The other day, I received a lovely email from a colleague at work, telling me how much I had helped them. It was a touching note and stood out from the usual bunch of messages, such as those that ask when a report will be delivered or demanding a meeting. Indeed, the email was so unusual that I printed it out to keep.
Having those words in print makes them seem more permanent. I can put the document in a folder and see it on my shelf. If I just left the email in the system, it would head into the frightful farrago that is Microsoft Outlook. I might never see it again…!
As I printed it out, I was reminded of a consultancy client from several years ago whose CEO printed every email that came his way. He would then handwrite his answers beneath the message and have his PA type them up as his reply. You might think this was rather quaint and old-fashioned. But it was a system that helped him lead a £250m business.
I asked him why he used such an antiquated method of communication, and he said that emails were “not real” when they were on the screen. He suggested they were just temporary impressions flashing before his eyes. When they were printed out, they were “real”.
Gen Z expresses a similar idea these days. Of all the generations, they print out more pictures than any other. A recent blog post on the Kodak Printer website said demand for printing photos taken with smartphones is so high that Fujifilm has to build a new factory. The market is predicted to grow to $6 billion in the next seven years. And you thought the days of printing out pictures were long gone.
Think again. It’s because the picture on your phone is transient. Besides the fact that it can be accidentally deleted and the memory lost forever, the temporary nature of the image on the screen has little meaning. It’s here now, and a second later it is gone as you swipe past.
Talking to students recently, I was reminded of the need to create meaning through permanence. During my classes, I give them plenty of exercises and practical things to do. The last thing they want is to hear me droning on for two hours! In recent weeks, I have been running workshops and giving students printed workbooks with “fill-in-the-gaps” sections. For decades in the training business, that’s just been “normal” for me. At the end of a lecture recently, one student asked if they could take away the worksheets they had completed.
When I told them that was the whole point, they said it was really helpful, since they would have a written reminder of the workshop. They said it made the in-class exercises more memorable to them that way.
New research from the University of Chicago has now confirmed the value of doing things that add meaning. They found that adding the option of permanence made anything more significant to the individual. People who were asked to draw something were more motivated by the greater significance if they knew their artwork would be saved. If the art was going to be transient, it had no meaning, and the participants in the study lacked motivation to create it.
That explains why a CEO wants to print emails and why Gen Z members need their photos printed. Without permanence, the items become less significant and lose their real meaning.
This should come as no surprise. Humans live in a physical world, and to help us navigate it, we have four million touch sensors in our bodies. We are primed for physicality. Yet we spend much of our working day in a virtual existence. A PDF is not really a document, is it? But when it is printed and bound, then it becomes real. Ever since we have had computers, total paper demand has increased. The forecast for paper used by computer users is that it will grow by a further 8.5% by 2030. This further indicates that even though we don’t need things printed because they are on our computers, we still print things out to help us derive meaning.
In the workplace, we can make small changes that help people attach significance and meaning to what they do, thereby increasing motivation. For example, “workbooks” or “activity sheets” for regular meetings could help. They can make discussions and associated notes feel real. Of course, printing can be wasteful, clutter an office, and reduce your company’s sustainability. If people worry about the sustainability of paper use, then the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) offers plenty of good advice.
We can also make other small changes to help people create more meaning through a sense of permanence, with less paper. Badges and stickers to associate people and tasks may help. So could photos of events and meetings displayed on the office walls. Here is one thing to try this week: at your next team meeting, print a single page that captures what was decided and who owns each action, and pin it where everyone passes it. It costs one sheet of paper, yet it turns a meeting discussion that could have evaporated into something people can see, touch, and return to. That is the whole point. Permanence is not about printing more. It is about choosing the few things worth making real.
