I’ve been thinking about what an optimized collaborative space would look like. I know that many businesses are certainly concerned with this. Think about it. Who wouldn’t want to increase the productivity of everyone in their company?
I suppose that the place to start is to consider what it takes to do awesome work. Since most of my experience is in the technology field, that is what I’ll be focusing on here. However, I would suspect that many of the theories here could be applied to other fields just as well.
Think back to the time when you’ve done your best work.
Of course, different kinds of work are better suited to certain kinds of spaces. There is a difference between creative and implementative work. When it comes to seeding creativity and innovation, solitude trumps collaborative environments. How so? Remember the concept of mirroring in psychology? People in a group tend to mirror the person that is percieved as “dominant”. This can often lead to a sort of “common denominator” of an idea coming forth from such groups. Typically, this idea will originate and is fueled by the most extroverted person in the group. While this is fine for deciding where a group will go for lunch, it’s terrible if you actually want to hear of innovative, off-the-wall ideas. Once an idea has spouted and taken root, then there is significant benefit to be found in polishing the rough edges in a collaborative environment. This can certainly help with determining implementation. The difference is that the idea didn’t come from the group. Ultimately, it comes down to this. If you want new, fresh, unique ideas… seek solitude. If you want to refine and test an idea… seek collaboration.
Think back to the time when you’ve done your best work.
When I think of the times I’ve been most productive in working with other people, it’s always been on a small scale. Two or three people working together seems to be the sweet spot. When you have more people than that working together, you end up with either two to three people doing most of the work and the rest watching, or you end up with the larger group breaking up into smaller groups of two to three and tackling the problem. This is why meetings are so terribly inefficient. So, ultimately, do you really need more than two or three people in one “group work space”, working on a single problem? Is mandating a “group brainstorming session” on a problem really going to help? You see this happen naturally in group chat rooms, like campfire. A few people will be discussing something and it gets taken to another room or instant message, where the two or three people can continue communicating. You’ve seen this if you’ve ever walked in on a few people staring at a whiteboard covered with writing and they’re just sitting there, thinking.
Think back to the time when you’ve done your best work.
You hear a lot about open floor plans these days, from those that love them to those that hate them. A bit of a confession is in order. I used to be one of the people that was absolutely in love with the concept of an open floor space. Even now, I still think they can be leveraged well. However, there is something missing from open floor spaces. It has nothing to do with furniture or layout. Instead, it has everything to do with culture. I think that the quintessential open floor plan has been wildly popular for many years… in libraries. Think about it. Almost every single library I’ve been to revolves around a giant, open space. What’s the difference between a library and the “typical” open floor plan office? Library culture. If you start cracking up and having a loud conversation in the middle of library, you are certainly going to get stern looks. If you keep it up, the librarian is probably going to kick you out. It’s a group space that is focused on solitude. I know that sounds like an oxymoron. “Group space focused on solitude.” Sure, you can work together, but keep it quiet. This lets people really get heads down and work on something without feeling antisocial. This sort of open floor space has worked for many, many years. It can work for your open floor plan too.
Think back to the time when you’ve done your best work.
“But what about our culture of enjoying the company of the people we work with?”, you may ask. I never said that you couldn’t. Might I propose the 40/60 theory? What’s this 40/60 theory? It’s actually pretty simple. 60% of your office space is dedicated to being a sort of library space. Quiet, group solitude space. The other 40% is dedicated to spaces where people can relax, talk, drink beer, or whatever else they want to do together. One key to this is that the 40% space does not include things like the lunch/break room, conference rooms, or other similar spaces. The 40% space should have lots of places to sit. Comfy chairs, couches, and cafe tables come to mind for me. Whiteboards everywhere; all over the walls and a few standalone ones on casters. This would be where you keep your games too. Perhaps a nice big projector for watching fun stuff together. The 40% space is where people can go and just relax. You could also do work there. Perhaps you’re in the mindset of craving interaction but still want to hack on something. This is where you go. Having a 40/60 space would allow people to match their environment to their mindset at the moment.
Think back to the time when you’ve done your best work.
