We cannot teleport physical proximity, but we can replicate its psychological effects in remote teams. This has everything to do with propinquity. If the physical world provided connection by accident, the digital world requires connection by design. The most critical loss in the shift to remote work is “propinquity,” a fancy word for physical nearness. In the 1950s, psychologists discovered that the single best predictor of whether two people would become friends was how close their apartments were to each other. In the professional world, this is the “hallway track” at a conference. It is inefficient, but it is highly effective because it facilitates passive, frequent interactions. You bump into someone at the coffee station. You exchange a nod. You accumulate data points about them that transform a transactional contact into a human relationship. In a remote setting, propinquity does not happen by accident. There is no digital equivalent of …
