Here's an idea worth playing with is a podcast about learning, communication and managing the tension between work and life.
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Rob is also a father of three sons, a publisher, a writer, a podcaster and a film maker. He is the co-host of the wildly popular Stationery Freaks podcast. Rob is the founder of Cultivated Management - a communication consultancy company helping leaders and managers lead companies to a brighter future.
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Hi, everybody. Welcome to here's an idea with playing with with me, Rob Lambert from Cultivated Management. Hope you're doing safe and well. Today, we're out in nature. We're gonna be talking about nature.
Rob:In fact, we're gonna be talking about biophilic design, and I'm gonna explain what that is in a minute. We're going for a walk in nature just outside of the village where I live which is just outside of Winchester. We've got some beautiful rolling countryside countryside and some hills and woodlands and all sorts of stuff that I'm gonna go and explore. So anyway, let's, let's head down this, this path, and we'll head into the woods. It's a beautiful hot day.
Rob:It's it's extremely warm. It's the 30th July here in the UK, and the weather forecast for where I live at the moment is saying it's about 28, 29 degrees. Glorious sunshine, not a lot of wind, which is good, which is why I recorded today because recording audio in wind is is never joyful for anybody listening to it. We're gonna go for a walk in nature, see what we see. There's bound to be some squirrels for sure, some birds, definitely some wood pigeons.
Rob:There's always wood pigeons. Might see a rabbit or 2 and maybe if we're lucky we may spot a deer. So biophilic design is essentially, thinking about how you can design things in congruence and with nature. So if you think about designing a building or designing even a a a city or a new set of office blocks, but how can you weave nature into it? How can you design natural things into it?
Rob:So the term biophilia actually comes from Greek and it fundamentally translates as a love of nature. So biophilic designs therefore really are those designs in our buildings and our life and our surroundings that connect people to nature and natural processes. They help you become more one with nature, which is fundamentally, in a sense, where we came from before we started building giant buildings with air conditioning units and all the rest of it. But it also it kinda changes and fundamentally shifts, so they believe, the nature in which we interact with those environments. One of the proponents, a big sort of, I guess a name in this field is a lady called Judith Heughan, and I hopefully pronounced her surname correctly there.
Rob:And she's done a huge amount of research into, essentially, the connection between buildings and wellness. So, you know, how do people feel and what is their health like and their wellness, both mental and physical and spiritual, when it comes to the surroundings that they find themselves in. And from this research, it seems that we use naturally good places, so, you know, places that are good with nature, should we say, for growth, enjoyment, and health. You know, the Japanese have a sort of forest bathing activity where they go and immerse themselves in the forest on a very regular occurrence because it connects them back into nature. It grounds them, so to speak, and it it sort of brings out a calmness and a level of connection to to the system as a whole, to the world as a whole.
Rob:It sounds a bit fluffy but it's it's actually really heavily proven with lots of scientific articles about getting out in nature is good for us. But what happens if we're working 9 to 5 in an office? Judith Herbigin's research also found that we tend to avoid places where there is a sort of devoid of nature. And trust me, my word, I've worked in some environments, some office environments where there is no nature at all. Even even pot plants don't survive.
Rob:I mean, these places are just a shell of awful kind of decor, desks back to back, you know, blacked out windows, not a lot of natural light. I mean, I've worked in some awful buildings. Not a lot of thought has really been put into the design of these buildings when it comes to bringing in natural elements in nature, and we'll talk about how we can do that in a minute. So essentially, in a nutshell, we kinda seek out places of nature. You know, if you wanna escape the world, you're often gonna sit in a park or by a river.
Rob:I love being by the sea, just here in the sea and the sea air. It just are natural calm. Going out on a boat is just wonderful. I don't do it enough. I don't have access to a boat, but, you know, kayaking, canoeing, going out on a boat, as soon as I hit the water, I'm pretty much switched off and chilled.
