Why the best perk for a team is protected time to think

Years ago, a colleague of mine was being courted hard by a tech startup. In the middle of their pitch about their playful office digs, my friend interrupted: "I don't care about your ping pong table!"

To him, a good working environment was more than the fun amenities filling the physical space. Space in all its forms mattered, including the time and space to get into the actual work.

Years after the pandemic, many organizations are still trying to crack the code on the ideal setup for high-performing teams. Remote? In person? Hybrid? Ron Friedman's research, written up in Harvard Business Review, suggests it's less about where the team sits and more about whether people get protected time to focus. Out of all the office perks he studied, the one tied to better team performance was a quiet place to do focused work.

But what about collaboration?!

Believe it or not, Friedman points out that "effective collaboration requires more than constant togetherness." Teams need time together to discuss ideas, coordinate and make decisions. But they also need individuals who can think critically, solve problems and carry out those decisions, and that takes uninterrupted concentration.

To my earlier story, I'm not knocking ping pong. I actually worked at an office where table tennis was very much an intermediary between departments. Plenty of creative ideas flowed from the minds and mouths of people in the middle of an intense game. But those ideas need time for experimentation and execution before they come back to the team for collaboration. The only amenity that allows for that is space.