I can’t tell you how many virtual calls I have observed. Or how many slick PowerPoint presentations I have sat through.
And to be honest, most of them aren’t that memorable.
Useful? Undoubtedly. Helpful? Mostly. Convenient? Absolutely.
But convenience is really no substitute for quality.
So ask me about team workshops that really made a fundamental difference? Or presentations that really had me on the edge of my seat? They all have one thing in common.
They were all in person.
Authentically analogue. Time travel with flip charts and marker pens.
Press me hard enough and I can probably remember the shape of room, the people I was with, the smell of the coffee, the sunlight casting exotic shadows on the floor. Or it might have been the pastries at the break, the unexpected snow outside, or the chance comment that sparked a fundamental debate.
The dialogue, the impassioned argument, the decision, the impact – bundled together in a tight, memorable embrace – ready to be recalled at a moment’s notice.
And that’s what this article is about.
Valuing the fundamental importance of coming together; co-creating, debating and exploring. Not as a “nice-to-have” but as a fundamental performance accelerator.
Contents
- The Achilles’ Heel of Digital Natives
- The Hidden Problem with Digital-First Meetings
- The Power of Messy Flip Charts and Analogue Tools
- Cognitive Science: Why Analogue Thinking Works
- The Intimacy of Conversation: Technology as a Barrier
- Business Case Study 1: Somatic Markers in Action
- Business Case Study 2: Leadership Thinking Through Doing
- Recommended Actions
- In Conclusion: The Future is Physical
And if you prefer to listen, here is a short, AI-generated Deep Dive conversation that draws together the key points of this article. It’s not a verbatim transcription; more an exploration of themes, just in a different format.
The Achilles’ Heel of Digital Natives
To be clear, I am no technological Luddite, I appreciate the value of technology in making our lives easier, safer and more connected. I really do get it.
But in an age of digital dominance, where meetings are overwhelmed by endless slide decks, shared screens, and online collaboration tools, something crucial is being lost: the power of analogue thinking.
And it is going to be the Achilles’ Heel of digital natives. Despite technology’s efficiency, and superficial relationship creation, the paradoxical consequence is the attention chasm it creates between people; weakening memory retention, and dampening creativity.
And at the risk of sounding so last century, we know that from a psychological engagement perspective, messy flip charts, handwritten notes, and a physical interaction with ideas, profoundly improves team performance, decision-making, and even customer outcomes.
For the first time ever, new generations are beginning their careers with little to no experience of analogue working in a professional setting. Digital natives – those who have grown up with smartphones, tablets, and online collaboration tools – have never known a world without real-time messaging, cloud-based documentation, and remote meetings.
And whilst the tech magic delivers convenience, it also alters the way we process information, interact with colleagues, and solve problems. As workplaces and meeting rooms continue to gravitate towards connectivity, ironically, the absence of analogue tools will have consequences – making it more important than ever to consciously retain their benefits.
And I’m not just making this up in some wistful, rose-tinted desire for the good old days of paper by the ream and ink by the pint.
We need to acknowledge that digital natives think, communicate, and make decisions differently from previous generations.
Let me introduce you to Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University and a leading expert in generational psychology. Twenge has extensively studied how cultural and technological shifts influence personality traits, attitudes, and behaviours across different age groups. Her work, particularly on the post-Millennial generation she terms “iGen” (born after 1995), delves into how digital technology shapes communication styles and mental health.
So she knows a thing or two about this topic and her study highlights how younger professionals, raised on digital interactions, struggle with in-person communication, preferring structured, asynchronous engagement – like texting or messaging – over spontaneous dialogue. (Twenge et al. 2018)
This shift has significant implications for workplace dynamics, where real-time collaboration and face-to-face discussions are crucial.
To illustrate the broader impact, consider these findings from Twenge’s studies:
- Between 2009 and 2017, the rate of major depressive episodes among 14- to 17-year-olds increased by over 60%.
- Adolescents spending seven or more hours daily on screens were more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression or anxiety compared to those with an hour of screen time.
- Back in 2022, 95% of teens reported using some form of social media, with about a third indicating they use it constantly.
But does this really matter?
I would argue that it does. Absolutely.
Just think about this for a moment. Digital technology, particularly for younger generations, has consequences, both personally and professionally. And I would argue that incorporating analogue methods, such as face-to-face meetings and physical collaboration tools, fundamentally bridges a gap, deepening employee connection and opening up broader cognitive engagement.
