Adam Grant Thinks Again
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No, You Don’t Have to Meet in Person

Video calls might be bad for creativity, but face-to-face meetings aren’t much better.

Adam Grant

Apr 30
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This week, researchers published a paper showing that people generated less creative ideas in video calls than in person meetings. Journalists gobbled it up: SCIENCE SAYS ZOOM IS BAD! Executives seized it as their latest excuse to drag everyone back to the office full-time: YOU CAN’T BE CREATIVE AT HOME!

Not so fast.

Two experiments spanning five countries did show that video calls reduced creativity. Staring at a screen narrows your field of vision and reduces divergent thinking. But…

1. For decision-making, the researchers found that video calls were just as good—and sometimes better—than meeting in person. If you’re making an important choice, you can skip the commute and hop on Zoom. That also gives you the benefit of multimodal communication: you can share ideas in the chat as well as out loud.

2. The researchers titled their paper “Virtual communication curbs creative idea generation,” but their data only show that video calls are worse than face-to-face meetings. They didn’t compare in-person interaction to any other forms of virtual communication. That was an unfortunate decision, because several decades of evidence reveal that when groups meet in person to brainstorm, they generate fewer ideas—and less creative ideas—than those same individuals working alone.

When people are together in the same room, both quality and quantity suffer. Plenty of voices get drowned out during verbal traffic jams (production blocking), some people bite their tongues on their most unconventional ideas (evaluation apprehension), and many people end up jumping on the bandwagon of the person with the most social and political capital (groupthink). The result is conformity instead of diversity of thought.

If you really want to maximize creativity, you should let everyone generate ideas independently, and then bring in the group to evaluate. It’s called brainwriting, and there are plenty of digital tools to facilitate it, from Miro to Candor.

3. It’s hard to argue with the energy of interacting in person. You don’t want that energy all the time, though. In groups, people generate an abundance of good ideas, but a shortage of great ideas. Working alone, people come up with more brilliant ideas—and more terrible ideas. It’s easy to fall in love with your own ideas, and in groups, you’re more vulnerable to overconfidence—especially if you’re in a position of power or status.

The best of both worlds is intermittent collaboration: alternating between individual idea generation and group idea evaluation. The most creative virtual teams aren’t in touch every hour or even every day. They divide and conquer on deep work and then come together for periods of burstiness, with messages flying back and forth.

In sum, your typical video call probably isn’t great for creativity. But the truth is that your usual face-to-face meetings aren’t very good for it either. It’s not where you interact that matters most—it’s how you interact. It’s not the technology you use that stifles original thinking—it’s the culture you build.

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8 Comments

  • Mitch Albom
    Writes Life at the Orphanage
    "It could have been an email" works as long as you read the emails!
    • 4d
  • Marilyn E. Jess
    "The typical video call isn't great for creativity" because, in my view, few managers know how to properly run a meeting, any meeting. Zoom has become about control--hours on Zoom many days of the week is what I hear that friends are forced to do. No w…
    See more
    • 2w
  • Top fan
    MichaelCaesar Lao
    This explains exactly what I feel at every work meeting, especially the groupthink.
    • 2w
  • Stephen Richmond
    I find that meeting in person is driven by managers who can't manage unless they are treated as the most important person in the room. They wish to be the center of attention where everyone hangs on their every word and laughs at all thier jokes. Th…
    See more
    • 1w
  • Marti Derow
    Now that you mention it I had this very experience on a recent new project. Our work group has been generating and developing ideas both on conference calls and offline. its been leading to much better ideation and has allowed for the five of us to gro…
    See more
    • 2w
  • Top fan
    Lisa Westbrook
    Thanks for Thinking Again on this topic. I disagree with any executive that thinks folks can't be creative at home. I'm a fan of intermittent collaboration for all the reasons you mentioned (and have been for years, while waiting for remote work to gai…
    See more
    • 1w
  • Fatima Ango
    There’s a lot of good contributions you get in the chats that you won’t get in physical meetings. And I like that the rules apply - if you want to speak, a raise of your hand and then you are given the go ahead. In physical meetings many people tend to…
    See more
    • 2w
  • Loredana Regep
    Thank you Adam Grant for speaking up and setting things straight. Respect!
    • 2w
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