3 ms·
> Culture is the only long-term competitive advantage an organization can bring to bear, wut. these guys are trying to sell office furniture. but let's preten
by RickS 8y ago
> Culture is the only long-term competitive advantage an organization can bring to bear,
wut.
these guys are trying to sell office furniture. but let's pretend for a second that this article _isn't_ in bad faith:
I have yet to meet an office layout designed for a cultural principles that delivers anything but a hollow approximation of the desired outcome. "Collaborative spaces" in every company I've seen feel fake as hell. It's usually difficult to be undistracted and private, alone or with your group.
Short of a large, glass-walled, soundproof conference room dedicated to one team, I have found no "manufactured" environment that reliably elicits excellent work.
I'm pretty sure the best office design for culture is "here's a big room. you decide who comes in here. here's some budget for furnishings" and then you figure it out as you go and let the trajectory of the work dictate the trajectory of the space.
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separate from culturally shaped space, i do find designing for general happiness to be worthwhile and effective. Plants, views, lighting, etc. But that's not cultural IMO.
- bradknowles 8y agoI wish it was soundproof. Many hard surfaces make for lots of echoes and a very loud office.
- dsr_ 8y agoPlants can be cultural signifiers. Do they exist? Are they on exhibit or part of the background? Are they uniformly distributed? Are they banned? Are they supplied by the office management? Are they the property of individuals?
- manigandham 8y agoI would rather have people focused on getting work done than analyzing the plant distribution in the office.
- dvtrn 8y agoLeave my Amazon Basics bonzai tree out of this.
- com2kid 8y ago> Short of a large, glass-walled, soundproof conference room dedicated to one team, I have found no "manufactured" environment that reliably elicits excellent work. An old team of mine got relegated to one of those, minus the glass walls. It had been a video recording studio in a previous life. It was indeed great for team culture! It had ceiling tracks for lights, we hung a disco ball from it. And a bunch of other stuff, because hey, ceiling tracks! > "here's a big room. you decide who comes in here. here's some budget for furnishings" and then you figure it out as you go and let the trajectory of the work dictate the trajectory of the space. Yup! We purchased our own (glass) desks, assembled them as a team. Did a lot of customization to the space, which no one else could see/hear so the space was actually our own.