It’s particularly relevant in meetings where real-time problem-solving and creative thinking matter. Without analogue experiences – such as physically sketching ideas, moving concepts around on paper, or engaging in face-to-face debates – digital natives risk developing a weaker sense of shared understanding and a skewed sense of collaborative problem-solving.
Digital collaboration tools promise seamless efficiency, but they come at a cognitive and emotional cost. We retain information better when we physically interact with it rather than passively consuming it. Laptops and tablets, while convenient, shift attention away from group dynamics. People disengage, multi-task, and become passive recipients rather than active participants.
Psychologist Antonio Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis explains why this happens.
Our brains don’t just process information logically – they simply can’t help but connect ideas with bodily sensations and emotions. In his book, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Damasio writes:
“The somatic marker hypothesis proposes that emotional processes can guide (or bias) behaviour, particularly decision-making.”
When we engage physically, such as writing, sketching, or moving sticky notes around, we create deeper cognitive connections. Digital note-taking, by contrast, lacks these sensory and emotional anchors, making it easier for important insights to fade away.
The Power of Messy Flip Charts and Analogue Tools
Consider the typical outcome of a strategy workshop: a wealth of creative ideas, intense discussions, and cryptic flip chart notes filled with underlines, arrows, and bold strokes of urgency.
What happens next?
Too often, these raw, energetic materials are “tidied up” into a sterile digital summary, stripping away the context, emotion, and energy that made them powerful in the first place.
This is a mistake. Messy, handwritten notes are memory triggers.
They are the somatic markers, capable of transporting us back to the energy of the discussion. The scribbled phrase in the margin, the hastily circled insight – these elements are not just records; they are anchors that reconnect us to the decisions and debates that shaped them.
In a very real sense, the crafted and debated flip charts are a form of time travel.
Weeks, months, even years later, they can transport us back to the moment of their creation.
Cognitive Science: Why Analogue Thinking Works
Thinking is not just something that happens in the brain. There is some pretty convincing research evidence that our thinking, creativity and learning is strongly influenced by the body’s movements and interactions.
You don’t need to go too deeply into the work of embodied cognition proponents like George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (Metaphors We Live By: 1980) and Philosophy in the Flesh: 1999) or Shaun Gallagher (How the Body Shapes the Mind: 2005) to get the idea.
The simple act of writing by hand engages more neural pathways than typing, bringing better retention and understanding. But don’t take my word for it – Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014) found that students who took handwritten notes performed significantly better on conceptual questions than those who typed them.
The reason?
Handwriting forces cognitive processing, whereas typing tends to be more verbatim and less mentally engaged. Mueller and Oppenheimer concluded, “Our findings suggest that even when laptops are used as intended… they may still be impairing learning because their use results in shallower processing.”
This principle also extends beyond individuals to group collaboration. When teams use analogue tools such as flip charts and sticky notes, they interact more dynamically, physically shaping their ideas rather than just talking about them. It enhances collective memory and strengthens team alignment.
The Intimacy of Conversation: Technology as a Barrier
Beyond cognition, analogue meetings also create a deeper sense of connection. Screens, even when not actively used, create subtle psychological barriers.
Przybylski and Weinstein (2013) found that
“the mere presence of mobile phones inhibited the development of interpersonal closeness and trust, and reduced the extent to which individuals felt empathy and understanding from their colleagues.”
Contrast this with a group gathered around a flip chart, actively contributing with marker pens in hand. A shared, immersive moment, free from distractions and rich with non-verbal cues – generating more authentic, meaningful conversations.
So what can we do to create some kind of balance?
Let’s look at what happened with two very different companies that we worked with recently, TechFlow Manufacturing and Horizon Financial. (not their real names)
Business Case Study 1: Somatic Markers in Action
TechFlow Manufacturing is a mid-sized industrial equipment company based in the UK, with a number of shift teams that were struggling with recurring product defects. Despite numerous digital reports and structured meetings, the root causes remained unclear. Frustration was growing, and collaboration was suffering, particularly in the critical shift handover phases.
In an attempt to halt the downward spiral, the operations lead ditched PowerPoint and with our help, gathered the engineering and assembly teams around a simple whiteboard and flip charts. Instead of abstract discussions, participants physically mapped out the assembly process, annotating problem areas in real time.
