WFH is making conversations real. Here is why it matters to business.

In an innovation economy, real conversations lead to curiosity, which leads to stronger collaboration, and improves the chances of real innovation.

Many things have emerged from the WFH situation. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the yet unlabelled. Among them, one small pattern of culture is also emerging and could have huge implications in future - people have normalised being their natural selves, rather than following the template of the 'Perfect Professional Prototype'. I believe this is good for work and business in the long run. Here’s my point of view on it.

As we find ourselves working from home for over a year and a half now, the dilution of the 'Perfect Professional Prototype' is happening in interesting and often humorous ways. Children walking into calls, dogs barking up just when a meeting attendee unmutes their call, and delivery folks repeatedly calling, interrupting a review meeting.

But since this is everyone's normal, we started accepting that the entire human being comes to work. Not a reduced, polished ‘I am doing great' version of themselves. As a result, people started having real conversations. No more the meaningless cycle of ‘How are you - I am fine'.  Saying 'I am not really great today...' has become okay, and often leads to the next real question.

Recently, I had a meeting (online) with someone for the first time. Usually, it would have been a polite formal call with both of us focused mostly on the agenda. Instead, rather naturally, she started telling me about how she gets hyper-caffeinated by the end of the day. I have such days too, so I raised my coffee mug in response. Turns out, we have a lot in common other than just the agenda we were meant to pursue.

In opening up to each other, we changed the tone of the whole discussion. We could then easily talk about potentially problematic stuff without walking on eggshells. Thanks to the nature of the conversation, I now believe that we could grow into strong collaborators and do some cool stuff together.

Pre-covid, this organic connection might not have happened. Or at least would have taken a lot longer. Because we are conditioned to not show our vulnerabilities, and thereby never bring our full selves. Especially at work.

Now we are shedding that armour. We have looked for and found genuine connections, we have shared our worries with each other, found compassion in ourselves and in others. There's more genuine empathy, more sincerity in our dialogue.

This helps work. This helps business.

People's natural curiosities and their ability to work with each other as a group, have driven discoveries, inventions and started great enterprises. To create real value with each other, we need to have meaningful conversations. Else it is, as Scott Adams has shown us, just Dilbert's drudgery. Many of us may have been 'driven' by the pandemic to connect more sincerely at work. More gets done, trust is built, and we don't lose empathy to achieve performance.

Business is built by humans, not templates. Especially in a creator’s economy. Unless a business is simply driving a production-focused priority, and most aren't, they need people to continuously improve, innovate, and find new value. The more authentic we stay; our natural curiosity and real conversations will move things forward faster and more easily. It is, simply speaking, a more natural efficiency that we'd be smart to invest in.