Truth 59. Trivial conversations are essential

There are those who will complain that cubicles are counterproductive because they give employees little privacy. They need the chance to lose themselves in thought. To process the ideas that came up in the morning’s meeting. To practice the new software uninterrupted. To call their mortgage broker. To check their bank account online. They don’t need to be overheard or snuck up on. (You know those little mirrors stuck to the frame of monitors throughout your company? Those aren’t vanity mirrors; they’re rearview mirrors. Who would have ever predicted that one day we’d be driving our desktops with the help of rearview mirrors?)

There are still others, though, who will tell you that there’s still too much isolation at work. Every single cubicle in the rabbit-warren of workspaces represents a lost opportunity to share ideas and spontaneous strokes of genius that will propel a project forward. We were trained as schoolchildren that there will be no talking. (Some children were better trained than others, of course.) And, since the classroom was basically our first workplace, we took our behaviors with us as we graduated from the world of laminated beech desk-and-chair combos all in a row and moved into the world of upholstered walls all in a row. The workday has begun; we must all be good children and be quiet now.

Sure, you may have formal meetings during which everyone is expected to deliver updates, reports, and analyses. But much of the real work gets done on-the-fly—in the hallways, by the elevators, in the lunchroom, by the photocopier while waiting for the guy to please come and unjam the blasted thing.

As the manager, you hear all this undisciplined yakking from outside your own workspace and get this maddening feeling that maybe your department is out of control. But you should welcome that happy chatter—even if it’s about such trivia as who won last night’s reality show sensation. More work is being done through sharing inconsequential chitchat than you might realize.

Essential data is being exchanged during these seeming wasted idle moments:

• Who can be trusted?

• Who can open doors and facilitate otherwise hard-to-get meetings?

• Who can evangelize your project to the right people?

• Who will lend a consoling ear in moments of panic or crisis?

• Who has the to-die-for PDA filled with personal phone numbers of essential people?

• Who can influence the leadership decisions?

• Who happily pitches in on last-minute crunch deadlines?

• Who sees the bright side of just about any kind of problem?

• Who will suck the light right out of the sky with negativism?

• Who is an electrifying brainstormer?

• Who do you need to hide your wallet from?

• Who can fix that damned copier?

If you were to actually listen in on those conversations, you may not actually hear the words copier, project, PDA, leadership. You may instead hear the words Emeril, can you believe?, sale, CNBC, Larry King, marinade, monster truck, immunity challenge. But don’t let that upset you or drive you to enforce a restriction on talking in the halls.

What you’re really listening to is a conversation about trust, creativity, teamwork, process, and progress.