Podcasts History The Why Factor Why should we work together?

Why should we work together?

Published: July 8, 2019, 1 p.m.

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Open plan offices, hot-desking, group brainstorming sessions: collaboration seems to be king in the modern workplace. Recent studies have found that we are spending up to 80% of our working days either in meetings or dealing with requests from our colleagues. But is working together really the best way? Is the idea of collaboration something we\\u2019re fetishising at the cost of productivity and creativity, and have we lost sight of the benefits of working alone?

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far shares her own dislike of the BBC\\u2019s open-plan office and asks, in some desperation: why should we work together?

Guests:

Art Markman, professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of Bring Your Brain to Work\\nKerstin Sailer, reader in social and spatial networks, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London\\nSusan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking\\nJohn Maeda, global head of design at Automattic

Image: Workers in an open-plan office (Credit: Getty Images)

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