Around The (overflowing) Water Cooler — No. 1

It’s a Water Cooler takeover. I’m out of the office—I’m leaving you with links that caught my attention over the last weeks. See you in two weeks.

Around The Water Cooler ⛲

No quote needed. Just read this one. Realising we’re all made-up characters in a story world helps me understand people by Will Storr

But what's going to happen to those hours? Will organizations let people use them? Or will they fill them with more meetings, more dashboards, more status updates about the status updates? Permission to Move by Clay Parker Jones

Bots have no rights. The people so desperate to replace their people with bots know that — it’s the central point of the charlatan sell. Calling it management is an insult and a threat — not just to your managers, but to every human in your organization. Nonsense Masquerading as Insight by Raw Signal

Is there something you can do right now that would impede progress, degrade quality or simply mess up the current situation? 
Is there a way you could shift perceptions to make people more distraught, less hopeful or even panicked? 
If it’s so easy to accomplish worse, why do we persist in believing we don’t have the power to make things better? Can You Make It Worse? by Seth

“If we are to advance,” he wrote, “we must emerge as a distinctive personality. We must develop our own philosophy.” That line still cuts because most companies do the opposite. To Stand for Something by Paul Jun

Is there a more contemporary urban form than the urgent care facility? How did the entire world come to look like this nonplace, flimsy and artificial and built unsuccessfully to stave off emergency? Why Is Everything So Ugly? 

The "arithmocracy", Rory Sutherland's term for organizations where the only legitimate language is numbers, has ruined marketing. Data Is Killing Your Marketing by Thomas Sloan (Yes, this one is about marketing, but I’m betting you see a similar story in your domain.)

Questioning, asking the sharp original questions that machines can't. Taste, knowing what's good when everything is possible. Iteration, improving your work version after version. Composition, assembling pieces into something meaningful. Allocation, orchestrating humans and machines toward a clear goal. Integrity, choosing what's right when everything around you is moving fast. The 6 Skills AI Will Never Replace by Daniel Pink

When we make mistakes, the focus is almost always: What did I do wrong? But rarely: What was I up against? Mistakes don’t happen in a vacuum. They happen inside systems, circumstances, and conditions that weren’t all in your control. This is context, not an excuse. And context is part of the data too. How to Stop Mistakes From Becoming Your Identity by Dr Pooja Lakshmin

We can own our agency and our choices, not announce (to ourselves or the world) that we’re trapped in a container, unable to escape.
 Until we start saying, “I’m in a joy” perhaps we should find the grace to choose what sort of verb we’d prefer. The Hats by Seth

Instrumentalization: when we do an activity not for its own end, but because it’s “good” for us The six-second hug by Julian Baggini

One thing I’ve noticed (and experienced firsthand) is that when change agents advocate for a better way of working, there’s a moment that feels extremely unfair. The burden of proof is all on you. You’re tiptoeing through nonviolent communication, channeling your utmost curiosity, trying to connect, trying to not rock the boat, and still somehow ending up in the position of having to prove that what you’re seeing and feeling is even real. Suddenly, you’re on the witness stand. In That Space Is Our Power by John Cutler

“Creative Responsibility”—the weight we carry as makers for how others inhabit the world. High on Creative Responsibility by Les Jacobs

Most of us would like to live with wonder, grace and optimism.
 Perhaps it pays to practice this in advance. When considering any given moment, is there a glimmer of good worth focusing on, even making a comment about?
 Our narrative of reality often becomes our reality. Rehearsing Possibility by Seth

Thanks for reading. Hit reply and let me know your thoughts.

How To Work is healthcare-focused work design inspiration (from the experts!) to nudge your perspectives and practices into better alignment with the world of work as it is, and away from what it was. Here’s my take on what we’re working through.