Hold office hours

Need to focus? This surprising strategy can minimize interruptions.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip comes from Lindsay Pollock, who's an expert on
generations in the workplace. Her new book The Remix looks
at how smart managers work with diverse teams. One productivity strategy,

(00:25):
she suggests hold office hours. You might remember this idea
from college. Many universities require professors to hold office hours.
The professor hangs out in his or her office, ideally
with the door open. Students can come to ask questions
or discuss topics during this time. Sometimes professors grumble about this,

(00:47):
but there's an upside, even for people who would prefer
to spend all their time in the books or in
the lab. When students know there's a time they're completely
free to come visit, they may be less likely to
stop by at times when the professor would prefer they
not visit. Scheduled availability allows for other periods of focus.

(01:08):
Polic suggests bringing the same practice into the corporate world.
In fact, it's probably even a better idea in the
corporate world than at universities. Wise managers realize that everyone
craves feedback and often just attention in general from their bosses. Ideally,
you'd be able to give feedback and attention every day
to everyone who works for you. Unfortunately, in the real world,

(01:30):
people sometimes find themselves in charge of groups that are
large enough that daily individual feedback would leave zero time
for anything else. So here's what Polic suggests. If you
lead too large a team for ongoing individual feedback to
be realistic, she writes, then consider offering regular office hours
during which anyone can schedule an appointment or just pop

(01:51):
into talk in person or via phone, Skype, text, instant messenger,
or any other medium. She notes that one of my clients,
a millennial I t R, offers office hours to his
intergenerational team from eight am to nine am every weekday morning.
If no one shows up, he uses the time to
catch up on his own work, and if any of

(02:11):
his direct reports want to talk about a non urgent
business issue at any other time of the day, he
feels no guilt reminding them exactly when he is available
for feedback and career related conversations. I think this is
a great idea. One of the most common questions I'm
asked is about how to handle distractions in the office.
I ask follow up questions to figure out what those

(02:32):
distractions entail, and people often mentioned colleagues stopping by to chat.
I recognize this can be annoying if your colleague wants
to come talk about that crazy thing that happened with
his house renovation and you're on deadline. But here's the thing.
Once you're in management, interruptions from the people who report
to you aren't exactly distractions. In many cases, they are

(02:55):
the core of your job. You want people to trust
you so they take critical feedback and follow in the
direction you lead. You want them to want to do
their best work for you, and people only want to
do their best work for people who seem genuinely interested
in them. While a professor could get away with having

(03:16):
office hours on just Thursday afternoons, if you make people
wait a week to see their managers, they're not going
to be happy about it. So the hour a day
idea that Pollock suggests works, well, maybe it's eight to
nine am, like the I t leaders she spoke with,
or maybe it's one to two after lunch or four
to five at the end of the day. Figure out
what feels right for you and even if you're not

(03:38):
in management, you might figure out ways to indicate that
now is a good time for drop by chats and
other times are not so good. Some people do this,
whether intentionally or not, by putting headphones in. Blocking your
ears raises the bar for interruptions. Though to make this work,
you need times when your headphones aren't in two Otherwise

(03:58):
people won't honor the signal and they'll be annoyed as well.
Some teams decide to create quiet hours and then also
collaborative hours so everyone can get both kinds of work done.
Some offices create the equivalent of the quiet car on
the train, a conference room with a library like atmosphere.
If someone's in there, you don't bother them except in

(04:19):
an emergency if they come out fair game, or you
could think creatively. Productivity pro Laura Stack once suggested that
open plan offices that pride themselves on their whimsy could
use thinking caps, some sort of wacky hat. When you
wear it, you don't want to be interrupted. When you're

(04:40):
not wearing the thinking cap, all is good. In any case,
Creating time when visits are welcome helps create time when
people might be more likely to give you space being
productive requires a bit of both. How do you balance
interaction with focused work. I'd love to hear about it.
You can email me at Before Breakfast podcast at i

(05:02):
heeart media dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening and here's to making the most of
our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.

(05:22):
Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Before Breakfast pod that's B the number four, then Breakfast
p o D. You can also shoot me an email
at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com.
That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.

(05:49):
Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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