opposite of what you might expect to see a paradox, if you will, were the people who have grown up online, probably taking classes online, this should be their wheelhouse, right. And yet, this is not, not the first time we've seen at least some indication that older employees are in some ways handling an online transition in the workplace a little better. And, you know, I think you and I have seen it both at our respective universities to that, when we all went wholesale to online last spring, when the pandemic hit, a lot of students thought that was maybe a dream scenario, like I've got to dig up my glasses online, and a lot of them weren't so thrilled with it, you know, they, it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be in their minds. So I think that's a good starting point. Like, why are they finding this paradox? Why are they not functioning, as well as I'm sure they thought they would, in an environment that seems custom made for them?

Frank Butler  03:08
Right. And you know, what came to my mind is, okay, well, if they're younger employees, they're more likely newer employees, right. And they're probably new to the organization or newer to the organization, they haven't developed social networks inside the company, they're probably newer to the town, even in some cases, right? They, you got to figure if they've graduated college recently, or grad school, they, they're now making some money, they may be moved to a new area of town, because now they have a little extra money, so they can move out of Jersey or whatever, you know, just move to a nicer set of digs or something like that. And so they're in a new social environment, they're in a new work environment. And even if you're like, only in for a year or so, I mean, you're still developing relationships. And so I feel like that might be part of it is that interaction element of it and getting to know people and, and really colliding with the people you need to get to know to help you with your job, it's easy when you're in the office, you can turn to the person next to you or talk to your boss real quick, hey, I need to figure this out. But that communication, that channeling is a little different when we get to an online environment, or work from home environment.

Paul Harvey  04:18
Yeah, you know, you got to think that's a component of this, that the new employee, particularly a younger employee, whether most companies know it or not, there's a socialization process that they're engaging in with these new employees. Sometimes, where I used to work, big manufacturing company, it was a fairly formalized process where there'd be these arranged meetings and team building things and happy hours and such. Other times it just kind of happens naturally, where the Hey, let's go to lunch, new guy and get you up to speed on some stuff. But point is that all these different techniques that we usually rely on don't really work that well at the moment. So right, I gotta think you're right, that that explains at least part of it at your younger employees are not as acculturated into the workforce into the company, even if they're not brand new, like you said,

Frank Butler  05:13
Yeah, they're missing. They're missing that connection. Right? That that sort of aspect of those things that you like you pointed out that that lunch with the newcomers, right. I mean, I remember when I first started here at UTC, I mean, we would go out to lunch once a week, it was like Wednesday, they're like, go out to lunch with the group. And there was two reasons. For one, it was to be seen, obviously, sort of that and that FaceTime, political sort of aspect of it, it's like, Hey, you know, it's a good idea of VC. But at the same time, it was a great way to get to know your colleagues, because you're in a less formal environment. And, you know, it's a great way to just get to know people, and it's a... it's a nice piece of social connection. You know, for me being more introverted. It was like, just in not Fridays, like, I know, I'm, what, I want to go to the bar with that entire group, you know, I'm sure sometimes, but in general, no, I don't want to be around people that much. But during a lunch, it's great, because you get to know them. And, you know, they get to know you. And it's a great environment for that. But yet, you know, right now, pandemic error, it doesn't work that way, or if work from home becomes a more permanent fixture, that's not going to be something that we're going to see very often either, right. I mean, you're just so I think part of it is that we're gonna have to figure out how to create new programs that might replicate these types of things, write these sort of happy hours using zoom, or some sort of digital process, or maybe have some sort of, hey, we're going to come to your area for lunch, you know, or to a hotspot in that case, just invite a bunch of people come out to lunch, get people out of their houses, for starters, or their apartments, whatever. But I think the other element here is the Monday and Friday thing, right? Yeah. The Hangover and it will be the hangover. Right? They've got a party already starting Thursday night, whatever. No, but I you know, I think what's interesting about that you and I talked about this the other day, not on the podcast, but we were sort of conversing about this that. As we've gotten older, we've realized that just being ad hoc about stuff is not really as effective to get things done. Right, we realized that having some level of structure has been helpful, right? I mean, just having stuff on my calendar helps me check boxes much more readily than just sort of going Oh, yeah, I'll do it. You know, I'll get I know, I'll get to it. I've got this freedom of feeling like I'm not being confined by anything.

