Why forcing a return to the office won’t work

The Romans never invented the stirrup. What we call a ‘chest of drawers’ was unknown before the late 17th century – before which time you had to store your valued possessions in a deep coffer or chest. The doorknob did not exist until 1878. The tea bag was invented by accident in the early 20th century when a New York tea merchant sent out samples of tea in small silk bags.

The evolutionary process by which new ideas are conceived and adopted seems linear and inevitable when viewed in retrospect. Delve into history, however, and you will find it is insanely uneven and haphazard. Consider what might be the best idea anyone has ever had – Jenner’s discovery of smallpox vaccination. I always assumed Jenner was immediately fêted for his discovery and the practice was widely adopted within a decade or so; in fact it faced hostility and scepticism for around 50 years. Persuading people to electrify their homes similarly took decades. In Ireland recently I met someone whose grandfather had worked for the Electricity Supply Board, the Irish body charged with encouraging people to electrify their houses. He had resorted to what would now be called a social media influencer campaign: he bought the local priest a bottle of whiskey every month on condition that his sermons regularly referenced how much he liked having electricity at home.

The idea of having to persuade people to install electric lighting seems mad in hindsight. Until you realise that most people, most of the time, have two behavioural defaults: habit and social copying. It is consequently very difficult to persuade people to do anything which requires them to change a habit, or to adopt a behaviour which marks them out as unusual.