Some context elements:

Our ability to adapt has never been more in demand. The Covid-19 context has profoundly changed our daily lives, our routines, our social interactions and the way in which we carry out our jobs. But in this crisis, and this context of remote work, new practices and new models have also emerged! Maybe things we never even tried before or put aside for too long. Numerous upheavals have appeared in our daily lives, the massive use of new technologies, various forms of managerial practices, or

our relationship to time. Remote work, at the gradual start of the school year, and if the lockdown had not only had negative effects on the way we work or collaborate? It is time to take stock to analyze in detail, from the angle of neuroscience, what happened to take the best, be more effective and fulfilled.

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⭐ Here is the video ⭐

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@Nawal Abboub interview by @Svenia Busson

• ‍Svenia Busson: The only solution for many people was to go from 100% face-to-face to 100% digital (with video), for example with online training sessions all day on Zoom. Why is it a solution that didn't work?

Nawal Abboub: It's true, in front of a screen all day, we can at some point feel profound discomfort, even a feeling of discomfort. Why? Because video calls all day long are very unusual for the brain! We've never spent so much time on our screens, and our brains haven't automated this unusual activity. Even though some may think it's not that different from reality, that's not at all the case! In video, the information is degraded (face, voice, eyes, etc.) and there are in particular time differences. Our brain must constantly make reconstructions to properly assemble this information together. You should know that our brain does not take photos of reality, it reconstructs it. In a digital scene where social signals are degraded and not automated, the brain makes extra efforts to properly reconstruct everything that is happening. This is why we will feel uncomfortable, be more tired, and increase the probability that we will drop out during the meeting or training! So no, we cannot put reality into digital technology but adapt content and educational formats according to all these “neuro-biological” constraints, yes!

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• ‍Svenia Buisson: The meetings go on and you can stay in video all day without a break. Are there best practices to adopt to make better use of your time?

Nawal Abboub: If meetings go on all day without a break, it is very likely, if not certain, that you will experience this famous “overheating”! Why? Because our attentional resources and more generally our brain are over-solicited! We need to be aware that our attentional resources have neurobiological constraints. For example, someone who monitors a screen all day will quickly get tired (and make more mistakes) because their natural state is not to focus on a screen where little is happening. We must therefore optimize meeting time, and vary meeting methods as much as possible (telephone, videoconference, instant messaging), while really leaving time for breaks. And if sometimes we don't have a choice, very small but regular breaks can make a difference.

• ‍Svenia Busson: Finally, we use the camera in order to maintain human contact and to be able to see our employees or even our participants. But if the camera is very tiring, what should you do?

Nawal Abboub: Human contact is very important, like seeing the smile of your colleagues, or even family faces, but it can be maintained differently. For example by successive touches: we remove the videoconference and we focus only on the voice. Remember that we don't just smile with her lips, we can also smile with her voice! It alone can carry important clues to understand the emotions of our interlocutors, this is also called prosody in science. One of the possibilities is to leave the choice to your interlocutor to choose the formula in which he is most comfortable!

• ‍Svenia Busson: To adapt, we could therefore mix approaches, with a bit of video and a bit of audio. Would that be the best approach after all?

Nawal Abboub: Yes, everyone can find the way of working that works best for them. In addition, it is important to articulate tasks well by placing what consumes the most energy in the right place (not sequentially and when we have some left). To do this, it requires good experimentation in order to be able to know each other and to know how to analyze yourself well.

• ‍Svenia Busson: How to keep employees engaged when everything is going online. What are the vectors of engagement in the face of a rather passive online format?

Nawal Abboub: The key vectors of engagement of learners or collaborators are linked to this notion that we have in science: a passive organism does not learn. On the other hand, an active organism asks questions, answers questions, is curious, surprised, will reflect on what has been said... For example, an audio recording alone said in a monotonous manner is very difficult to remember (the information is often very degraded, which can prove to be very poor for an individual). It is therefore necessary to create an environment favorable to engagement: you have to adapt to the current context, you can use a lot of tools to engage individuals and monitor attention or learning constantly. At Rising Up, we have developed methods and tools which allow us to engage but also to monitor the progress during our face-to-face interventions, but we also use them today during our online workshops. To engage employees, we have developed several types of pedagogical formats: there is project-based learning, peer learning (learning from each other) and collaborative learning. The basis of learning and engagement is really to push the individual to be active, to focus their attention on what they are doing, which is a considerable challenge whether online or in real life.

