The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant
What the Return-to-Office Debate Gets Wrong
30 Apr 2026
Chapter 1: What are the surprising insights from the return-to-office debate?
Imagine two brilliant team members.
Chapter 2: How do we challenge traditional return-to-office mental models?
One builds your campaigns instantly. One handles customers 24-7. On brand and always on. Meet Klaviyo's AI agents at klaviyo.com. Welcome to The Curiosity Shop.
A show from the Fox Media Podcast Network.
Hi, everyone. I'm Brene Brown.
And I'm Adam Grant. And we're having fun on the podcast. More than I expected. So what's been surprising to you about the pod so far? I think what's been surprising is how often we agree. That's interesting.
I think I'm surprised by how much I'm learning.
You didn't expect that coming in? Come on.
No, I mean, I expected to learn, but I can feel it shifting my thinking.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah, in uncomfortable ways.
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Chapter 3: What is the evidence supporting hybrid work effectiveness?
Wait, we do this every week. We can follow up.
No, that's one of the biggest things for me is the hangover, the residual, like, we should have said this, or I want to press him on this, or wait, how does that work?
It's a productive hangover.
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you. All right, we're going to do three things today. We're going to talk about the return to office debate.
We've been avoiding this one for a while.
I know. I actually don't know if we're in violent agreement on return to office or really deep disagreement, but- Maybe both. Maybe both.
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Chapter 4: How do weak ties contribute to innovation and creativity?
The second thing we're going to do is I am going to introduce a tool from systems theory that I am obsessed with, that we use all the time to look at problems. I thought we could apply it to this question about return to the office.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah, to see at what level of the issue does our cohesion fall apart.
Great. If it does.
Chapter 5: What is the role of culture and belonging in the workplace?
And then as the third item, I've pulled some listener questions for us.
Let's do it. Let's get started. Okay. You launch us off. Return to the office. Yeah. Because you're very committed.
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 collaborations.
God, this is going to be really boring. I think I agree.
Really? I thought you were much more against that model of hybrid work.
No, no. I think I agree with what you just said. One of the things that I... What I was anticipating disagreeing with you on was that the frame...
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Chapter 6: How can leaders effectively implement flexible work policies?
of return to office just being about productivity is not the right frame.
I think we're in agreement on that.
Okay. So I have my 24-page lit review because I really came, I mean, I came like, you want to dance? We'll dance.
Oh, I'm ready to dance. Did you bring Nick Bloom's research?
I did.
Did you bring the Gagendron et al meta-analysis from last year?
I did.
Okay, good.
But I also brought other things like MIT Sloan's Linda Gratton on kind of what productivity metrics miss. I hope y'all cough out in the camera when he went like this. Yeah, no, I got a fricking lit review here, dude. So let's go.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the systems-thinking iceberg model?
Okay. So Bloom and colleagues, this is the 2024 nature, right? Equivalent productivity, equivalent performance review scores, and equivalent promotion rates, right? for hybrid workers compared to full-time office workers, correct?
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.
Chapter 8: How do we reconcile authenticity with the need for quality content?
Hybrid had a higher satisfaction rate. Okay. So I'm going to go now to, this is MIT Sloan, Linda Groton, London Business School. Three decades of workplace research argues that the productivity debate is largely fought with the wrong metrics. I'm doing it again. Oh my God, you're doing it.
I'm skeptically intrigued. How about that?
I really hope, Aaron, that you got a zoom in of this face.
Okay.
All right, I want to hear it. Okay.
Most roles, strategy, coaching, creative work lack easily verifiable comparative productivity measures. She's going to argue that hybrid work is better understood as a job design option. The question isn't where do people sit, but what tasks need which environment.
Yeah, I agree with Linda on that. Okay, so I think the key aspect of work design is asking how interdependent are people in their jobs. So in organizational psychology, there are three kinds of interdependence. They're called pooled, sequential, and reciprocal. It's easier to think about them as gymnastics, a relay race, and basketball.
So if your job is gymnastics, where everyone does their own beam, vault, floor routine, and then you just add up the individual scores, you hardly ever need to be co-located. because everybody can do their own thing and have their own focused time at home. But if you're running a relay race, then you need to have some time with the people that you're handing the baton to and receiving it from.
And if your work is mostly playing basketball where you're passing the ball back and forth and doing a lot of dynamic coordination, that's I think when you need the most time physically together.
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