New office space design

Author: [US] Marilyn Zellin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: Preface "Escaping the Box" is one of those business phrases that leaves me speechless. It essentially elevates "change," "difference," and "innovation" above almost everything else. Our perception of anything is built upon our expectations of it, and our superworld's honor lies in the unexpected, which severely disrupts our understanding. Moreover, in our culture of being drawn to novelty, "escaping the box" means that people who offer untested ideas receive the same trust and equal "air travel time" as those dedicated to truly understanding how their world works and how it can work better—often even more so. (I think the phrases people hear more often in the corporate world are, "There are no simple solutions, and that is the solution," or even better, "There are no solutions, only continuous steps toward finding one." There are plenty of quotable phrases, so let's return to our musings.) The phrase "We need to escape the box" is sometimes used by corporate managers when they want people to accept—or even believe—a mediocre reform idea, one that might make work-life more difficult or more mediocre, a phrase that really shouldn’t be believed. So, these corporate change agents distribute a humiliating challenge: "Aren’t you willing to escape the box?"
New ways of working, public ways of working, are a disruption to the box, but they are an important and truly valuable business and design idea that has already gained significant momentum since it was developed in the 1990s. Today, it also faces the danger of becoming another cliché reform like "escaping the box." It is heavily hyped by design and business media as a panacea for everything: "expanding real estate," "focusing on customer shortcomings," "insignificant team interactions," and other problems. All this hype may be too heavy and burdensome for any innovation, even though new ways of working can improve many aspects.
New ways of working don’t even start with a single "it" but are an organizational analysis process that can be divided into three basic strategies. They can be used individually or together, depending on the context, the organization’s strategy and needs, and its attitude toward its intellectual capital. This is a process of thoughtfully investigating the organization’s business strategy, projecting the future, its historical use of technology, and its work processes—all within its human framework. The three strategies that seem to continuously emerge from this process are:
1. Radically redesigning the workplace to support radical changes in the way of working. This strategy re-examines the fundamental assumptions about what work exists in the company and emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and collaborative team work in the workplace.
2. Working anywhere, thereby expanding the range of spaces considered usable for work. This expansion can only be enabled by strong portable technology and robust networking. In the "work anywhere" strategy, almost everyone’s "extra" workspace is at home. For companies, it’s a (nearly) "free" workspace; and for employees who have improved their quality of life and are adaptable to the blurring of traditional concepts like work-life, leisure, travel, etc., working from home is often an attractive arrangement.
3. "Hotel-style," which recognizes that with multiple workspace strategies, people may not spend enough time in any single workspace to prove they "own" it. This may be true for those who spend more time outside the office than inside. In the hotel-style strategy, you don’t "own" a workspace in the base office, but you can get a great one whenever you need it. When you leave again, it returns to the "directory" and is assigned to someone else—a space-saving, flexible, and on-demand resource.
Most companies and commentators refer to these "alternative" work environments, alternative work styles, and so on in various ways. I call all of them "new ways of working" because "alternative" implies that there is another primary form of work style: the traditional office, which still holds significant meaning today. The rapid adoption of new ways of working and the fact that every company is actively exploring its use suggest to me that it will soon become the standard, and the word "alternative" will become meaningless, because "who is the alternative?"
Now, all the hype and hope that new ways of working are a simple solution tend to undermine the thoughtful process required to develop appropriate strategies for new ways of working. Most people who want to be "escape-the-boxers," change agents, or corporate reformers act as if new ways of working are a new "product" that you can buy from a design company, their own facilities department, or a management consultant’s shelf. Or they go out, observe how other companies "buy" and use this product, and then copy it themselves. But because it is a process (not a product) and a new one—not a cliché—it is important to adjust expectations for simple solutions based on realistic assessments of your specific environment. As Marilyn emphasizes throughout the book, it is crucial to use understanding instead of exaggerated promotion.
New ways of working are the most explosive innovation I’ve seen in 40 years of practice, and because it is based on thoughtful analysis, it remains truly new. It is made up of enthusiasts, hucksters, cheerleaders, and some thoughtful and even innovative practitioners, observers, and analysts (thank goodness). But in our culture, there is still a powerful force at work that relies on overly simplistic assumptions that can magically bring huge benefits. Examples include:
· Managers’ desire to be seen by their bosses and other reformers as change agents. "Escaping the box" often blurs managers’ ideas about new ways of working, leading to problems in its concept, pace, execution, the estimation of whether the company is ready to adopt it, or even whether it is suitable for the company or, first, for the department.
· Many design companies with little experience in new ways of working constantly claim to be experts in it, promoting it as an additional "specialty," such as drafting programs, construction management, or evaluation engineering. This assumes that new ways of working are a "it" that, no matter what problem arises, the solution is design. It is a process and a response to business problems, and design is just a way to make it possible.
· Corporate real estate people are so desperate to be corporate heroes that they promise large-scale, comprehensive space reductions through new ways of working. However, success largely depends on new mobile technologies and substantial cultural change, neither of which is typically within the control of the real estate department. More importantly, experience shows that where large-scale space reductions are the primary goal, new ways of working tend to have a high failure rate. Success is more likely where space reduction goals are organically combined with helping people "work smarter," and new ways of working are conceived as a complete system to empower work.
· Perhaps an obstacle to their work constantly accepting external resources, equipment managers (FM) promote new ways of working as a new form of facility management. If "facilities" are re-conceptualized as "the place where all work is completed" and "management" is a complete system to empower work, it could truly become a new discipline. However, equipment managers seem to do little to develop new perspectives, skills, values, or to fulfill the role of this idea.
· Companies constantly benchmark their success against each other (no one will announce their failure). Those considering innovation today interview people who are responsible for it in other companies and say, "Oh, it really works here." Half the truth becomes a mantra in another meeting room. This is not a criticism of new ways of working, because I am one of its pioneers and remain a strong advocate with substantial practical experience in it. But a serious warning is that we are turning this new idea into an approved, commercialized "product," far before its results are widely understood, far before a large number of suitable examples emerge that others can learn from, far before many capable new ways of working providers emerge (which requires complex, interdisciplinary analysis and action), and far before most organizations seeking to adopt new ways of working have the capacity to successfully implement the complete system required for innovation.
So, what should we do? If new ways of working are just another trend (like hula hoops, pet rocks, and postmodern design), we just need to wait quietly for it to fade away, and everything will return to normal. But it won’t disappear, because it is an intelligent response to a series of interconnected trends (many of which are globalized), which are now transforming the nature of work and will soon affect migration patterns, learning models, and social relationships. All we can do is to look for, welcome, read, and pay attention to books like this one. It is a meaningful, comprehensive work where Marilyn observes the practice of new ways of working through her sharp journalistic eyes, and a careful reading can help us make wiser decisions in supporting people’s best work and making the best use of new ways of working.
Michael Brierley
Architect
President, Buffalo Society and Technology Innovation Organization, Inc.