Rob:It's just a wonderful feeling. I'm sure you've got your own way of escaping whether that's pot plants, nature, looking after animals, going for a walk, sitting in the garden. So before we dig into this, it's worth noting that a lot has changed over obviously the last 5 years as we've become a lot more accustomed to remote work and working from home. You know, obviously, there was a major event which spurred that on, but actually since then, we're still seeing a huge amount of, I guess, people wanting to work from home, be more flexible, be a little bit more nomadic sometimes. You know, you get that with the the current generation are looking to be able to work from anywhere in the world and good for them, a lot of jobs you can do that.
Rob:Some you can't, obviously. So there's a lot of people that are now working from home, and the advice that follows is really pretty much for whether you're working at home, whether you're running an office, you know, whether you're building new things is to think about how you can bring nature in. So when the world did grind to a halt and we were on more video calls, I'd noticed something called a weak signal and it was I actually spotted it probably 2 or 3 years before when, you know, the the event, which I can't name on on here, but before that event happened and we were kind of forced to stay at home. I'd started to see on video calls because we were we were always allowing when I was leading a team, we always allowed people to work from home for at least 2 days a week, if not 3. And what we found and what I saw to spot was on video calls, we started to see a lot more green nature, you know, natural things appearing in people's backgrounds.
Rob:You know, it start off with 1 pot plant, then the next time you're on a call the following week, there's 2, and then maybe there's 10 and 20. And people were surrounding themselves with nature when they were at home. And, actually, we started to see people bring stuff into the office to do the same thing, bringing in pot plants and flowers occasionally and more natural products, you know, like, laptop riser stands that were made of bamboo or wood rather than the the sort of metal, plastic ones that we provided. And these are sort of weak signals. A weak signal is really just a sort of almost like a glimpse of the future unraveling, unfolding before your eyes.
Rob:And if you pay a lot of attention to the world around you, and I've done videos and podcasts on that before about the art of paying attention is actually leadership, you can start to spot many, many different what could be weak signals of the future. They might not be. And only when they gather in pace and you see more of them and patterns do you see that that is the future of sort of unraveling. And so we I sort of spot these weak signals and then obviously the the big event happened and we saw lots of it. Almost everybody on almost every call was either sat in the garden doing a call or they'd have a series of pot plants and flowers and various different things around them as they tried to, I guess, turn what was a stale environment into somewhere where they felt comfortable and relaxed during what was a very difficult time for for a lot of people.
Rob:So So that's just a little side story about, you know, weak signals. I might do an entire podcast on those because there's a few that I've managed to spot before they become sort of big signals. And the idea with a weak signal is you try and comprehend what it's gonna be like and sort of get ahead of it so that you can start to embrace it, adopt it, and, you know, make use of that weak signal when it becomes, you know, a cultural thing, a norm, or a pattern that we start seeing across work and society. So the big point about this podcast is, does surrounding ourselves with more nature, I'm not gonna say 100% nature, but more nature, does it help us become more productive? Does it help us with our wellness?
Rob:Does it help us with our well-being? Well, the good answer is yes. It does. It does help us to be more productive. It does help us with well-being and it does help us generally in life, become a little bit more happier.
Rob:Now the science is a little bit mixed but, you know, almost for every article I found that said yes, there was one that said no and then you'd maybe find 2 or 3 that said yes more than likely in these situations. So I'll try and sort of deconstruct some of that as we go through. But first, let's get virtual greenery out of the way. This is a big one for me. Obviously, in modern tools, you've got Teams, you've got Zoom, you've got, you know, Google Meet, and all all these different tools.
Rob:They allow you to change the background of your call. They allow you to create basically a virtual background. And one of the things that I've definitely seen recently is more people put in natural pictures of maybe places they visited that spark a really positive memory. I know somebody who's got a picture of a nice city sort of escape sitting underneath some hills and some mountains, and it brings back fond memories for this person and that's why they use it. I've seen people put, you know, trees and greenery in mountains and snow capped hills and some really beautiful scenery behind them as a way to sort of, I guess, make them feel like they're not sat in an office.
Rob:Now virtual greenery could also be, you know, screens, showing natural videos of forests or photos of trees and, you know, all sorts of different stuff. And, actually, sometimes, you know, you see people who've got wallpaper that is actually, you know, sort of vegetation based, natural based, in terms of the picture that's on the wallpaper itself. And a lot of offices do this, you'll find entire walls that look like there's sort of like a forest scene. Now, the research on this is quite clear that it has very little to no effect on mood, productivity, and well-being. So when you're thinking about greenery and surrounding yourself with nature, it kind of has to be the real thing.
