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Wow, your story about the conference room is almost identical to what Joel (Joel on Software) wrote about CEOs who work in open offices "like everyone else". h
by geebee 12y ago
Wow, your story about the conference room is almost identical to what Joel (Joel on Software) wrote about CEOs who work in open offices "like everyone else".
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FieldGuidetoDevelopers.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FieldGuidetoDeveloper...
"A fairly common Silicon Valley phenomenon is the CEO who makes a big show of working from a cubicle just like the hoi polloi, although somehow there’s this one conference room that he tends to make his own (“Only when there’s something private to be discussed,” he’ll claim, but half the time when you walk by that conference room there’s your CEO, all by himself, talking on the phone to his golf buddy, with his Cole Haans up on the conference table)."
Thing is, even if a CEO isn't converting a conference room into a private office, even if the CEO is sincerely working in the same office space as everyone else, it still doesn't work. PG wrote about this on a related note in the makers vs managers's schedule. Mild interruptions don't seem like a big deal to managers, and the nature of their jobs means that they'll place constant communication far above quiet, focused, uninterrupted work.
- _cudgel 12y agoMild interruptions don't seem like a big deal to managers, and the nature of their jobs means that they'll place constant communication far above quiet, focused, uninterrupted work. The above is the case for flipping the "current" model on it's head: put the folks whose job it is to constantly communicate in the open space, and give the folks who need quiet, focused, uninterrupted work time in offices with doors. It's an extremely hard sell for a culture that rewards status with corner offices, but it definitely _seems_ like the right thing to do. Edit: formatting!
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- rbcgerard 12y agoI used to work on a trading floor where the boss sat in the middle of his group (about 40 people in 5 rows) he had an office that i don't think he ever used (except one-on-one bonus talks with employees). so its not all managers that do that. he also moved everyone around every 4-6 months (especially in terms of who was sitting on either side of him) i liked the system - and i thought it was great/smart to have people sit next to the "boss" for a few months at a time as you definitely were able to build a better relationship/communicate). The funny thing was is that if you polled the people who didn't need to be on the floor (i.e. the BD people), the introverts hated it, and the extroverts loved it...so i feel personality type is just as important in this analysis