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175. How to Avoid Disasters When Returning to the Office, with Dr. Gleb Tsipursky

Oct 22, 2021

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Back on episode 111, I was joined by Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts discussing his book “Never Go With Your Gut.” When Gleb reached out to let me know that he has a new book on helping companies think through and prepare for returning to the office, including the cognitive biases that can impact this decision-making process for people in business, I knew I had to have him back for another conversation.

This specific topic is incredibly relevant right now, but there is also an incredible amount of insight Gleb provides about leadership’s collective cognitive biases that absolutely relate to other big strategic decisions as well. As you’ll hear in the conversation today, beyond his background knowledge of behavioral science and those concepts, Gleb interviewed and has done work with more than a dozen companies and helped them with their plans to return to the office. His insights can help you to learn from their mistakes and best practices as you work on your own plan. Whether you are looking to keep a fully remote workforce, have everyone back in the office, a hybrid approach, or if you aren’t sure yet, this episode is for you.

Show Notes:

[00:07] In today’s episode I’m delighted to have Dr. Gleb Tsipursky back with us to share about how to avoid disasters when returning to the office.
[01:45] His insights can help you to learn from their mistakes and best practices as you work on your own plan.
[03:40] Gleb shares about himself and his background. His background is in decision-making and risk management.
[06:02] Most recently he has been helping companies return to the office most effectively and prepare for the future of work.
[08:37] People are your main source of competitive advantage. What do your current people want? What do your potential hires want?
[10:34] If your people are your main source of competitive advantage, wouldn’t you think you would want to know what kind of things they want to do in returning to the office? It is their future after all.
[11:12] The surveys tell us that the future is very much hybrid: 85% of people in various surveys want a hybrid or full-time remote option.
[14:13] People report higher productivity as well as much higher happiness and well-being when they are working from home.
[16:08] There are a lot of advantages to having substantial remote work and disadvantages to forcing people back into the office.
[17:28] Your primary consideration should be your people. Then you can look at how many usages you are having of your location.
[20:14] Once you decide on occupancy, you can get rid of some of your unused space.
[21:25] You need to transform much of your existing space into a collaborative space.
[22:52] Status quo bias is one of the biggest problems here. The status quo bias refers to the fact that we prefer things to remain stable, as they were, and the right way.
[24:20] Never go with your gut (learn more about this in Gleb’s book of the same name, link below).
[26:21] Another related bias to this problem is anchoring. We tend to be anchored to the initial information that we have.
[28:08] Confirmation bias is one of the biggest problems that we have in terms of the information we gather.
[30:50] You want to make sure to plan for the possibilities of other variants down the road.
[32:26] You want to strategically adapt to the virtual format.
[35:38] Two dynamics for creating serendipitous conversions in virtual settings are innovation and collaboration.
[37:40] Companies need to have a channel for serendipitous idea generation for each team. Then other people see the comment and then they comment back and then that transforms into a really great conversation that you can take into brainstorming.
[39:48] Traditional brainstorming has a number of advantages and some problems.
[41:31] It helps to have virtual brainstorming instead. Virtual brainstorming involves people separately typing into a digital spreadsheet anonymously.
[43:30] This has been shown to greatly improve the number and quality of ideas generated.
[44:51] How can we make this something amazing versus something we are stuck with?
[46:42] When you are able to look at the opportunity, you are able to beat out your competitors.
[47:58] We can actually successfully work remotely. It is a fundamental transition in how we think and approach the world.
[49:18] You need to adopt best practices for hybrid and remote settings.
[50:52] Melina shares her closing thoughts.
[53:50] The important thing to keep in mind, much like Gleb’s advice for recreating serendipitous moments online or doing virtual brainstorming, is that you can’t allow yourself to be stuck by the constraints of how the benefit was generated before.
[55:41] Melina’s award-winning first book, What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You is available on Amazon, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, and Booktopia.

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