Rob:Not to say that the others don't sort of make a slight difference but scientifically speaking, there's not a lot of research to suggest that. So at this point, it's also worth calling out the difference between sustainable or sustainability initiatives and biophilic design. They're not the same thing. Now, one company I was, working with a few years back did a really good thing of putting these green roofs on their flat roof parts of the office. So this is putting soil and grass and green on there to bring more biodiversity, to be more sustainable, to obviously get back to nature.
Rob:There's also some thermic and insulation effects that happen. It's a good thing to do. It's a sustainability practice that is sort of well received and well practiced. That's different to biophilic design because most of these sustainability moves like this, people can't see. They can't go sit on the rooftop and sit in that nature because of obviously health and safety in various different aspects.
Rob:So if you can't see the sustainability activity, that doesn't make much difference and there's so there's a subtle difference there but there is a difference. Biophilic design is where you have designed your environment to actually encapsulate nature and not just be sustainable. Now, obviously, nature and not just be sustainable. Now, obviously, sustainability things like flat roofs with, greenery on them that you can sit on and go out and have a break on there, well, that's wonderful because you've hit both with that one. So here are a few ideas on how to bring more bio phallic design into your workspace.
Rob:And again, as I said, whether it's at your home office, whether it's a company office, whether it's a co working space, it kinda makes no difference. All of these principles and ideas are the same. And if you can't manage to bring these into your work environment, then try and find opportunities in your day to expose yourself to the following. So the first one is is pretty obvious one, which a lot of people overlook, but it's windows and sunlight. You know, I used to work at a company a few years ago that had almost 0 windows in the office.
Rob:I mean, little portholes here and there. The windows they did have, they'd often have blinds or sort of blackout screens on them. For no reason, there was no sort of security reason. It wasn't like a high security, sort of workplace. They just thought it was distracting for their staff to be able to look outside and get daylight coming in.
Rob:It actually makes a huge difference. Exposing yourself to sunlight is a very very good thing in, obviously, doses that don't mean you get burnt or, you know, you get UV, challenges like that. Generally speaking, access to light and access to windows is a wonderful thing. It absolutely should be something that you you do. There's a a great scientist, a professional medical scientist called doctor Andrew Huberman.
Rob:I'm sure you've heard of his podcast, Huberman Labs. It's not quite as good as this podcast, but it's not bad, I'll be honest. Get outside, get your eyes exposed and your body exposed to sunlight for a period of time and it will make a difference. Now, I live in the UK where we don't get many hot nice days to go outside, but I do try and sit outside from sort of spring to late autumn in the morning. First thing, get a cup of tea, go and sit outside expose myself to sunlight.
Rob:When I can't do that, I've got a sad lamp and I use that during the winter months to give me that sort of burst of sunlight. I'm also lucky when I was designing my home studio, I, made sure I had windows going all the way across the front. It's north facing so I don't get a huge amount of light, but I do get a significant amount that is, you know, is good. I could sit there and I'm exposed to light and daylight and sunlight all day. So wherever you're working, think about can you position yourself to take in more sunlight and more daylight through windows or doors or whatever.
Rob:I did a post before on optimizing video calls, and one thing you probably shouldn't do is have the window behind you if you're gonna be on video calls because you'll create a silhouette of yourself and people won't be able to see you very well. So try and position it behind your computer, you know, looking straight at it, over the top of the computer or to the side or above if you're lucky enough to have skylights. But wherever you work, try and choose somewhere that gives you natural light. Could be that you sit outside. Wonderful.
Rob:The last 20, 30 years, a lot of buildings have been designed to capture as much natural light as possible because it really does affect our mood, our well-being, and in some cases, our productivity. So the next most obvious thing is probably plants and nature, but bringing them indoors if you work inside an office or a studio or some sort of building. So a super easy and quick way is is really just to buy more pot plants, maybe some hardy ones that survive. If you don't water them very often, that's my style. I'm not very good at sort of tending to my own life, let alone the life of plants as well.
