compared with performance in an organisation. A number of organisations
could have their use of hot beverages measured and the results averaged.
Some funky statistical analysis can be done and in the hypothetical
study it was shown the performance was higher where more tea or coffee
was drunk.
Another hypothetical study comes along and redoes the trial but adds the
option of hot chocolate as another cohort. The results in this study
show that hot chocolate is just as effective at improving performance.
How to interpret the results though? Should there be more hot beverages
provided at desks, for example should the tea lady be reintroduced?
I think the obvious interpretation is that it wasn't the drinks. The
factors are socialisation and the positives for a community feel to a
workplace. There's the "5 minute meeting" or "water cooler meeting"
where people share information or bounce ideas off each other. It's the
simple act of taking a break from the screen or whatever else a person
is doing to go make a beverage that improves performance (there's a
study somewhere that may have been replicated by Monty Python that shows
that on average people can hold concentrate well for about 40-50 mins).
(Of course workplaces with high levels of social cohesion and good team
interaction would do rounds of hot beverages and this would increase the
number of hot beverages consumed which may affect the results)
Were this true the solution wouldn't be to reintroduce the tea lady.
That would not gain the benefits because the mechanism of how hot
beverages make. Further studies would need to be done to establish the
precise mechanisms in the association between hot beverages and
performance. Only then can an effective solution be developed that works
on average.
Of course the research couldn't stop there. Organisation size, sector,
organisational type, hierachicalness, etc would all need to researched.
Hmm. This is a crap post.
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