Mindset. I guess a lot comes down to your mindset. Now, I’m not saying you need to find some way to alter your mindset in order to do great work. I would never expect someone to do so though. Neither should you or your business expect that. I know that, for me, the times I’ve done my best work is when I’ve been able to match my environment to my mindset. Not the other way around. (I honestly don’t know if matching mindset to environment is even possible. If it is, it must be hard.) By giving people a choice of environments to work at, in the office, you give them the ability to match their environment to their mindset. I cannot stress this enough. This is important! Though, honestly, sometimes a 40/60 space still isn’t enough. When a 40/60 space just won’t cut it, turn to the rest of the world. Perhaps working in the office just isn’t jiving with someone today. Find out what’s up and, if possible, fix it and make the office that much better. If it isn’t something you can fix, but that person feels they could do better work somewhere else… LET THEM! If someone knows they could do work better from some other place, that’s awesome and let them run with it. “The place you are free to leave is the place you are free to be.” Personally, if I know I could do better work somewhere else, but I’m not allowed to do my work there, I feel depressed and trapped. This is bad and is heavily against doing great work. Even allowing your employees to work from home “as long as they let ‘some-manager’ know”, isn’t enough. Give your people complete freedom to work where they know they will be able to do their best work and you can expect great things.
Think back to the time when you’ve done your best work.
“But… if everyone isn’t in the office, how will we know work is getting done? How will we work together?”, you might ask. Well, as far as work getting done, that should be rather simple. Is work getting done? If yes, great! If no, try talking to the person who isn’t getting their work done. The thought that being able to physically see someone somehow ensures that work is getting done is absolute rubbish. All you can tell from looking at someone is if they are staring at their screen. Woop-de-fuckin’-do. Your standard for “gets shit done” should involve actually looking at the output of what they do. As for working together, remember the whole massively diminishing returns related to group size? Well, there’s a simple solution to this issue. Firstly, give people a way to communicate asynchronously. Then, trust that your people will do whatever needs to be done in order to do awesome work. I don’t think this is terribly revolutionary, but it seems like people miss this all the time. Let’s say a couple of people are chatting about something. They decide that it would be cool to attack this issue with a whiteboard but, they are both working remotely today. One is at a cafe and the other at home. If you think, at all, that “Well, I guess they can’t collaborate together.”, then you’re a moron. However, there is hope. Since you’ve empowered your people to do whatever they need to do to accomplish awesome work, they might just agree to both come by the office and hack it out in the 40% space tomorrow! That’s like… revolutionary!… or something. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me, but I think it’s fucking common sense. Let people do whatever is necessary to do awesome work. Get out of their way and trust them to get it done.
Think back to the time when you’ve done your best work.
What if you want to design a physical space to really leverage what I’ve mentioned? Maybe you have the chance to build out a new office space, from scratch, however you’d like. What can you do to help encourage a “collective solitude” type of space. I propose using physical barriers to build small nooks where people can work, yet still feel connected to the primary space. Kind of like a maze. No, not a cubicle farm. (Those can die in a fire.) Instead of crappy cubicle walls or office spaces, how about we borrow another concept from the library. Bookshelves. Go to ikea, buy a bunch of those bookshelves that look like some kind of grid. Fill them with all the books you can. If you don’t have enough books to fill all the space, then they have those little cubble-hole looking box things that fit in the grid. I’m certain that the grid bookshelves are less expensive than cubicle walls or a real wall. I’m also sure that surrounding everyone with awesome books will benefit everybody. Such a setup, using bookshelves to separate spaces into areas where three to four people can sit down and work, will permit people to work without the distraction of people walking around the room. It will also help to dampen noises. Did I mention how great it would be to be surrounded by awesome books? Seriously. Do this.
Think back to the time when you’ve done your best work.
Recap… Give people options in their work spaces. One size does not fit all. Let people match their work environment to their current mindset. Let people work in groups naturally. Don’t force it. Let people do whatever is necessary to do kickass work and then trust them to do so. Make your office into the sort of varied, flexible, awesome space where people actually want to be. Ultimately, it comes down to one simple thing.
Think back to the time when you’ve done your best work.
- ShepBook