Rob:Definitely try and bring more in, you know, get on your local, sort of, horticultural center, your garden center, or even, you know, one of these super mega DIY stores and grab yourself some nice hardy pot plants or some flowers if you're willing to sort of replace them every sort of week or so. Try and bring that nature into your space, have it around you, surrounding you, in front of you, you know, so you can touch and feel and see and smell it. Wonderful, wonderful strategy to just literally bring a bit of nature inside into your building. Now, of course, some people are exposed to nature all day every day, and that's kinda wonderful. We just had a our extension built on the house.
Rob:We had our house renovated, and the builders were here for 9 months. They started in the summer last year, 2023, and they worked through that summer, which was really hot, beautiful summer. We had about 6, 7 weeks of of really glorious weather where I live in Winchester, and they worked through that outdoors. They probably didn't put as much sunscreen on as I might recommend, but, you know, they were out up on top of the roof. They were out just enjoying it.
Rob:Then autumn sets in, and it was very wet. So they were out in the rain and the wind and the cold, and then winter set in, and that was very cold. You know, at one point, it was, like, minus 5, and they were up on the roof tiling. And I'm sat there in my studio thinking, god, I'm glad I'm not out there doing that in some respects. But actually, they loved it and I loved being outside and certain jobs just lend themselves to being out and about and in nature.
Rob:But for those that don't, we've really got to try and ramp up that exposure to nature in our offices with plants and trees and bushes and shrubs or whatever you can squeeze in around your yourself. And if we run an office, if we're a, you know, a business, we've got our own office space, then really do think about how you can bring nature in for the benefit of yourselves and, obviously, your staff to really help them connect with nature. Of course, one of the technique is to bring natural materials into your workspace. So, you know, think wood, think stone, think, you know, marble y kind of stuff if you can afford that, and this helps to bring a sense of nature into your space and connect to something that's natural. Now I personally love items made of wood and I'm starting to enjoy woodwork again.
Rob:When I was a little boy, my grandfather was actually a cabinet maker, so he was a joiner, made beautiful pieces of furniture in the shed at the bottom of his garden. I used to spend hours in there building things with him and you're connected to something natural. This wood was obviously a tree at some point and it's you're turning it into something and that thing lives on with that sort of sense of nature and that sense of naturalness to it. So bringing things made of natural material into your workspace can be a really positive thing. You know, a nice wooden desk rather than a plastic one.
Rob:Wooden risers, like I said, that our staff started to bring in. You know, anything that you think you need in your home office or your workspace, try to see if you can get something that's a little bit more natural material than some of the plastics that we have in most offices. Now in our home, if you don't have a dedicated study or a dedicated office, it's a lot harder to do these sorts of things. So obviously, there's a certain budget, there's a certain space, there's certain constraints that you might have, but even a few little pieces of natural material sat around can make a big difference. Of course, one other idea is to bring in water features.
Rob:Features. They work very, very well. I probably wouldn't have a water feature here in my studio, but we do have a pool in the garden, which we got gifted. It's, been a pain in the backside, I'll be honest. It's taken so much water.
Rob:It barely gets to a temperature where it's comfortable. But it is water. There is nature. There's a pump on it when that's running. Gives you a sense of bubbling creeks and rivers and lakes and all sorts of cool stuff.
Rob:That's a water feature. There's not really a feature. It's a pool to, enjoy, but it gives you that sense of connected to nature. I said earlier, I love being by the sea, I love being in water, kayaking, going out on boats, body boarding, love that on holiday with the kids. And so anything you can do that can connect you to water, to a feature, a pond, a pool, or whatever, can make a really big difference.
Rob:There's lots of birds, there's loads of, so should we say, tracks or trails that may be with badgers. We get a lot of badgers around here. There are actually a bit of an endangered species of the badger around here and some what look like foxholes or rabbit holes maybe. It'd be a pretty big rabbit or quite a small fox, I'm not too sure. Anyway, whatever it is, I'm not too sure.
Rob:I want to meet it on this path as we head down to what is an old disused railway station in the middle of the woods. So you see a railway line that ran all the way through this. And if you live in Winters, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. It was an old military railway station during the war. Along the side of the old railway track are some pillboxes.
