We do a weekly fixed appointment where we gather together and smalltalk about whatever is on our minds.
We also have something like that. But since it is not spontaneous, not every participant in the same state of mind and hence those meetings are a dud. Whereas participants in water cooler conversations are there because they want a break and want to chit chat. So conversations are more natural and hence enjoyable.
Have you found any tricks/ideas from the implementation at your org that has made it more successful for you?
If anything these kinds of “meetings” felt like they made the culture on my team worse because they felt so forced and inorganic