Zooming In… Zooming Out
Musing on meeting new colleagues in person for the first time.
I wonder what I’ll learn about my new colleagues when we meet in person? I wonder how team dynamics will change when the whole team is together? I wonder what we will miss from our online experiences?
Like me, millions of people have started new roles during the pandemic lock down and have never met their colleagues in 3D. Seven months ago, I began a new role at Knight-Hennessy Scholars at Stanford, and all of my interactions with the team have been on online.We are “face-to-face” on Zoom each day, but have never been in the same room together. As we move closer to going back to the office, my mind is swimming with questions.
I know how to work with my new colleagues remotely, and am in the dark about how we will work together in person.
Working in person with this team for the first time will require me to learn a new language, or at least a new dialect, of interaction. Below are some questions that I’m asking before we begin in-person work. Some are simple, tactical questions about lunch schedules and dress codes, while others are much more nuanced, related to how we engage at a much deeper level.