Rob:I can see one just up there. Now full of, you know, empty beer cans and debris and rubbish and litter and graffiti, but a sort of legacy, a bit of a history of the sort of surrounding military area and obviously the protection that was in place to protect the the troops and what have you coming through here. Beautiful, it's all sort of almost been taken over by nature. The trees have reclaimed what was theirs. There's all sorts of wildlife and fauna.
Rob:I can hear something rustling. I suspect it's a bird or a mouse or rat or that giant rabbit or whatever. But it's a really wonderful place, and I don't walk this route enough given that it's only literally 5 minutes from my house. So one of the other things that could make a really big difference is the acoustics in an office. Now, I'm sure we've all worked in those places where you almost can't hear yourself think because of the noise that is emanating from this open space kind of trend and and fascination that sort of kicked off in the sort of late eighties nineties, where we needed to somehow work in a very open space to bring around collaboration and communication, all the other good stuff that happens.
Rob:The reality is that actually, there's a growing amount of evidence to suggest that we work better when we lock ourselves away in an office or a studio or a small space or even, God forbid, one of those sort of cubicles that you see in the, that is sort of the epitome of the awful office space, your own little cubicle. But actually, that's often what we need. We need that sort of isolation, that quiet space to get good deep work done. The open office spaces tend to be really disturbing. It's one of the reasons why most people have headphones on they're listening to music or as I often do is just put noise cancelling headphones on just to block out that dull tone of, background noise or that noisy arrogant person in the corner that speaks at a volume that is completely inappropriate for an open office space.
Rob:You know the person I'm talking about. So I've done a post on the website. You can go to cultivateormanagement.com and you'll find a post about does listening to music make us more productive. And in there, I explore some of the science around the idea that actually listening to music while we work can be a good thing. It can also not be sort of worth checking that article out.
Rob:But generally speaking, when we think about the acoustics of a room, we wanna be thinking about what is the most conducive noise cancelling or noise or acoustic situation in which we're gonna get the work that we do done? Is it a noisy environment where actually we are hustle and bustle? I'm thinking about journalist rooms where actually people are shouting across a room at each other, bouncing ideas, hitting deadlines. That can be quite effective. Or are we doing that sort of sense of really deep work like coding a piece of software or working through some financial reports or even as journalists and writers that deep writing state where we need to just block out all the noise.
Rob:I personally do not like a lot of noise around when I'm trying to do work. Equally, I'm sort of almost one of these sort of dichotomy kind of people where when I'm in a sort of networking, collaborative, communicative mood, I obviously wanna be surrounded by people. I love conferences for that reason because there's, you know, hundreds of people and you can mingle and there's this sense of energy and noise that comes from people being in the same room. But when I'm working, I need to tune it out. So a lot of office spaces now, people are designing them with biophilic design in mind and they have quiet lots of quiet spaces where you can go and just do some deep work and just ponder and think and be quiet.
Rob:And then there are lots more open spaces maybe now actually where you're not expected to sit all day, but are actually the place you go to to take a break from doing that hard work and that deep work. And I think that's a wonderful way of of switching it around. Instead of everybody just being an open plan office working, you actually make the open plan the exception and you create places where people can do deep work in quiet, considered ways. Now, of course, if you record podcasts, you do videos, all that kind of stuff, you're always thinking about the acoustics in a room and, of course, there are some jobs where you just need, you know, a certain acoustic setup to deafen and quiet down some of the noises. You want to stop those sound waves bouncing around.
Rob:So books, drapes hanging down, cushions and fabrics, and anything soft is gonna try and absorb those sound waves, meaning they don't bounce around quite as often and quite as much. That's exactly why the cubicle office works really. You've got these big sort of velvet covered or fabric covered sheets of some material blocking everyone off from you and it helps to keep the noise to a minimum so it's not bouncing around all around the office and gathered together with all the other noise and creating this cacophony where people can't focus. So have a think about noise, have a think about whether or not the environment you're in is conducive to help you get good work done. If not, what can you do about it?
