Walk and work
We now spend 9.3 hours a day sitting, on average. More than sleeping. Bad for our health – it’s hard to find time to exercise when you are sitting at your desk all day. Bad for our creativity – it’s hard to be innovative when you are always “in the box.” Why not experiment with a BOTH/AND rather than an EITHER/OR?
There’s a new fad called treadmill desks. They showed up on a recent NCIS-LA episode. Standing desks or convertible workstations that go up and down have been around for a few years. But there’s a new trend toward walking meetings. Why?
EXERCISE: Apparently, Sally Jewell the current Secretary of the Interior and former chief executive of REI recently had a walking meeting around the Rose Garden with the president’s chief of staff. Think about it. You don’t have to choose whether to meet with someone or get fresh air and exercise, you can do both!
COLLEGIALITY: And there’s something about walking side by side, rather than sitting opposite one another that lends a different sort of collegiality to a meeting. Maybe the ability to see more than one perspective, or to be more open. In The Awareness Paradigm, it’s only when Fletcher walks out to the parking lot with Julia after a meeting that he starts to reveal some of the personal motivation behind his advocacy.
CREATIVITY: Once you are out of the office and into a different environment, you stimulate different parts of your brain. You are literally “out of the box,” and are more likely to think that way.
Why not try scheduling several walking meetings a week? I even had a colleague that even scheduled running meetings. Now that will take a bit of practice!
Here’s a 3 minute TED talk by business innovator Nilofer Merchant with more on her experiences with walking meetings: