The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant

What the Return-to-Office Debate Gets Wrong

In this episode of The Curiosity Shop, Brené Brown and Adam Grant dive into the return‑to‑office debate and argue that most conversations are stuck at the wrong level. Instead of asking “How many days in the office?”, they ask, “What problem are you actually trying to solve?” They explore evidence on hybrid work, weak‑tie innovation, culture and belonging, and why some leaders still cling to “butts in seats” as a proxy for performance. Along the way, they introduce a systems‑thinking “iceberg” tool for getting below the surface of policy fights to the patterns, structures, and mental models driving them. You can find The Curiosity Shop on ⁠YouTube⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠ (@thecuriosityshop). 0:00 - What’s Surprising Us About This Podcast? 1:49 - Return to Office 22:06 - Challenging Your Return to Office Mental Model 34:15 - Birth Order 40:18 - Tradeoff Between Authenticity and Editing A dual pathway model of remote work intensity: A meta-analysis of its simultaneous positive and negative effects - Gajendran, 2024, Personnel Psychology https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/peps.12641 The Do’s And Don'ts Of Returning To The Office - Adam Grant and Molly Graham, June 2022, WorkLife with Adam Grant Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/worklife-with-adam-grant-the-dos-and-donts/id1346314086?i=1000565464077 The Real Meaning of Freedom at Work - Adam Grant, October 8, 2021, The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/the-real-meaning-of-freedom-at-work-11633704877 Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance - Bloom et al., 2024, Nature https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381373698_Hybrid_working_from_home_improves_retention_without_damaging_performance To Raise Productivity, Let More Employees Work from Home - Bloom, 2014, Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2014/01/to-raise-productivity-let-more-employees-work-from-home Seven Truths About Hybrid Work and Productivity - Gratton, 2024, MIT Sloan Management Review https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/seven-truths-about-hybrid-work-and-productivity/ The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers - Yang et al., 2022, Nature Human Behavior https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-effects-of-remote-work-on-collaboration-among-Yang-Jaffe/bff6dabad6d264c0f34678a788e20df1b015656d The social network side of individual innovation: A meta-analysis and path-analytic integration - Baer et al., 2015, Organizational Psychology Review https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2041386614564105 The strength-of-weak-ties perspective on creativity - Baer, 2010, Journal of Applied Psychology https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44605966_The_Strength-of-Weak-Ties_Perspective_on_Creativity_A_Comprehensive_Examination_and_Extension The Strength of Weak Ties - Granovetter, 1973, American Journal of Sociology https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jure/pub/papers/granovetter73ties.pdf How intermittent breaks in interaction improve collective intelligence - Bernstein et al., 2018, PNAS https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1802407115 Remote Collaboration Fuses Fewer Breakthrough Ideas - Lin et al, 2020, Human-Computer Interaction https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361135288_Remote_Collaboration_Fuses_Fewer_Breakthrough_Ideas Disrupting Science - Chen, 2022, University of Oxford https://oms-www.files.svdcdn.com/production/downloads/academic/Disrupting-Science-Upload-2022-4.pdf Return-to-Office Mandates - Ding & Ma, 2023, Working Paper https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4675401 Office attendance doesn't drive team connection. So what does? - Sands, 2024, Inside Atlassian https://www.atlassian.com/blog/distributed-work/intentional-togetherness-research Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System. Sustainability Institute, Meadows, 1999, The Donella Meadows Project https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/ Coming to a New Awareness of Organizational Culture - Schein, 1984, Sloan Management Review https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/coming-to-a-new-awareness-of-organizational-culture/ Personal Construct Psychology – Still Going Strong at 70? - Winter, 2026, Journal of Constructivist Psychology https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/10720537.2026.2613112?needAccess=true The Psychology of Personal Constructs - Kelly, 1955, W. W. Norton. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1956-04524-000 Time Savings When Working from Home - Aksoy et al., 2023, AEA Papers and Proceedings https://www.nber.org/papers/w30866 Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Chapter 6 - Adam Grant, 2016, Penguin Books https://www.amazon.com/Originals-How-Non-Conformists-Move-World/dp/014312885X Examining the effects of birth order on personality - Rohrer, 2015, Psychological and Cognitive ScienceRs https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1506451112

Brené BrownhostAdam Granthost

Apr 30, 202646mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

40 min read · 8,470 words

0:00 – 1:49
What’s Surprising Us About This Podcast?
1. BBBrené Brown
  [upbeat music] Hi, everyone. I'm Brené Brown.
2. AGAdam Grant
  And I'm Adam Grant.
3. BBBrené Brown
  And we're having fun on the podcast.
4. AGAdam Grant
  More than I expected.
5. BBBrené Brown
  Well, well... So what's been surprising to you about the pod so far?
6. AGAdam Grant
  I think what's been surprising is how often we agree.
7. BBBrené Brown
  That's interesting. I think, I think I'm surprised by how much I'm learning.
8. AGAdam Grant
  You didn't expect that coming in?
9. BBBrené Brown
  No.
10. AGAdam Grant
  Come on.
11. BBBrené Brown
  I mean, I expected to learn, but I, I can feel it shifting my thinking.
12. AGAdam Grant
  Oh, for sure.
13. BBBrené Brown
  Yeah, in uncomfortable ways.
14. AGAdam Grant
  I wake up thinking about things that we talked [laughs] about several weeks ago, thinking, "Oh, no, I, I missed a chance to ask about..." And then, "Wait, we do this every week. We can follow up."
15. BBBrené Brown
  No, I... That's one of the biggest things for me is the, the hangover, the residual, like, "We should've said this," or, "I wanna press him on this," or, "Wait, how does that work?" So I-
16. AGAdam Grant
  It's a productive-
17. BBBrené Brown
  ... am having fun
18. AGAdam Grant
  ... hangover.
19. BBBrené Brown
  Yeah. Thank you.
20. AGAdam Grant
  Yeah. Thank you.
21. BBBrené Brown
  It's fun. All right. We're gonna do three things today. We're going to talk about the return-to-office debate.
22. AGAdam Grant
  We've been avoiding this one for a while.
23. BBBrené Brown
  I know. I, I actually don't know if we're in violent agreement on return to office or really deep disagreement, but-
24. AGAdam Grant
  Maybe both
25. BBBrené Brown
  ... may- maybe both. The second thing we're gonna do is I am going to introduce a tool from systems theory that I am obsessed with-
26. AGAdam Grant
  Okay
27. BBBrené Brown
  ... that we, we use all the time to look at problems. I thought we could apply it to this question about return to the office.
28. AGAdam Grant
  Oh, interesting.
29. BBBrené Brown
  Yeah.
30. AGAdam Grant
  Okay.
1:49 – 22:06
Return to Office
1. BBBrené Brown
  You, you, you launch us off. Return to the office.
2. AGAdam Grant
  [laughs]
3. BBBrené Brown
  Yeah, because you-
4. AGAdam Grant
  All right
5. BBBrené Brown
  ... you're, you're very, you're very, uh, committed.
6. AGAdam Grant
  I am committed to following the evidence, which I've been doing for the last decade, and I think the evidence is very clear that if you give people one to two days a week to work from anywhere, they are at least as productive if not more so. They're more satisfied, they're more likely to stay, and there's no cost to relationships or collaboration.
7. BBBrené Brown
  God, this is gonna be really boring. I think I agree.
8. AGAdam Grant
  Really?
9. BBBrené Brown
  [laughs]
10. AGAdam Grant
  I thought you were, I thought you were much more against that model of hybrid work.
11. BBBrené Brown
  No, no. I, I, I think I agree with what you just said. One of the things that I, I... What I was anticipating disagreeing with you on was that the frame of return to office just being about productivity is not the right frame.
12. AGAdam Grant
  I think we're in agreement on that.
13. BBBrené Brown
  Okay. So I have my 24-page lit review, um, because I really came l- I mean, I came like, "You wanna dance? We'll dance." Um-
14. AGAdam Grant
  Oh, I'm ready to dance. Did you bring Nick Bloom's research?
15. BBBrené Brown
  I did bring-
16. AGAdam Grant
  Did you bring the Gajendran et al. meta-analysis from last year?
17. BBBrené Brown
  I did.
18. AGAdam Grant
  Okay, good.
19. BBBrené Brown
  But I also brought other things, like MIT Sloan's Lynda Gratton, um, on kind of what productivity metrics miss. [laughs] I hope, I hope y'all caught that on the camera, when he went like this. "Hmm." Yeah, no, I got a fricking lit review here, dude.
20. AGAdam Grant
  [laughs]
21. BBBrené Brown
  So y- let's go. Um, okay. So Bloom and colleagues, this is the 2024 Nature, right? Um, equivalent productivity, equivalent performance review scores, and equivalent promotion rates for hybrid workers compared to full-time office workers, correct?
22. AGAdam Grant
  Yeah.
23. BBBrené Brown
  So quoting here from Bloom's HBR article, "Hybrid and fully in-office showed no differences in productivity, performance review grade, promotion, learning, or innovation. Hybrid had a higher satisfaction rate."
24. AGAdam Grant
  Hmm.
25. BBBrené Brown
  Okay. So I'm gonna go now to, this is MIT Sloan, Lynda Gratton, London Business School. Three decades of workplace research argues that the productivity debate is largely fought with the wrong metrics.
26. AGAdam Grant
  Hmm. I'm doing it again?
27. BBBrené Brown
  This... Oh, my God, you're doing it. You're, you're... [laughs]
28. AGAdam Grant
  I'm g- I, I'm, I'm skeptically intrigued. How about that?
29. BBBrené Brown
  I really hope, Erin, that you got a zoom-in of this face.
30. AGAdam Grant
  [laughs]
22:06 – 34:15
Challenging Your Return to Office Mental Model
1. AGAdam Grant
  and the moderator asked for questions, and I couldn't resist. I put my hand up, and I summarized the evidence we've been talking about. And I asked the CEO, "What do you know that organizational psychologists and economists don't?" And he said, "Well, I just believe that we're better at mentoring and innovating when we're all in the same room together." And I just thought that was such a primitive mental model. Like, okay, yeah, but how many hours a day do we need to be in the same room together? How many days a week do we need to be in the same room together? Have you thought about different ways of solving for mentoring, um, that, you know, deal with the fact that you are a multinational company and some of your most important roles are not physically in the same country as the people that you expect to be doing the mentoring? What do you do when you work with someone whose mental models are not fleshed out? 'Cause I, I just wanted to smack that down.
2. BBBrené Brown
  Yeah, I think... I think what's really hard is, in my experience, no matter who that leader is, and I could take a wild guess about who this leader is, um, and be so right. But-
3. AGAdam Grant
  [laughs] Yeah, you kn- you know exactly who it was.
4. BBBrené Brown
  Yeah. Um, I think the problem is it's the parenting equivalent, and I don't like to use parenting stuff with work because it infantilizes work. But here, it, you know, it's the parenting-
5. AGAdam Grant
  I thought you were gonna say infantilizes parents.
6. BBBrené Brown
  [laughs] Um, it's the parenting equivalent of a because I said so.
7. AGAdam Grant
  Yes, exactly.
8. BBBrené Brown
  And it, it actually creates a lack of respect and distrust. It really creates distrust when... And I think what we've seen working, 'cause we were working so closely with leaders, um, during the pandemic and right afterward as they were making these decisions, that if you believe it enough to mandate it, then you should have the discipline to get under the mental model and walk people through it.
9. AGAdam Grant
  Yes, and explain why.
10. BBBrené Brown
  Right. And if you can't be bothered by that, and you're gonna rely on just because I said so, say goodbye to your top talent.
11. AGAdam Grant
  Yes.
12. BBBrené Brown
  And not because even they have to go in, because they don't wanna work for someone who's treating them, infantilizing them-
13. AGAdam Grant
  Yeah
14. BBBrené Brown
  ... with because I said so
15. AGAdam Grant
  That's a great meta-argument. I wonder what would've happened if I made that point.
16. BBBrené Brown
  Say that again. What do you mean?
17. AGAdam Grant
  Well, just, just to even say back to the CEO, "That sounds a lot like [laughs] when a parent says, 'Because I said so.' Can you walk me through, like, what, what is your evidence and what is your... Like, what's, what's your proof that this is so important?"
18. BBBrené Brown
  So, so where... H- here's where I think I would differ in the way that I would challenge someone like that. I don't think I'd ask for evidence. No one's gonna be able to out-evidence you.
19. AGAdam Grant
  I know. That's why I'm- [laughs]
20. BBBrené Brown
  I, that was your-
21. AGAdam Grant
  That's why I'm going there
22. BBBrené Brown
  ... that's why you're going there.
23. AGAdam Grant
  We're on right there.
24. BBBrené Brown
  I know. I know. But-
25. AGAdam Grant
  But also, that's the highest quality information available-
26. BBBrené Brown
  No
27. AGAdam Grant
  ... right?
28. BBBrené Brown
  But I think... I've never had experience using that to get to someone's mental model because they-
29. AGAdam Grant
  Right
30. BBBrené Brown
  ... they immediately get defensive.
34:15 – 40:18
Birth Order
1. AGAdam Grant
  start on that one?
2. BBBrené Brown
  I, I just feel like there are some things where you and I are not gonna see eye to eye-
3. AGAdam Grant
  Well-
4. BBBrené Brown
  ... which is birth order, Enneagram.
5. AGAdam Grant
  [laughs]
6. BBBrené Brown
  We'll probably say the same on horoscopes, but, and astrology, 'cause I, I'm not for that, unless it's a good one for the day.
7. AGAdam Grant
  [laughs]
8. BBBrené Brown
  But, um, but I am a hu- but I think birth order is really s- can be very significant and very helpful. I don't think it's, uh, predictive, but I think it can be a data point.
9. AGAdam Grant
  How did you know I was gonna land at a different place on that?
10. BBBrené Brown
  Because the research is so not compelling.
11. AGAdam Grant
  Yeah, it's a mess.
12. BBBrené Brown
  Yeah, but the lived experience is super compelling.
13. AGAdam Grant
  I, I think it's hard to study. I think-
14. BBBrené Brown
  I think it's hard to study
15. AGAdam Grant
  ... and I think it's, there's so many complex variables that interact with birth order.
16. BBBrené Brown
  Right.
17. AGAdam Grant
  But, well, l- let's, let's put something on the table then. Uh, I think there are a lot of theories that people hold about birth order that just do not stand up to evidence, but there are a couple that are supported in some very careful large-scale studies. Uh, one is that there is convincing evidence that later borns are more likely to take risks than first borns. What do you think of that one?
18. BBBrené Brown
  I think that's true, and I think... I mean, what would you say about the studies that show disproportionate number of first borns in certain, in certain roles, in certain-
19. AGAdam Grant
  Leadership roles
20. BBBrené Brown
  ... leadership roles
21. AGAdam Grant
  ... for example.
22. BBBrené Brown
  Yes.
23. AGAdam Grant
  High achievement.
24. BBBrené Brown
  Yeah.
25. AGAdam Grant
  I mean, I think it's the, it's the converse of that, right?
26. BBBrené Brown
  Yeah.
27. AGAdam Grant
  And the, the standard explanation of that is as a first born, you are drawn toward conventional ways of pleasing your elders and, you know, kinda being the model oldest sibling. And so you get good grades, and you run for student government. And that niche is not available anymore to later borns, and so they need to find a different way to stand out, and they often do that by rebelling, by-
28. BBBrené Brown
  Risk-taking
29. AGAdam Grant
  ... differentiating.
30. BBBrené Brown
  Yeah.
