The water cooler.  The break room. Those sacred places in the company where employees congregate to catch up on the latest news, share information, and build enough stamina to get through the day. Necessary...or a waste of time? When I consult with companies around the world, we often have to address the culprits of lost productivity. This means we look at time wasted in idle conversations, extraneous breaks, and irrelevant interruptions.  Yet some managers worry: “Will eliminating all this wasted time kill morale? Without the water cooler, what do I really have in company culture?”  This blog will show that [...]