Research Summary
Description
There has been tremendous change in the workplace — ubiquitous technology, 24/7 globalization, hyper-efficiency and now significant changes in work location. Professor Perlow’s research explores the implications for the ways we work and live, and what we can do to improve both. Her findings reveal that we have become less efficient, unable to plan or prioritize work; less effective, with speed substituting for strategy and innovation; and more isolated, overwhelmed, and harried as the dividing line between work and home disappears. She further finds that meaningful change is possible – change that leads to better work and better lives.
As an ethnographer, Professor Perlow conducts in-depth studies, often over multiple years. She has focused on firms in high tech, professional services, and pharmaceuticals examining co-located teams, hybrid teams, and global teams. She has lived for months at a time in both China and India to conduct research projects. She also led an ethnographic study that began with the sudden shift to virtual work in March 2020 and continued for 3 years as the organization grappled with how to most effectively implement hybrid work. Since then, she has launched several new projects to gather data on hybrid work and determine which practices make it most effective for individuals and for the teams of which they are a part. She documents individuals’ ways of working, including the use of technology, meetings, virtual interactions, and cross-cultural collaborations with global teams. With these data, she explores the implications of workplace practices for organization productivity, individuals’ careers, and family lives.
To further her interest in helping individuals craft their best lives, she has started building digital tools to provide users insights about their life choices and tradeoffs. These tools also enable her to collect rich quantitative data to further enhance our collective understanding. She built the LIFE Simulation after hearing from many people that, if they could live again, they would make different life choices. The simulation gives participants the chance to “live” their lives in advance, providing a space to make mistakes before they truly count. She has collected data from tens of thousands of people, enabling her to study life choices. Her latest tool, the LIFE Matrix, empowers individuals to discover if their 168 weekly hours match up with what truly matters to them. It’s geared to help people assess their current time allocations, align their time with their core values, and take action on meaningful changes. Here too in the process of helping individuals, she is gathering data to discover what choices and tradeoffs lead to the most fulfilling lives, and therefore be better equipped to help individuals live their best lives.
In addition, Professor Perlow embarked on a life history project five years ago. This project strives to capture MBA graduates experiences, choices, tradeoffs, and reflections, as they live out their lives pos- graduation. To date, this study has provided key insights about choices around partnership, children, geography and career, as well as the role of luck and serendipity in life.