40:18 – 46:40
Tradeoff Between Authenticity and Editing
1. AGAdam Grant
  between authenticity and just releasing a podcast as you run it and editing to deliver your best material? And I don't know that we have fully figured out how we're gonna do that moving forward, right?
2. BBBrené Brown
  No. I'm a no edit person.
3. AGAdam Grant
  And I am a not editing disrespects the listener's time person. Let's cut out the, the fat, which might be a third of the episode.
4. BBBrené Brown
  And I'm more of a, I'm more of a believer that we're trying to challenge each other in caring, respectful ways. We're trying to think of new ideas. We're trying to challenge ourselves. And I want a podcast that reflects the fact that this is... that's not a fast-moving process, that there are empty spaces that people are uncomfortable with, and the rush to fill them is one of the greatest barriers to deep thought, deep thinking, deep conversation, and meaningful. So I don't want to edit something. It, it would be like, you know, asking someone to take my wrinkles out. Like-
5. AGAdam Grant
  [laughs]
6. BBBrené Brown
  ... you know, it's like this is, this is it. You know, I've earned the, I've earned all of these, the smiles, the cry, the, you know. And so for me, I don't think of it as being disrespectful to the listener. I think about it as being honest.
7. AGAdam Grant
  I, I love that framing of it. How do you think about then the dilemma of I- I've, I've gotten messages over the years from people saying, "Yours is the only podcast I listen to because, like, it's every minute is well-used and I feel like I can fit it into my day." I don't wanna lose those people.
8. BBBrené Brown
  No.
9. AGAdam Grant
  The, the, like, the, the biggest fans, the people who read all of our stuff are probably gonna listen regardless.
10. BBBrené Brown
  I don't know. May- I mean, I guess finding a happy medium. I, I think one of the things that we're doing is we're trying new structures, so we're doing, like, 30 minutes of this, and we're, we're giving people the playbook at the top. I'd be open to listener feedback. I, I would have a very hard time, and I know this is like, this is my number one Enneagram, which I believe in, um, that I make everything a moral issue as a number one.
11. AGAdam Grant
  [laughs] Yeah, you definitely... You're, you're a huge moralizer. It's true.
12. BBBrené Brown
  What the frick?
13. AGAdam Grant
  [laughs]
14. BBBrené Brown
  Um, Jesus.
15. AGAdam Grant
  It's one of your best and also most challenging qualities.
16. BBBrené Brown
  Okay. Whatever.
17. AGAdam Grant
  [laughs]
18. BBBrené Brown
  For fuck's sake, y'all. Um, but I would almost feel unethical to take a conversation where there were pauses, and it was hard, and we were trying to figure it out, and we are looking like we're struggling to be respectful and make it sound like do-do, do-do, do-do, do-do, because that's not the way the world works, and everyone's knee to do-do, do-do, do-do, do-do is dangerous. And so I guess where it comes in for me is maybe the... I've been thinking about this. Maybe it's more structure, letting listeners know what's going to happen, being explicit why we leave some pauses in-
19. AGAdam Grant
  Mm-hmm
20. BBBrené Brown
  ... and finding a happy medium.
21. AGAdam Grant
  Yeah.
22. BBBrené Brown
  Like, one thing that is, like, one thing that's for sure, I hope that people don't confuse organic conversation with a lack of preparedness because I, I'm always prepared. You're always prepared. Like, we... No, we don't prepare together on purpose.
23. AGAdam Grant
  At all. And this is much more interesting not doing it.
24. BBBrené Brown
  It is more interesting.
25. AGAdam Grant
  We... The only thing we've done so far is just align on the topic.
26. BBBrené Brown
  That's it. And so I think that's important 'cause I think that's how conversation is real.
27. AGAdam Grant
  Yeah.
28. BBBrené Brown
  Like, I don't-
29. AGAdam Grant
  I do, too
30. BBBrené Brown
  ... I don't say, "Hey, Steve, babe, at 6:00 I wanna have a conversation about these things. Let's prep it together. I'm gonna say this, and..." Actually, I don't always need Steve for my conversations. I just have them with him.

Episode duration: 46:41

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