• ‍Svenia Busson: How do you take an effective break when you work all day at the computer? What do you advise us?

Nawal Abboub: To take an effective break, you should not go to your screen if you are already there all day. To recharge your attentional resources, you can for example go for a walk, have a coffee, go chat with someone in the house... You have to try to move as much as possible (not only with sports). In addition, there does not necessarily have to be fixed times for breaks, it depends on the task in progress and the resources used.

• ‍Svenia Busson: A lot of employees felt socially cut off during lockdown. How to manage this discomfort that may be triggered? Some people set up meditation, does it really work?

Nawal Abboub: Meditation, yoga or sport, as well as diet, are essential for our well-being: a lot of research on sport or mindfulness has shown positive effects on the body and the brain. Meditation has positive effects on concentration, for example. Yoga, sport, but also diet affect our cognitive abilities in a good way! And let's not forget sleep, which is also essential.

• ‍Svenia Busson: Do we talk a lot about the importance of sleep and how important it is to be effective and more focused? How many hours does it take to get a good night's sleep?

Nawal Abboub: Children need more sleep than adults, but we must try as much as possible to go to bed at the same time as the day before and wake up at the same time, because our brain needs routine. Indeed thanks to this our brain will save a lot of energy! For adults, on average, 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night (but that depends on the person).

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• ‍Svenia Busson: We've heard a lot about IQ tests, skill tests, but finally, how do you assess your cognitive abilities?

Nawal Abboub: First of all I want to point out that IQ, although it is a reliable scientific measure, does not take into account social and emotional skills and much more! To assess your cognitive skills, once again, let's break free from norms and be a keen observer of ourselves! Let's try to identify and trace the evolution of our progress. In my opinion, the approach should focus much more on an individual's ability to learn than on evaluating these skills at a given moment, which is useless and unreliable over time. With us our individual modules on our learning platform allow us to precisely trace the progression of certain skills: attention, concentration, flexibility thanks to algorithms developed by our scientific experts.

• ‍Svenia Busson:Does napping have beneficial effects on the brain? How long should it last?

Nawal Abboub: Napping is very beneficial, even when it's only for a few minutes. This has a very important effect on recharging our attentional resources. I think it's a shame to feel judged and self-censored about a practice that could be so beneficial in jobs where our cognitive resources are put to the test. In fact, power naps of 20 and 25 minutes can, on the contrary, save you much more time. However, napping for more than an hour can have a negative impact on your sleep rhythm. Indeed, taking a nap that is too long delays the peak of molecules responsible for falling asleep.

• ‍Svenia Busson: Being at home during lockdown seems to allow more concentration at work. Is this confirmed from a scientific point of view, and does it call Open Space into question?

Nawal Abboub: Open Space brings a lot of benefits in many ways but it also has its share of disadvantages: an environment with too much information for our brain to process (a lot of noise, solicitations, etc.) is harmful. One of the positive points of lockdown is that it put us in relatively quieter environments (except for some who lived with large families!). But the question that arises today is how to implement more effective strategies in your daily life. At Rising Up, we developed programs to develop your concentration and learn how to protect it in order to maintain your effectiveness.

• ‍Svenia Busson: I noticed that people finished their day much earlier because they ended up feeling more productive. How can I explain it well?

Nawal Abboub: When you're focused, you finish what you needed to do more quickly. One of the big problems that we find with some of our customers is wild multitasking. However, when you are at home you tend to better control your environment and the distractions that may be there (except when you have to take care of young children, but that's another subject). However, we see that more and more companies are setting up dedicated collaborative spaces, which greatly promotes performance.

• ‍Svenia Busson: If you had to give us collaborative tools, quiz tools, which ones would you recommend?

Nawal Abboub: At Rising Up, we developed our own tools in our R&D center in order to be able to master all the formats and to be able to modulate them according to the specificities of our learners. But there are many very interesting quiz tools including Kahoot, Klaxoon, Slido, Wooklap, but also Quizzes. The important thing is not necessarily the tool but rather how questions are asked, and how this fits into a real educational process. Good timing, frequency, and questions are needed for effective learning and optimal skills development.