On most days, Bill, a senior analyst, glided across the office sporting plaid button-downs tucked into comfortable khakis, armed with a laptop, a friendly wave, and a witty joke. He never turned down a conversation, always took extended lunches with coworkers, and then banged out a few hours of solid work. Speaking with him, I got the impression that his job was nothing more than a series of pleasant conversations and simple conclusions.
I was fooled.
My first month on the job, I was asked to do analyze the root causes behind poor customer experiences that caused high-dollar refunds. This involved talking with teams across the office: customer service, operations, sales, and finance.
Naturally, I sent out a slew of emails and set up a series of meetings over the next week. I felt important.
Then something interesting happened: nothing. Amidst a daily deluge of emails, my paragraph-long entreaties were unread. In 30-minute meetings, we spent the first 10 politely discussing context: Who are you? How long have you worked here? Why are you asking these questions?
Bill noticed me struggling. Everyone's calendars were full. No one knew me. People's guards were up.
I followed Bill as he sidled across the office to Andy in our operations team.
"Hey Andy," Bill drawled. "What's up man?"
As Andy peeled his eyes away from his computer, his eyes lit up. "Bill! How's it going? Haven't seen you in a while. I owe you a game of ping pong."
Bill and Andy vibed for a minute until Bill casually slipped into work mode. "Listen, this is Rohit. He just started here, and he has some questions about refunds." In a 5 minute chat, Andy gave me a full operational perspective of communication and process breakdowns, and pointed me to where I could find relevant data and case studies.
Bill quickly introduced me to more people, and within a few days I had more information and data to go on than in the previous three weeks.
The more I hung out with Bill, the more I realized that his office demeanor was an effective way of getting things done. Meetings were reduced to chats, emails to pings, and context to nothing: you're always willing to help Bill because he's a great guy. Feedback loops and cross-team communication were simple when Bill was on a project, because he's always down to vibe.
I've witnessed lots of hand-wringing and failed attempts at building open lanes of communication between teams, and preventing organizations from working in silos. They usually involve checklists that are never fully adopted and weekly standups attended by managers checking their phones. By the force of his personality, Bill has singlehandedly automated hours of painful communication efforts.