Paul Harvey  07:30
Yeah. Which we think we want. Most, a lot of us, you know, I want to be held down. I don't want to be all structured. But yeah, oftentimes, as you age, you realize, you know, the structure, it takes it away, just like you're not constantly worrying, is there something I'm forgetting, and helps you plan out your day? Yeah, there's something to it. Now, this is a little bit ironic, because, you know, as you know, the research on this pretty consistently shows that as you get older, you actually need less structure. On average, everyone's different, of course, so kinda, we have to counteracting forces here, as we get older, we tend to need less structure to be efficient, whatever. But at the same time, we become more aware, like you and I have done have the fact that we do need some structure. So we perceive a need for more structure, even as our actual psychological need for structure is sometimes going in the other direction. And so I think we see the opposite with younger adults that they assume they don't want any structure or not much structure until it gets taken away. Then they say, oh, Lord, I needed that structure. And I saw this, I don't know about you last, last spring, again, when our classes went online, we had a lot of students who said, you know, the hardest thing is just the complete lack of structure, like some classes were still scheduled to happen at certain times and certain days, but even that kind of got minimized a little bit. So they're basically they're living back at home or in their apartments or whatever. And their day is just completely wide open, and they just did not know what to do with themselves. And that's tough. Yeah. So you're right, we're seeing some of that. Yeah.

Frank Butler  09:09
Yeah, no, and I think, you know, that's, that's what it is, is I know, my students struggled with that lack of structure, even though a lot of them worked, right. And so they, they had very specific work schedules, based on their class schedules. And while I try to still provide them with structure saying, Hey, you know, I will be on line on zoom, here's the link during those same class times. So you can come on and ask questions, discuss any material, you know, I made some changes, but at the same time, I provided them with as much structure as I could and was very clear and I did make some changes like for myself, I would email them at the start of every week about what they needed to do that week about the times that we were meeting. So I tried to provide them with more structure to give them some level of certainty during that time, but I still think a lot of what a wall they got their stuff done but you know, going down that Line, I think we've got a word from our sponsor about structure. So let's hear what they have to say. {prolonged silence]

Frank Butler  10:33
Sorry about that, folks. Looks like we lost another sponsor, largely because of the HR tracking ad from our business episode. I'm not sure what Keanu Reeves would do at this point. But let's get back on topic. You know, at this point, what I found was very interesting is, you know, going back to talk about our college students during that band aid ripping of saying, Hey, you guys are shut down. Now you have to go online. Yeah, I think that's something that some of us come to naturally, like, you know, as you said, the research shows that on average, people actually could do better with some less structure like they get or they they're able to cope, I guess better with less as they get older. Yeah. But you know, I think some point, I mean, like, I know, for myself, I probably because of a certain level of procrastination me or what have you. I never did the structure thing, even though I probably would have benefited from it. Much more so. But I'm actually finding that more structure now. And it's still not a lot, right. I mean, I feel like I still loosely coupled in a sense in terms of my time. But I think that's the key, right, is that by creating some semblance of structure, actually, I create more time for myself

Paul Harvey  11:43
That's the perfect way of putting it. I hadn't thought about it exactly that way. But right, you find out you have so much more time, because you're not putting out fires, things that you forgot to do, or things that you put off till the last minute. Yeah.

Frank Butler  11:54
I find that if I just if I put it on my calendar, and I block it off, let's say, you know, I do, if I want to play, practice my guitar playing, which I'm awful, I'm just doing it for, you know, keeping that mind doing something different to help me with some stuff. If I put 30 minutes on the calendar, you know, three days a week, I'm going to do it during that time, you know, I've got it set up a little alarm kicks on, boom, go do it. But then I also then have my time now where writing, it's like, okay, here's your research block. So work on the research there. And if I'm doing class stuff, here's your class day. So like, typically, if I'm on a Tuesday, Thursday, schedule, my Wednesdays are always fully just class related, you know, grading, any prep, I'll do a little prep, obviously, before class on Tuesday, Thursday, but then Mondays and Fridays become more oriented toward research, you know, there's just a lot of things that I've done that actually end up meaning that I'm not pushing things off. And then also dealing with that, Oh, you've got to be doing something right now mentality, which I think becomes counterproductive. In a sense,