As discussions unfolded, Lewis, an experienced assembler, noticed that a particular fitting was frequently mentioned across different teams. He recalled feeling slight inconsistencies in the torque when securing the part, something that was never reflected in the digital quality control data. Because he had previously circled the fitting in his own handwriting on the whiteboard, the act of seeing it again triggered a somatic memory – a physical recall of the sensation he felt when applying force to the tool.
Intrigued by his insight, the team conducted a live test on the factory floor. They discovered that a batch of torque wrenches had slight calibration issues, causing the inconsistency. By acting on this simple but hidden issue, product defects dropped by 37% over the following quarter, customer complaints decreased significantly, and internal collaboration, buoyed up by their successful discovery, improved radically.
Business Case Study 2: Leadership Thinking Through Doing
At Horizon Financial, a boutique German brokerage, the senior leadership team was struggling with disjointed decision-making and a chronic lack of cross-functional collaboration.
Their executive meetings were heavy on presentations, data and reports, but light on real engagement. Strategic discussions felt abstract, and decisions lacked real-world grounding.
In an effort to shift their approach, we worked with the CEO and team to introduce something radical: analogue problem-solving sessions. Instead of relying on slide decks, the leadership team worked around large whiteboards, mapping out challenges and sketching potential solutions together. They physically moved sticky notes to represent market trends, drew connections between departments, and built customer journey maps by hand.
The impact was almost immediate. Leaders challenged each other more effectively, asked sharper questions, and explored alternative perspectives in a hands-on way. Over six months, these analogue sessions led to clearer strategic priorities, faster decision-making, and a 23% increase in cross-department initiatives, reducing costs and improving customer relations.
Recommended Actions
So if you think you need to get appropriately analogue, here are five actions to get on board with:
- Incorporate Physical Tools for Active Engagement: Use flip charts, whiteboards, sticky notes, and large sheets of paper to encourage hands-on interaction in meetings. The key is to make these tools readily available and easy to use – ensure every meeting room has markers, Post-it notes, and plenty of space to work. When people physically engage with materials by writing, sketching, or arranging notes, they embed ideas more deeply into memory and encourage more interactive, dynamic discussions.
- Limit Digital Distractions to Improve Focus: Set clear guidelines for when laptops and phones should be put away to ensure full engagement in discussions. Research shows that even the presence of a phone on the table can reduce interpersonal connection and focus. Encourage teams to have “no-tech time” during problem-solving sessions, where they rely solely on physical tools and face-to-face discussion. If digital tools are needed for documentation, introduce them only after the key discussions and decisions have taken place.
- Encourage Hands-On Problem Solving with Creative Materials: Get teams physically involved in mapping out ideas and making thinking visible. Provide large rolls of paper, colourful markers, and various-sized sticky notes to encourage creative brainstorming and visualisation. Think beyond traditional tools – consider objects, diagrams, and even physical movement to explore challenges from different angles. Creating a visually rich, tangible workspace helps teams see connections between ideas and fosters deeper engagement.
- Keep Handwritten Notes Visible to Retain Context: Avoid immediately transcribing handwritten notes into a sterile digital format. Instead, preserve raw insights in their original form by keeping flip charts visible in the workspace or taking photos before summarising them. If you must create a digital version, include images of the handwritten notes alongside the summary to maintain context and recall value. The roughness of handwritten notes holds the energy of the discussion, acting as a memory trigger for key decisions.
- Use Analogue Methods for Complex Discussions: Reserve digital tools for documentation, tracking, and reporting, but rely on analogue tools for deep thinking and decision-making. Complex problems require exploration, iteration, and debate, which happens more effectively when people can physically interact with ideas rather than being confined to a structured digital format. Encourage teams to sketch out business models, customer journeys, and problem maps on paper first, before refining them digitally.
In Conclusion: The Future is Physical
The way we work shapes the way we think.
While digital tools will continue to play an essential role in modern workplaces, if we become over-reliant on them, we risk eroding our critical thinking, creativity, and human connection.
And we do so at our peril – these are the key value drivers for almost every business I have worked with.
Analogue methods, from messy flip charts to hands-on problem-solving, provide an embodied, sensory-rich way of working that enhances collaboration, decision-making, and long-term memory.
This is how we build more engaged teams, sharper strategic thinking, and a culture of deep problem-solving.
The future of work isn’t about choosing between digital and analogue – it’s about using both intentionally, creating workplaces that transcend digital efficiency; nurturing and unlocking human potential.
If you would like to find out more about how we enhance team performance, both face to face and using technology, just reach out and we can talk it through…
