60 Business The Economist March 19th 2022
T
he familiarexerts a powerful sub
liminal appeal. The “nameletter
effect” refers to the subconscious bias
that people have for the letters in their
own name, and for their own initials in
particular. They are more likely to choose
careers, partners and brands that start
with their initials (Joe becomes a joiner,
marries Judy and loves Jaffa cakes). A
related bias, the “welltravelledroad
effect”, describes the tendency of people
to ascribe shorter travelling times to
familiar routes than is actually the case.
A bias towards the familiar shows up
at work, too. One such prejudice is about
what exactly constitutes work. Being at a
desk counts as work, as does looking at a
screen above a certain size. Responding
to email and being in a meeting are
indubitably forms of work. So is any
activity that might elicit sympathy if
performed on the weekend—typing,
taking a phone call from the boss, open
ing any type of spreadsheet.
This prejudice helps to explain wor
ries about “proximity bias”, the risk that
whitecollar employees who spend lots
of time in the office are more likely to
advance than remote workers who are
less visible. That is because being inside
an office building is itself something that
counts as work. Prepandemic research
showed that “passive facetime”—the
mere fact of being seen at your desk,
without even interacting with anyone—
led observers to think of people as de
pendable and committed.
But these familiar forms of work can
deceive, for two reasons. The first is that
what looks like a Stakhanovite effort may
be no such thing. Keyboardtappers may
just be updating their LinkedIn profiles.
Attendees at a meeting are often present
in body but not in spirit. Even when
actual work is being done, it may not bethe most productive use of people’s time.
The second is that things that look like
the opposite of work—loafing about, to
use the technical term—can be very useful
indeed. Take daydreaming. In most work
places, staring into space for hours on end
is frowned upon; security guards and
models can get away with it, but few oth
ers. Yet letting the mind wander is not
simply part of being human; it can also be
a source of creativity, a way to unlock
solutions to thorny problems.
Albert Einstein’s breakthrough mo
ments often came via thought experi
ments in which he let his imagination
drift. What would it be like to travel as fast
as a light beam? What happens if double
lightning strikes are observed from differ
ent perspectives? Einstein is admittedly a
pretty high bar, but zoning out can help
mere mortals, too. Research published in
2021 found that tricky workrelated pro
blems sparked more daydreaming among
professional employees, and that this
daydreaming in turn boosted creativity.
In similar vein, going for a walk is not
just a break from work, but can be a formof it. An experiment from 2014 asked
participants to think of creative uses for
a common object (a button, say) while
sitting down and while walking. Peram
bulation was associated with big in
creases in creativity. Being outside gen
erally seems to improve lateral thinking.
In another study, hikers who had been
yomping away in the wilderness did
much better on a problemsolving task
than those who had yet to set off.
Loafing has clear limits. If you miss a
deadline because you were staring soul
fully out of the window, you still missed
a deadline. Not every problem requires a
backpack and a journey into the country
side. If you don’t much like your work in
the first place, you are likely to daydream
about other things.
But time to muse is valuable in virtu
ally every role. To take one example,
customerservice representatives can be
good sources of ideas on how to improve
a company’s products, but they are often
rated on how well they adhere to a sched
ule of fielding calls. Reflection is not part
of the routine.
The postpandemic rethink of work is
focused on “when” and “where” ques
tions. Firms are experimenting with
fourday workweeks as a way to improve
retention and avoid burnout. Asynchro
nous working is a way for individuals to
collaborate at times that suit them. Lots
of thought is going into how to make a
success of hybrid work.
The “what is work” question gets
much less attention. The bias towards
familiar forms of activity is deeply en
trenched. But if you see a colleague
meandering through the park or examin
ing the ceiling for hours, don’t assume
that work isn’t being done. What looks
like idleness may be the very moment
when serendipity strikes.Daydreaming, promenading and zoning out all pay rich dividendsBartlebyLoafing can be work
mann, who grew up in an Israeli kibbutz,
once claimed that the elusive Middle East
peace treaty would be signed at a WeWork
venue. His company’s ipo prospectus
promised not merely to offer convenient
coworking space but, apparently without
irony, to “elevate the world’s conscious
ness”. Portrayed masterfully by Jared Leto
and Anne Hathaway, the onscreen Neu
manns are, like many startup founders
only more so, both intoxicating and pain
ful to watch. It is suddenly easy to under
stand why so many investors felt at once
besotted and uncomfortable around them.Mr Neumann’s knack for distorting re
ality—most notably by dressing up a loss
making officerental firm as a successful
tech giant—is a trait common to many suc
cessful founders. It is not the whole story,
however. “WeCrashed” also depicts how
the reality of Silicon Valley distorted him
and his firm. In one scene Son Masayoshi,
the messianic boss of SoftBank, a free
spending Japanese techinvestment group
that poured billions into WeWork, tells Mr
Neumann, “You’re not crazy enough.” A
string of other prominent venture capital
ists likewise encouraged the company toaim for the stars. So it did.
Colourful characters aside, WeWork’s
rise and fall makes for compelling tvbe
cause it follows the dramatic arc of a Greek
tragedy: a protagonist grossly overesti
mates his abilities; his hubris is punished;
order is restored. Except in this case, the
punishment is meted out not by mercurial
gods but by Mr Neumann’s increasingly
impatient vc backers and the public mar
kets, whose scrutiny of his firm’s value
torching business model undid the ipo. As
such, “WeCrashed” also traces the arcof
capitalism’s capacity for selfcorrection.n