Paul Harvey  12:52
That's true. You're always worrying about, is there something I should be doing? I should be doing something? And right, you don't give your poor brain time to decompress and sort itself out? I wonder, are you familiar with a little bit of a tangential aside, but I think it's called the Eisenhower method of like structuring your time. I don't know, I don't know this. It is named after as a president of the US who

Frank Butler  13:20
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Paul Harvey  13:21
I believe...we'll see [laughter] Whoever came up with it, allegedly, they organized their time by putting everything into one of four boxes. So like things that are crucial, very important has to be done as soon as possible. Things that are important, but not so urgent, and then things that are urgent, but not terribly important. Try to think of an example of what that might be something that you know, you need to get done the next few days. But it's not like the world's not going to end a few if you don't. And then there's a fourth category of not important and not urgent stuff. And so the idea is that you're supposed to be working in that first box, the important and urgent. And then when that box is empty, you switch to one of the other two important and not urgent, not important and urgent. And the stuff in that fourth box is just kind of like when you've got some downtime, and you feel like doing something.

Frank Butler  14:17
So like painting the trim,

Paul Harvey  14:19
exactly, would fall exactly in that bin

Frank Butler  14:22
something I don't want to do at all [laughter]

Paul Harvey  14:26
I've been fiddling around with that. I tried it a few years ago. And then recently, I started using an app that's kind of based on that logic. And I find it for me that provides almost just the right amount of structure. You still have some leeway and you can put in deadlines or put on your link to your calendar and set times forward. If you want to do that for some things, not for other things, but it's helpful thing to say, okay, am I done for the day? Let's pull this up. Oh, yeah, it's gonna they're gonna do that and I look at it first thing in the morning. That kind of helps me sort of set the plan for the day. So, you know, I think there's a lot of stuff out there like this, that we can create our own structure pretty easily. But so many of us just didn't really have a need to do that. For most of our lives, you know, there was school, there was work, there was this there was that. So for a lot of people like this newfound freedom is not quite lack of structure.

Frank Butler  15:25
It's like an amoeba.

Paul Harvey  15:27
This nebulous, blobby, unstructured existence, you know, this, the onus has, has shifted to, to all of us to find, find our own structure, create our own structure and figure out by doing so how much do we need, and what kind of structure helps so it's a bit of a, it's a learning curve that you can either go through and hopefully find something that works for you, or not, and just meander into a depressed, chaotic state. And I think that's kind of what we're seeing a lot of.

Frank Butler  16:00
Yeah, you know, and I think that's interesting. So, you know, you're talking about the app that you're using, that helps you for me, I use the calendar app built into the iPhone, and I use the reminders to do the to do list. Because you know, that syncs obviously, across my devices, as I'm sure the app does for you, you know, across the iPad and such. But I, you know, I think that's the thing, right? is, there's a plethora of tools out there, knowing which ones are going to work for you. That's why you try multiple tools. And maybe that's something that, you know, going back to this example of JP Morgan, you know, maybe not just JP Morgan, right, I think, in general, maybe it's something companies might want to do is think more about how do we create structure for our employees, when they're off site, you know, when they're doing a work from home, in probably more about trying to help improve their quality of life and thinking about it from that perspective, versus just saying, Hey, we want to make sure they're productive know, how about we make sure they're productive by improving their quality of life, by helping them with structure? I think, to me, this goes back to this notion of uncertainty. I think uncertainty is really hard on people in general, I think very few people cope with uncertainty very well. I know I intentionally built uncertainty into my class, you know, I'll intentionally change deadlines on things or requirements for something. And I know, it creates a little chaos. And I do that intentionally. And largely, because that's how the real world kind of is right? You know, there's a lot of lack of structure or lack of the known and, and so I try to get them to think about that, after I've done these little events, and have them reflect back on how well did you cope with that? And what do you think would help you cope with it better if this were to happen again, and I try to encourage them to think about tools that they could use, you know, whether it's going and seeing a counselor just to help them talk stuff out, or, or maybe working on how they react to things and count to 10, whatever I don't, you know, I'm open to having them find the solutions for themselves,

Paul Harvey  18:07
Which they kind of have to do, which makes it challenging to do what you're saying, you know, agree, companies probably would benefit from helping employees do this. But the trap that so easy to fall into is creating a one size fits all program or strategy and just dumping all your on all the employees, you know, work for some, not for others?

Frank Butler  18:30
Well, I think that's why you can't be super specific, right? I think you go out there and say, Hey, here's the different types of way people work. I mean, I think there's probably some sort of assessments out there. I know, there's like a learning assessment of how do you learn best? Is it visually? Is it you know, through reading largely debunked mostly, but yeah, yeah, it's, I think there's still something I know that I know, I'm more of a visual learner, right? Like I do much better. If I see somebody do it, I can replicate it from there, and then build from that. Right. So

Paul Harvey  19:01
But it probably depends on the task a little bit too. And I think that's where the problem is, it's like, you're a visual learner in some circumstances, but right.

Frank Butler  19:08
Right, exactly. No, but you know, to that point, it's like, you know, for example, in stats, they kept trying to teach me stats from working from the formula up to the results. And actually, I learned better from understanding the results and working out even get me started. Because if I understand what this is, then I can understand what the base is, you know, but they kept trying to slim that down my throat the other way. I'm like, I don't get it that way. But you know, that's just me and teach me how to use SPSS by showing me how to do the steps,

Paul Harvey  19:35
Put it in a real context, that makes sense, and then walk you through the steps, as opposed to doing everything in the abstract. Well, right. It's weird, because that is like a lot of structure. step one, step two, step three, step four, but there's no explanation, I think, half the time, but stats, algebra, whatever. Teachers don't understand why you're actually doing what you're doing. Why do you do this? Because that's how you do it. That's how you get the answer. What is the answer, right, the answer is x equals two only seven like, what is this telling me?

Frank Butler  20:02
That's...I think that's it right. And I think that's maybe a challenge in general that that's why some people don't connect with it, or, you know, you hear about, oh, you know, I don't need math, because it's never gonna know that's not true, you definitely need math, I don't care what you're doing, it helps. But needless to say, I think I think that's why you can't go with a one size fits all approach and say, okay, use this app or do it this way, but much more of saying, hey, here are the options out there. And it's, we're going to allow you to go through and test different ones. And we'll help you through that process. I think that's maybe something that going down that idea of discussing HR is thinking about what HR needs to do is, is become more of a, you know, I think I think we're gonna we've talked about this, and we'll continue to talk about this is that HR probably needs to become more of a development sort of independent organization in the organization, in a sense, to really represent and help the people and resource services like that

Paul Harvey  21:01
A resource for human beings, if you will.

Frank Butler  21:05
Oh, my God, holy. My mind just blew human resources, right? Imagine that would but no, truthfully, though, you know, that that would make so much sense as to be like, Okay, we've got to adapt and evolve. And in this case, we need to help people find what mechanism works best for them, to create structure. And in this particular context, if you know, Fridays, and Mondays are going to be a struggle day. How about we create programming around that that's going to engage them and have them be productive? Because here's my question is, what do they really want? Well, here's what I'd really like to know is what are they really assessing as productivity? And that's a good question. You know, I would really like to know what JP Morgan is assessing as productivity? Is it? Is it that time that they're online, logged into the systems? Is it on the trades they're doing? You know, I would like to know more about that, to see where the challenges are? 

Paul Harvey  22:04
Yeah, we got to dig into that a little bit, because that's a really good question. You know, these aren't people that are producing widgets, and you know, they produce more widgets on Tuesdays than Mondays like, this is a blank, you know, so much this is, so much of the work is difficult to quantify, how are they quantifying it?

Frank Butler  22:19
Yeah, and that's it, right? And so here's something that the spokesman from JP Morgan, Michael Fusco said, He's like employees in general, not just younger employees actually declined. But he said that younger workers, quote, could be disadvantaged by missing learning opportunities, unquote, by not being in offices that comes from Bloomberg. That's interesting, right, is that they're missing on learning opportunities. I think that's true in general, right, I think, like, for my belief, is that asynchronous learning online learning, I don't particularly love teaching online, I don't mind it, but it's not one of my favorite pastimes, I do think it's important to be able to do that, because you want to be able to be flexible and provide access. But I do truly think that by being online, there is a loss of I guess that that knowledge transfer, even if I were to do synchronous, I don't think it's the same as being in that face to face environment. Can we recreate that face to face environment technologies, allowing that I think we can get a lot better at it. I think it's much better now. Because you know, things like zoom have become so effective, everybody having broadband, and so on. We can have more real time conversations and raising hands and doing all those things that you could do face to face. But in general, there's still something about being in a room and hashing things out. But I think you and I have found out too, that we can brainstorm just as well doing this, then, you know, being face to face, you're in New Hampshire, I'm down here in Tennessee, we kick around a lot of ideas, you know, and I think what's helped is that the visual end of it, right? We're not doing it on the phone, we're using zoom, we're creating structure around it. And we're just doing it and we're doing this right now. Like we're having these conversations trying to figure out how can we 1500 miles apart.