Rob:And if you're designing a space for yourself, have a think about that. If you're on video calls all day, the acoustics will be different than if you're gonna try and sit down and do some some sort of deep work and writing or whatever it is. So have a consideration about that soft furnishings books, all that kind of stuff. There's a whole science to this and it's deeply fascinating. I'm not gonna do it justice in this brief podcast.
Rob:Next up, we're thinking about colors, shapes, design elements. So colors and shapes, they do make a big difference to our mood, you know. There's a an entire branch of science which is focused around color which again I'm not gonna be able to do justice here on this podcast. If you're interested in this, go and have a check on Yeah, just do a quick internet search on the the science of colour and you'll find all sorts of really fascinating articles about how different colours enhance different moods and, you know, having vibrant colours can make you feel more energetic and positive and duller darker colours can emote evoke, sort of, emotions and mood. It's really, really fascinating.
Rob:And this studio that I work in at the moment, I'm very blessed and lucky to have this, is is north facing, and it was done on purpose to be north facing to minimize the amount of changeable light during the day for the videos that I produce. With it being north facing, I don't get a huge amount of light coming in and I made a massive mistake of painting it slightly off white. That was what everybody recommended, go for a slightly off white maybe like a like a gray color to try and boost the light within the office. The problem is it's very dull. It's very not dark, but it's certainly not bright, not as bright as it could be.
Rob:So I think this year I'm actually gonna paint it yellow. Yellow is one of my favourite colours. Yellow also happens to evoke a sense of, you know, happiness and sunshine and brightness. It makes me personally feel very happy and alive. It's just one of those colors that seems very natural.
Rob:It's like the sun. I mean, the sun, you don't get much more natural than that. But, of course, we're all different. So explore the science of color, find what works for you, and consider putting colors on the walls or colors on your desk or, you know, posters and pictures on the wall that are in the particular colors that evoke the emotions you're trying to elicit. And have a think about how you can surround yourself with a lot more color and different shapes and patterns that represent nature, you know, like circles and, you know, squares and rectangles that represent trees and shrubbery and circles that represent stones and what have you.
Rob:This is again, fascinating subject to delve into. So I think we're about finished on this walk. It is insanely hot even here in the shade in the woods. Still haven't seen anything really of nature, but I'm sure there's lots of animals and stuff hanging around waiting for me to go before they come out. So anyway, I'm gonna turn around now.
Rob:I'm gonna head back across one of the big open fields in the baking heat. Probably record a little bit of nature, maybe some sounds of the, barley, I think it is, that they're growing. Flying in the wind, there's a little bit of a breeze today. No doubt there'll be some dog walkers and other people wandering around. I always look a bit silly because I wear my headphones.
Rob:I've got my Zoom audio recorder, and I stand there recording audio. And I do look a bit of a wally, I'll be honest. But, frankly, I don't care because, it's really enjoyable. Just switching off and listening to nature is gloriously wonderful, and hopefully you've enjoyed the little natural bits I've tried to include throughout this podcast. So there you go.
Rob:Biophilic design is essentially designing nature into our spaces, our home office, our office space, our workplace, even our home itself is a deeply fascinating subject. Definitely gonna keep continuing to study this. I thought it was definitely an idea worth sharing with you, hence, it's made it to the podcast. That was an idea worth playing with, biophilic design. It's, you know, maybe a posh term for bringing nature into our lives.
Rob:So what can you do? You know, look around your office right now. Do you need more pot plants? Do you need some more natural materials? Do you need more daylight?
Rob:Or do you just need to go and sit outside in the garden or go for a walk in the local park or the woods if you're lucky enough to live near some, natural countryside? So there you go. I hope you've enjoyed it. Don't forget to check out Cultivatormanagement.com where you will find the meeting notes newsletter which happens every other week alternative to this podcast. There's articles going up, 2 or 3 articles a week at the moment going up into the site.
Rob:There's some books, there's a zine, and of course, there's the online communication workshop if you wanna develop those superpowers of effective communication. And with that, I'm gonna go and enjoy the rest of the walk and hopefully I haven't been too badly sunburned on this, ridiculously timed walk on the hottest day of the year. Take care, looking forward to speaking to you in the next podcast. Bye bye.