Paul Harvey  24:11
And it's as if we're in the same room. So cut very close approximation of it's not the same as being in the same room. But it's pretty darn close in some ways. And you could argue that there are probably some aspects of this kind of remote work and many kinds of remote work that do have some advantages over being face to face. Like everything. There are tradeoffs involved. And you're seeing this with JP Morgan, and that flex and some of the other examples that we've looked at where it's working quite well for some companies, not at all for other companies, somewhere in the middle for most and a lot of that has to do with you know, what kind of company is it? What are they? What are their employees doing and how amenable is the structure of remote work to whatever that is, again, no completely consistent, across-the-board problems here. So there's not going to be any completely consistent one size fits all solutions to them.

Frank Butler  25:07
Right. Right. And, you know, I think going down that, to thinking about this notion of, we do have to still learn how to best get sort of the on campus or in office replication. You know, one of the things that stood out for me too, in this article was about this notion of the creative combustion. Now, that was not out of Jamie diamond, per se, but it was certainly from an analyst, Keefe, bruyette and woods, who said that the work from home lifestyle had an overall productivity and creative combustion has taken and that creative combustion was interesting. And in here, too, it's said that, overall, Jamie, as Jamie diamond, thinks a shift back to the office will be good for the young employees, and to foster creative ideas. Now, again, that was interesting to me, considering one, they're a bank and investment bank, what kind of creativity are they trying to pull out of their employees. But secondly, you're still gonna have to figure out how to do this anyway, you're still going to want to have to create a sense of creativity, in this sort of dispersed environment. And for me, it's not just work from home, right? In general, great ideas don't have to be formulated in office, because you're gonna have people in Germany or in England or in California, and you know, you're here in somebody's in Florida. That's the beauty of being able to take that diverse knowledge and be able to put together and we're doing that. So I don't think it's necessarily always about being on campus. But how do we replicate some of those ideas? You know, especially when we talk about things like collision space?

Paul Harvey  26:53
I'll jump in and play devil's advocate for a second, because why the hell not? I there's a lot of truth to what you're saying there. But I think there are some, particularly when you're talking about creativity and idea generation, that I'm not sure can be replicated without, at least between certain people doing certain things that can be replicated without being in the same space. And I'm thinking of a couple of the best, in my opinion, research ideas that you and I have come up with together. You know, that one trip from Montreal to New Hampshire, five or six hours God song with no backseat smelling like gasoline?

Frank Butler  27:35
You actually Yeah, you got to pull out that backseat, because you spilled gas, gasoline on the backseat. 

Paul Harvey  27:40
But that's another story for another time. But yeah, I don't think those ideas would have happened if we hadn't been in that bizarre, close quarters situation.

Frank Butler  27:51
Do you not do not think that you know, some of it would have? Well, you're right, because we were actually in motion, though, right? Because we were actually driving D and things saw someone's like, oh, that place is totally haunted. And then we started joking about the idea. And they were like, holy crap, that's an idea.

Paul Harvey  28:04
Sneak preview of our Halloween episode, by the way. Oh, yeah.

Frank Butler  28:09
Yes. But you know, kind of kind of think about the time we've spent on zoom, though, kind of planning for the podcast, has also led to some really interesting rabbit holes and creative ideas. And I guess we could say, right that ideation is because you got to think about, it's like, we've actually come up with some research ideas that, you know, if you're a doctoral student looking for a research project, feel free to reach out to us. We need people to help out because, you know, we're stretched thin. And that was it. But truthfully, you know, we've come up with some really interesting ideas that I think in today's context, or just in general say, hey, these are not real, these things haven't really been explored. Yeah. What can we do to rewrite it to unlock that? Now? Is it as creative or as interesting to us maybe as the, you know, as our trip from Montreal?

Paul Harvey  29:04
It's very subjective

Frank Butler  29:05
Who knows, I think it's subjective, right? for us. I think we like that, because that was something that was so far out of left field, but at the same time, I think that there's other ways of getting to that. And I think it's that idea of having maybe structured unstructured meanings, right? And that paradox in its own right, right, we're gonna have a structured time to have these meetings, we're going to create it as an opportunity to just have a talk about something but let's just see what goes over a certain amount.

Paul Harvey  29:33
I see what you're saying from that. So in a sense, you're kind of recreating the loss structure, but also kind of capitalizing on the fact that it's not the same level of structure. So like, we're going to have less structure this way. That's just how it's going to be. But we may as well harness that to get some better brainstorming better idea generation going on because you having less structure is helpful for that anyway, and we're stuck with less structure. So Hey, make something up. And I think the larger point is, you know, don't force structure just because it used to be there. And now it isn't like people need a certain level of structure. Right. But don't overdo it trying to get all the way back to the level structure we had doing artificial things to make meetings more structured in ways they don't need to be.

Frank Butler  30:19
Right. And I think that's it right, I think we can start using that as a foundation to build from to determine how we do some of that. And to me, I think that that's a really interesting aspect of it is that notion of structured by unstructured. And I think having just time and I, you know, going back to talking about the busyness paradox, right, people were pretending or fainting busyness is something that you and I were just discussing, like, man, how can people just do this? Well, what's interesting about that is that this actually can harness some of that time. And you can be really effective at using it without making people feel busy either, because I don't think if they're just having conversations about stuff, can you give them a theme here, just think about this. Yeah. Or, you know, listen to this, and then think about what that reflects do so like, if somebody who's listening to our podcast, and they're working in a company go, Hey, you know what, this is great? Well, maybe we need to consider something like that, let's put together a little work team, use maybe breakout rooms or something like that. Take a couple hours. 

Paul Harvey  31:19
And just because you're doing that, instead of cranking a spreadsheet for the 12,000th time just to look like you're doing something,

Frank Butler  31:27
Right, or you know, or not actually doing anything that you might necessarily feel is productive, either. You know, I feel like when you're having these conversations, and you're actually able to get those wheels going, there's some sense of, you know, productivity feeling when you get to something Oh, man, this is pretty good. You know, even if it doesn't get selected, it's still like, Hey, this is still pretty good.

Paul Harvey  31:49
You're harnessing the upside to less structure to have those creative moments and the self-reinforcing nature of that while still providing enough structure. So employees don't fly off the rails. Yeah, to figure that out, everyone, go do that. And your company's problem solved, what world problem should be solved next. But actually, that does bring up another question. A, an add on sort of issue here is how much time and effort should companies be putting into this right now, like, we don't know how long this is going to last with the pandemic situation. That is we don't quite know what level of normal we're going to go back to, at least in most companies, a lot of them out there are talking about retaining some of this working from home aspect, maybe one day a week, or however, they might do it. So, you know, we could spend a lot of time as members of a company's leadership, figuring out how we're going to do all this stuff, how we're going to enculturate, the young new employees, how are we going to find a new balance with creating some structure but trying to capitalize and get more brainstorming? Lots of hours could be spent on this. But maybe this whole thing just kind of blows over and a few months? And I think that's an issue that a lot of companies are dealing with, you know, how much time money and effort do we want to spend reinventing the workplace for what we hope is going to be a relatively temporary situation?

Frank Butler  33:20
Well, if you guys have any ideas or like to share, please reach out to us and let us know. We appreciate you listening to another episode of the Busyness Paradox. Until next time.

Paul Harvey  33:31
The Busyness Paradox is distributed by Paul Harvey and Frank Butler. Theme music is adapted from its business time by Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie. Our production manager is Justin Wuntaek. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and we'd love to hear from you. Please send questions, comments or ideas for future episode topics to input at Busyness. paradox.com, or find us on Twitter. Also, be sure to visit our website Busyness Paradox. com to read our blog posts, and for links to the articles and other resources mentioned in today's show. Finally, please take a moment to rate and subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Spotify, I Heart Radio, Google podcasts or wherever you found this episode.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai