In my last blog post here and an article I wrote shortly after for iCroner, “Journey of Leadership in the Workplace”, I articulated my thoughts and theories on how leadership has changed in the workplace. Lately I have been reading and reflecting on this, and also on the wider picture of influences on leadership styles, and started to wonder – how much does an organisation allow us to be individual leaders? How does an organisation encourage certain types of leadership style?

A contact (who used to be a professional dancer, like myself) posted on Facebook recently that a dance performance by GroupoCorpo was really innovative and very different. I was intrigued and watched a clip of the performance, and was underwhelmed to say the least. The dancers were mostly all synchronised, as in most group ballets or modern dance routines; the only “dynamic”, in my opinion, was the costumes. They were black and white unitards and the colours were divided down the middle of each person – one side of their body white and the other black. Now, I would say this gives an interesting look, but innovative?

This started to get me thinking – relating the dance to an organisation, and considering the level of freedom we have as managers and leaders to express our own leadership styles, what does this mean? Do we look for synchronicity and uniformity in leaders?

Many organisations use performance management tools for staff that aim to define behaviours that are desirable and encouraged, including “leadership”. Many organisations feel this is necessary in order to foster “right” behaviours and discourage “wrong” behaviours. In principle, this all seems fine, but what defines right? And can we define, for example, the behaviour “to be innovative”? Surely, in many ways, this is subjective, and if this is the case, how do we then measure it? These are questions that HR practitioners have been asking for a number of years, and the only real answer is to define it within the context of the organisation and its vision, and define innovation based on that context. But this is likely to impact on leadership styles and the freedom to express ourselves – if we are all to be defined by the context of the organisation and be uniformed in our approach, then we are perhaps stifling the innovation and talent we, as organisations, are desperate to retain and hire.

But what happens if someone is “different”, as this can be seen as wrong and needing correcting – in order to be seen as “good leaders” within an organisation, do we need to become like actors and only “show” the expressions and leadership of what is required for that particular organisation? I would argue that this is not the solution, and heard a similar position discussed at a lunchtime debate I attended recently, sponsored by HR Magazine. The panellists raised the point that staff want their leaders to be “human”, also referred to as “authentic” and, in the States, “holistic” leadership. Whichever term you use, it seems to me that people want leaders who they feel are “real” – someone they feel comfortable talking to rather than someone who makes them feel like they need to watch their “p’s and q’s” constantly.

One of the most common recruitment questions currently being asked is, “How do you add value?”, which implies an acceptance and even desire of individuality from future (and hence one would assume also current) employees. But is this what organisations genuinely look for and reward – difference and individuality in their leaders – or do they really want uniformity? It seems that there is a trend for people within the organisations wanting individuality but organisations as a whole lacking support for it, so it may be that they need to make some dramatic changes to their processes and systems to accommodate and attract real, innovative talent.

Jennifer Bryan is an independent consultant who collaborates with ArchTam’s Consultancy practice.

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Recently an essay of mine and two co-authors’ was re-published in the Ontario Association of Architects anniversary book[1] (you can read it here on page 15[2]). Our chapter featured the question of “why some buildings are so ugly”.

By approaching this question from a person-centric perspective, we elaborated on three key themes: (1) the building’s usability and adaptability moderating the perception of a building’s aesthetic quality (2) the socio-cultural context the building stems from and is currently situated in, and (3) the perceptional divide and communicational barriers between experts and non-professionals, which must be overcome to prevent misevaluation and misuse.

I would like to talk about the third theme, its applicability to our everyday work as designers and consultants, and its importance for change management. As we know, successful communication in developing and depicting strategic decisions is key to our work, whether it happens within the team, with the client or with the end-user.

However, it is often forgotten that we do not share the same knowledge, understanding and associations as our clients or end-users, which consequently sets unequal starting points for conversation. Therefore, we as experts have to actively manage the perceptional divide between us and the non-professional counterpart. This requires almost investigative work: active/attentive listening, identifying preconceptions or misinformed ideas and, importantly but labour intensive, translating qualities without drifting into jargon.

By drawing on academic work[3] we found that, although the difficulty in communicating between two “worlds” of expertise is a problem, at the same time, effective communication carries the solution to bridge the gap to a mutual understanding. To successfully build this so-called “communicational bridge”, an understanding of the reasons for the systematic differences in the perception of the built environment between experts and non-professionals is necessary, and will lead to tools for successful communication and, effectively, to successful design solutions.

Generally, this difference in perception is a well-documented phenomenon. Although explanations are varied, we can safely say that a central aspect lies in the background of experiences gained through many years of architectural/design education, professional experience and its socialization, which leads to a difference in the cognitive state. The experts develop a frame of reference which leads him/her to identify connections to current, historical, or technical contexts — to see a building as result of a design and building process. As the non-professional does not wear these “knowledge goggles”, he/she tends not to have this capability and sees a building solely as a surface of hypothetical use.[4]

Alongside this, several studies[5] have supported the existence of “image banks” — a mental database of architectural solutions. For architects and designers, these banks include a wide range of past, international and future projects cognitively “stored” under various categories and are, obviously, more developed than the non-professionals’ image banks. We see this in the differences in perceived meaning of architecture, for example: a monolithic, sculptural style often described by experts as “clear” and “honest” can be perceived by non-professionals as “naked”, “unfinished”, or “heavy block” architecture. Interestingly, the handling of deviation from these “object schemata” varies between both groups: non-experts also tend to prefer buildings which are similar to their norm and experiences, whereas experts prefer innovation and the unusual, pushing the boundaries in the search for innovation. [6]

But the difference itself is not the problem; it is how we communicate across it.

Designs do not necessarily speak for themselves or have the power alone to change behaviours, no matter how good the design solution might be. We must reform our communications to fully understand the user’s needs and preferences, and raise understanding of design solutions. This is particularly crucial to change management processes and is a chance to create designs with people in mind, and guarantee the best reciprocal process possible!

We identified four crucial aspects which generate a barrier to effective communication:

• Professionals often view architecture as self-explanatory, which is not the case;
• Some professionals appear to hold the opinion that it is impossible to express design/architectural qualities linguistically;
• There tends to be a lack of willingness to communicate beyond professional borders, which would include adjustments to terminology;
• Experts forget or fail to recognize that the public perceives design/architecture differently and, often lacking the willingness or ability to articulate these differences, misleadingly label non-professionals as philistines who are unable to recognise a design’s value.

This leads into four communicational Dos/Don’ts:

• Explain the design, no matter how obvious!
• Try hard to explain design qualities even if you struggle to put it into words. Try to explain the experience of use.
• Use everyday language, not jargon. You wouldn’t want your doctor to explain a medical condition to you in terminology you don’t understand.
• Put yourself in the shoes of the other, try to understand any lack of awareness, and translate (see point 3) the important information for them.

Keeping an eye on these pitfalls will help us to communicate better across borders and to generate design solutions with people in mind. Even though design quality is not easy to express and to explain, an effort should certainly be made to raise clients’, end-users’ and consequently the public’s understanding and valuation of good design solutions.

Clara Weber, doctorate candidate in psychology, is a consultant at ArchTam’s Strategy Plus practice in London. 

Notes

[1]http://www.oaa.on.ca/professional%20resources/resources%20for%20architects%20&%20practices/125th%20Anniversary%20Book

[2] http://www.oaa.on.ca/oaamedia/documents/OAAPerspectivesFall2012.pdf

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/OAAQ0312/index.php

[3] Benz, I. & Rambow, R. (2011). Sichtbeton in der Architektur: Perspektivenunterschiede zwischen Experten und Laien. Umweltpsychologie, 15(1), 112-129.

Rambow, R. (2000). Experten-Laien-Kommunikation in der Architektur. Münster: Waxmann.

Uzzell, D.L. & Jones, E. (2000). The development of a process-based methodology for assessing the visual impact of buildings. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 17(4), 330–343.

[4] Benz, I. & Rambow, R. (2011). Sichtbeton in der Architektur: Perspektivenunterschiede zwischen Experten und Laien. Umweltpsychologie, 15(1), 112-129.

Canter, D., Sanchez-Robles, J. C. & Watts, N. (1974). A scale for cross-cultural evaluation of houses. In D. Canter & T. Lee (Eds.), Psychology and the built environment (pp. 80–86). London: Architectural Press.

Hershberger, R. G. (1988). A study of meaning and architecture. In J. L. Nasar (Ed.), Environmental aesthetics: Theory, research, and application (pp. 175–194). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wilson, M. & Canter, D. V. (1991). The development of central concepts during professional education: An example of a multivariate model of the concept of architectural style. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 32, 159–172; Wilson, M. (1996). The socialization of architectural preferences. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 16, 33–44.

Wilson, M. (1996). The socialization of architectural preferences. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 16, 33–44.

[5] Downing, F. (1992). Image banks. Dialogues between the past and the future. Environment and Behavior, 24, 441–470.

Stamps, A.E. & Nasar, J.L. (1997). Design review and public preferences: Effects of geographical location, public consensus, sensation seeking, and architectural styles. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 17 (1), 11–32.

Uzzell, D.L. & Jones, E. (2000). The development of a process-based methodology for assessing the visual impact of buildings. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 17(4), 330–343.

[6]Canter, D. (1969). An intergroup comparison of connotative dimensions in architecture. Environment and Behavior, 1, 37-48.

Devlin, K. & Nasar, J. L. (1989). The beauty and the beast: Some preliminary comparisons of “high“ versus “popular“ residential architecture and public versus architect judgements of the same. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 9, 333–344;

Hershberger, R. G. (1988). A study of meaning and architecture. In J. L. Nasar (Ed.), Environmental aesthetics: Theory, research, and application (pp. 175–194). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nasar, J. L. (1989). Symbolic meanings of house styles. Environment and Behavior, 21, 235–257.

Nasar, J. L. (1993). Connotative meaning of house styles. In G. Arias (ed.), The Meaning and Use of Housing: Ethnoscapes (bol.7) (pp. 143–167).

Purcell, A. T. (1986). Environmental perception and affect: A schema discrepancy model. Environment and Behavior, 18, 3–30;

Purcell, A. T. & Nasar, J. L. (1992). Experiencing other people’s houses: A model of similarities and differences in environmental experience. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 12, 199–211;

Sadalla, E. K. & Sheets, V. L. (1993). Symbolism in building materials: Self-presentational and cognitive components. Environment and Behavior, 25, 155–180.

Uzzell, D.L. & Jones, E. (2000). The development of a process-based methodology for assessing the visual impact of buildings. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 17(4), 330–343.

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These people thrive on challenges and draw energy from environments that allow them to learn. The early cohorts of digital natives are now graduating from schools where personalised learning has been integrated into the curriculum. They expect to be an active participant, not a passive observer.

The transformation in our schools is being played out in our workplaces. Technology is shifting both the means of work and the relationships that manage it. Knowledge-based processes are increasingly automated or outsourced. Hierarchies are being routed by networks.

According to a 2013 paper by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, two Oxford University researchers, 47% of all jobs are likely to be replaced by a computer – not just factory work, but any process governed by an algorithm of rules where best practices can be identified.

What’s left for us humans is arguably the more interesting stuff that relies on higher-order thinking, collaboration, innovation and relationships. These are the qualities that people bring that robots aren’t so good at – interactivity, emotional intelligence, flexibility, quirkiness.

They’re all qualities found in the growing companies that we most admire.

In Australia, the poster child for such progressive, human-led but technology-enabled companies is software development company Atlassian – a company that is on the verge of an IPO that would see the two 34-year-old co-CEOs valued at over A$1b each. The success of this company is founded on a set of values targeted squarely at the new world of work:

1. Open Company, No Bullshit
2. Build with Heart and Balance
3. Don’t #@!% the Customer
4. Play, as a Team
5. Be the Change you Seek

Both Deloitte’s passionate people and many prospective Atlassian staffers “may struggle with clearly defined roles, organisational silos, and predictability”. Seely Brown and Hagel argue that organisations need to redesign their work environments – both physical and virtual environments – and management systems to attract and retain passionate people.

The changes in the physical workplace are well underway. Andrew Laing’s 2013 paper on the ITC sector in New York sets out a comprehensive survey of the shifts both in demand and supply for workspace. The conventions of the relentlessly efficient single-use office tower, the long commercial lease, the privately owned work point are all crumbling. Many of our clients are already using less space and looking for new ways to share the space they have. Work is leaving the building, and looking for new toeholds across the city – the new hubs and third places, and the old libraries, cafes and public spaces.

The spaces in between will be the real attractor for the Googles, the Atlassians and the Kulgans. Curating these spaces will be the next challenge for precinct planners and city strategists who have long understood the place-making contributions of landscape and art. The next generation of installations will be playful hybrids of virtual and physical worlds – not just for the tech sector, but for every human with a super computer in her or his pocket. Urban gaming will be serious play.

Play offers the freedom to invent, to improvise and experiment. To do things that would look like failure in other contexts. Over the past five years a whole new ecology of games has emerged with the saturation of the smart phone and GPS technologies.

“Gaming is play across media, time, social spaces, and networks of meaning. It requires players to be fluent in a series of connected literacies that are multi-modal, performative, productive, and participatory in nature.” pvi collective

Serious urban games now exist for training for change, for health and for social cohesion. They range from covert individual experiences through to gleeful group quests. Here are four examples of the rapidly growing field.

1. Soulfill

Soulfill is a mobile assisted role-playing game for public transport. It wants you to focus on the people in the environment around you, not on the screen in your hand. The game prompts are minimal. You listen to a narrator who challenges you to move past the awkwardness of initiating eye contact. You score points by initiating and maintaining eye contact with strangers – and you lose points by making eye contact with those already looking at you.

Multi-player games are more carefully programmed in time and space – and this orchestration accounts for the influence of performance arts groups in urban gaming.

2. Deviator

Perth-based pvi collective’s game known as Deviator recently took over the inner Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst. Deviator is an immersive, outdoor game played in teams with smart phones. Audience members are charged with the mission of temporarily transforming their city into a playground by engaging with a number of not-so-serious challenges.

I’m still not sure how pole dancing in Oxford Street qualified, but the gleeful fun of sack races on cross walks, “kiss chasey” in Taylor Square, and blowing up balloons until they burst resonated – most of them were straight out of the school yard. Other locations asked for more subversive play – (follow someone without their knowledge until they turn into a doorway) – or regenerative (here are some seeds you might want to plant) or declarative (what message would you like to leave on this blackboard). But the need to rack up as many points inside an hour made for an hilarious frenzied night of fun. Watch here.

3. Black market

The group behind deviator has another project in development titled black market. Part game, part social experiment, black market takes place on city streets and locates the players inside a world of economic collapse. Inspired by the core philosophies of the ‘occupy’ movement and the financial bankruptcies in Europe, players need to survive in a world where money and material wealth have collapsed. Bartering and bargaining come to the fore.

4. Massively Multiplayer soba

Massively Multiplayer Soba is a large scale collaborative urban game focused on culture, food and language that culminates in a meal. Points are awarded on the basis of complexity and the depth of interactions, rather than a scavenger hunt. The game is designed to encourage people to mix and interact with residents in meaningful ways that challenge preconceptions of race and language.

Where to next? The next generation of urban gaming might see more pervasive games that leave traces of activity in spaces for future visitors. Or games that create more open-ended stories. Even games that connect people more intensely over time. The one thing we can be sure about is that the growth will be extraordinary, and with the mobile phone at the centre.

“The phone takes the processing power of yesterday’s supercomputers – even the most basic model has access to more number-crunching capacity than NASA had when it put men on the moon in 1969 – and applies it to ordinary human interactions”.

Ordinary human interactions are the stuff of our cities. Watch out for the rise of serious play.

Sue Wittenoom (sue.wittenoom@archtam.com) is a director of ArchTam’s Strategy Plus practice in Australia. She’s presenting at GreenCities 2015 in Melbourne on March 18. Follow her on twitter @swittenoom

More urban gaming links:

https://www.ingress.com/: a mobile, geolocation-based game that calls on players to travel to real-world locations such as landmarks and public art, where they use their phones to open and close portals that can help or hinder an invading alien race

http://www.rottenapple.us/: random hacks of citizenry

http://www.watershed.co.uk/playablecity/conference14/: A Playable City is a city where people, hospitality and openness are key, enabling its residents and visitors to reconfigure and rewrite its services, places and stories.

References:

The Playful and the Serious: An approximation to Huizinga’s Homo Ludens. Hector Rodrigeuz the international journal of computer game research volume 6 issue 1 December 2006

The Second Machine Age, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, 2014

The Implications of a Networked Urban Landscape for Architectural Programming. Andrew Laing Volume Art & Science of Real Estate Volume 42 2014 #4

Work and workplaces and the digital city, Andrew Laing, Columbia University Centre for Urban Real Estate, 2013

Propositions for Sydney. Andrew Laing and Sue Wittenoom, 2014

The Power of Immersive Media Frank Rose, strategy+business February 9, 2015

The Play Report. Protein Journal Issue 13

Serious Urban Games. From play in the city to play for the city Gabriele Ferri and Patrick Coppock, February 2012

The future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation? Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, 2013

Unlocking the passion of the Explorer. Report 1 of the 2013 Shift Index series. Deloitte Center for the Edge

The truly personal computer The Economist February 28^th 2015

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Direction for this comes from our colleagues in workplace strategy – they are consultants, focused on the changing nature of work. They try to capture how people currently use their space and suggest what we could do to improve the overall experience of work. As graduate designers, we have fewer years in practice but bring strengths to the team such as being “super-fast at software”, and great at “I know a bit about that”…. Rarely are two of our days similar or even alike! So this is an approximation of a day in our shoes as a graduate designer.

To start our Monday morning, we meet with our team, discuss our current projects and find out what the week will bring.

Lilly is currently working on a large project in West London (a total rebranding of the company’s space) at Stage E that occupies most of her time, whereas Amy has worked on a number of small projects since starting work with ArchTam, currently three of various scales and in various parts of the UK (although many projects our team undertakes can be across Europe, the Middle East and Asia).

Lilly continues to make adjustments to a detailed list of furniture for the project she is working on, a crucial role, making sure every detail is incredibly accurate, to ensure the correct products are delivered to site; she meets with a supplier and collects samples to complete a finishes board, and continues to run through the changes, checking it matches with the drawing.

Amy makes changes to a presentation, showing the ways the client can improve their current space, to be ready for a client meeting later in the week (a London-based project with a client looking to improve the current space to suit the changing needs of the company). Another part of her day is spent drawing an elevation of a customer-facing innovation centre for a long-standing client; she also marks up and updates those all-important visuals for a project in Dublin.

A typical day can involve both concentrated work on a detailed drawing, as well as dynamic work collaborating with colleagues on a new concept design – it’s usually a bit of both.

A lot of time is spent working on technical drawings, concept plans and elevations. We also spend plenty of time 3D modelling and creating crisp visuals, producing presentation packages to show the client. But we’re not always behind a computer – we sometimes get let out of the office to site meetings, liaise with suppliers, and of course work closely with our colleagues.

Working in the Strategy Plus team, the real variety for us comes when we work on projects that include both strategy and design work. During these projects, there are days spent onsite conducting research, and others in the office analyzing data to produce key recommendation reports, which will in turn feed nicely into the design work and how we produce the best possible solutions for our clients.

The days of a graduate designer are not only filled with work. We spend time developing our skills and knowledge, and taking time to reflect on all that we learn. As Lilly is an associate CSD member she works towards achieving full design accreditation, which requires time and persistence on a weekly basis. Keeping track of all her work and the skills and knowledge she has gained is very important for development.

Being part of a large organization with hundreds of graduates recruited every year provides a great opportunity to build valuable relationships, not only with clients, suppliers and senior management but with other young professionals in the industry. Part of the graduate scheme means we have days out to learn and connect with our colleagues across the country.

As graduates, we have the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects and tasks, gain knowledge in different areas, choose areas of interest for future development, and build a professional network from the very beginning.

For us, every day is different, but what unites all of them is that every day we learn something new, which makes us less graduates and more professional.

Amy Bourne and Liliya Kovachka are designers at ArchTam’s Strategy Plus practice in London. 

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This means new rules, a different game. Internet citizens now understand the enormous power of collective influence to get what they want, when they want and how they want it. Millennials – those born between the late 90s and early 2000s – were the first to embrace the change, and seize the ability to share media content in powerful new ways. Both a cause and product of this new online environment, a typical Millennial is more tolerant, educated and well-connected, and they like to do things their own way. They are less inclined to take orders and more into problem solving through collaborative interaction – live and online.

Alongside this in the workplace, many companies are gradually leaving behind their old-fashioned corporate structures, embracing the effects of these changes. Harnessing the power of networks is falling to management at every level, with a growing impetus to foster an ongoing, open, collaborative culture that facilitates freedom of expression and “entrepreneurial” spirit. Increasingly, companies are tearing down the walls (both physical and metaphorical) between employees, opening up space for dialogue, and allowing them to work together in a way that suits them rather than in a prescribed manner or quantity.

Since I joined ArchTam’s Strategy Plus team in Spain nearly a year ago, I have enjoyed experiencing this “participatory culture”. For example, our i-breaks (innovation breaks) – a weekly 30-minute session where random team members share new trends, e.g. in technology, sustainability, business initiatives. Every member is free to contribute when ready, and what they contribute is always valued. This community of ideas provides a strong incentive for creative expression and active participation, positively affecting the output of our work.

Here’s another example; accompanied by our client, Spanish developer GMP, some ArchTam colleagues from around the world (including me) got together in Madrid for a learning event hosted by the Strategy Plus team. Within a 24-hour timeframe, three teams were challenged to produce three proposals for the future of an iconic building – to turn it into a landmark site. One of these focused on aspirational office space, another on a high-spec technological site, and the third on a top-quality mixed-use space.

Every idea was considered, from each and every team member, for the final delivery of each proposal, enhancing artistic expression and team engagement. The result of sharing knowledge and ideas between the diverse team members was incredibly beneficial in delivering creative solutions, giving a holistic view of the information for faster and better decision making. The event also enabled us to build and strengthen powerful and durable relationships with colleagues around the globe.

It’s time to create a brighter future. I strongly believe that shifting corporate culture towards advanced collaboration plays to the strengths of the incoming workforce, and fosters a more interactive, creative workforce that is engaged and motivated, meaning a project delivery of any size can be handled more efficiently and effectively. A great example of this from amongst our clients would be Sony Music’s Headquarters in Madrid, now an integrated, flexible space for artists and staff to enjoy (pictured above). This new approach has increased the volume of Sony Music’s visitors while fostering closer relationships with their clients and label support teams.

Is your company ready to embrace the change?

Alvaro Ager is part of the Communications team at ArchTam’s Strategy Plus practice in Madrid.

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When I graduated in 2010, I didn’t have a clue about my future except for one thing:

Don’t spend the next four years drawing bathroom details.

I landed a job with ArchTam’s Strategy Plus practice (then DEGW) shortly after graduating, and a whole new world of workplace research, change management and executive summaries lay before me. I was on my way to becoming a “strategic consultant,” whatever that meant…

Four years later, I’m a little bit older, I’ve got a better idea of what a Strategic Consultant is, and I still haven’t drawn a single bathroom detail. It’s been a formative four years, with a lot of accomplishments and just as many mistakes. I learned many invaluable lessons that will undoubtedly stay with me, and it makes it that much harder to say that these are my last few weeks at Strategy Plus before embarking on my next challenge. It’s true; all good things come to an end.

Looking back on my time with Strategy Plus, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with really great people on all sorts of projects, each challenging me to think differently, explore further, and no matter how difficult, produce results. The following are the top four things I’ve learned as a strategic consultant (and how I’ve applied them to my life).

Don’t expect everyone to listen

It’s easy to get invested and attached to a project. I could spend months doing research and developing recommendations that will help my client be successful, but unforeseen factors could prevent the recommendations from being implemented. It can be a huge blow to the ego, because it feels as if all that time was invested and the client spent their money for nothing. It took me some time to realize that this wasn’t the case – the client paid for expertise and advice, and what I have done is to provide the best recommendations for their success. It may eventually get implemented, but that’s all that the client asked for. Like opinions, people may ask you for them but they don’t necessarily have to listen to you.

Change is scary, but worthwhile

No matter how beneficial a recommendation may be, if it disrupts daily life in just the smallest way, prepare for resistance. Understandably – you work long enough doing something, you’ll start to understand how things work, you can predict outcomes, and eventually you develop a sense of control. Change is scary because it’s risky. Change asks you to abandon that control and do something different and foreign, something that may not have been done before so there is no precedent, no example to compare to. But what is life without risk? The thing with risks is this: there’s a chance that things may go poorly, or really, really well. And even if it isn’t what you’d hoped, you will have learned one way not to do things and you can bet the next attempt will be better.

Money doesn’t change ideas

Don’t get me wrong, money is a very real factor in consulting. It can either limit how much time you invest or offer you opportunities to try something different, or on a larger scale. However, I think that’s about all that money should affect: the scale of the work, not the quality. Whether the budget is hundreds of thousands of dollars, or just a few thousand, if I’m not giving it my all, I’m doing it wrong. Develop ideas and recommendations at the highest quality possible because at the end of the day, money doesn’t create ideas, you do.

Creativity is a choice

Let’s lay it out on the table. It’s clear that in this career (and in life), people may not listen to my valued opinion, people may resist and oppose me, and circumstances might prevent me from executing my ideas exactly how I envisioned, but none of this should stop me from creating great things and ideas. Why? Because, put simply, I don’t have control over those external factors. All I can control is how I adapt to situations, and what I choose to do from that point on. Not every project will be glamorous but there are always opportunities for creativity, even if you’re tackling the same issue on three different projects. I know it’s easier said than done, but I’ve learned, and truly believe, that creativity is only limited by how much you’re willing to do and how far you’re willing to explore.

–

Being a strategic consultant has shown me many new things and taught me a great deal about people as well as, even more so, about myself. As I prepare for an indefinite adventure exploring the country by myself, I can’t stop thinking about how foreign it will be and how this trip will completely force me out of my comfort zone. It’s exciting and intimidating, but after writing this, I realize I may be more prepared for it than I think.

Danny Tran is a consultant at ArchTam’s Strategy Plus practice in San Francisco.

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With devices becoming increasingly portable and fast, we can now access our work almost everywhere, seemingly only dependant on wifi connection. Technology’s greatest impacts in the way in which we work are often cited as the ability for greater precision, consistency and for easy communication – with one click we can connect with people across the globe at any time of day, making it far easier to do business with companies worldwide – but what about the impact on office culture?

The ease of sending emails is overriding the office worker’s impulse to pick up the phone or walk over to someone’s desk – many of our clients complain of “email culture”, with clogged inboxes and endless “reply-all”. This begs the question of whether new technology has influenced our business culture or business culture is influencing how we use new technology.

It seems to me that, because we have access to information instantaneously anytime, we also seek this from people as well as technology. There have probably been times when we can all admit to wondering why someone hasn’t responded to our email immediately!

Whilst it’s useful to stay connected, being able to access five different communication methods – from messaging to face time on our smart phones – also means we have to think harder about our work/life balance. To resist checking emails away from the office, when it’s so quick and easy to do so, is more difficult than it may seem. Has it become the norm for our working hours and own time to become blurred?

This blurring of boundaries can also work the other way, with many of the most popular workplaces bringing elements of home-life into their culture and design. In a recent list published on Glassdoor, based on both a survey of workers’ opinions on the pros and cons of holding a job at their company, as well as ratings on how satisfied they are there, the top three companies (Google, Bain & Co. and Nestle Purina) were all supported by employee comments citing things like “beautiful campus” and “excellent culture”, with employees at Nestle Purina even able to bring pets into the workplace. Employees clearly place high value on being able to bring elements of their home and social life into the workplace, and employers are increasingly finding ways to offer this.

So what does this mean for our clients and our workplace designs? How can we maximise the benefits to the merging of work and home life and what does this mean for the future of offices? For example, an approach of 50:50 workspace and social space could enable us to interact and work in a less formal manner, and as long as deadlines are met and the work is done, why should we not embrace a flexible workday?

Although it has both benefits and limitations, technology can only be what we make of it, and so it is imperative that we understand the best ways to make it work for us and for our clients

Amy Bourne (amy.bourne@archtam.com) is a designer at ArchTam’s Strategy Plus practice in London. 

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Isn’t this wonderful? They had fun in doing this just for its own sake. Not for a purpose, not for money, not for anything or anyone. I’d like to ask you to consider two questions, and be honest!

1) When did you last feel something like this?

2) Was it at work?

There’s a theoretical concept for the state I just described: flow. In my last blog entry, “The upward spiral”, I figured out that flow is a positive state that can make us more creative.

More precisely, flow is characterized by the following components:

• An optimal balance between your abilities and the requirements of the task. This match occurs at a high level of both, so that you perceive the task as challenging, but achievable.
• Whilst performing the task, you get immediate feedback, so you always know what to do next and keep momentum.
• Concentration occurs automatically, you do not have to force yourself.
• You forget about time – performing the task, you do not know how long you’ve been involved with it, hours can seem like minutes.
• You may even perceive yourself as “one” with the activity.

Because of these positive experiences, flow is not only good for you, but also for your performance and learning successes.

Flow is often reported for passionate leisure activities, just like the ice skating I saw. But the interesting thing for us is that in office work flow is also possible. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, intellectual father of the flow concept, studied flow at work in many professions, for example surgeons, engineers, architects, musicians, chemists, and authors. He found that people in all of these professions experience flow because they modify their jobs. They modify the meaning and the content so that they have the most opportunities to experience flow and thus, the most fun doing their jobs. You can always change little things in your job, like changing the order of tasks or deciding to ally with selected colleagues or clients for a specific purpose. Thus, flow should not only be possible if you are a surgeon etc., but in all professions.

I had the opportunity to interview a few colleagues about what they need to experience flow at work and what is detrimental to flow, and got the following feedback.

“Flow boosts creativity, provided you have expertise” A consultant told me that he experiences flow when he faces a new, challenging task and at the same time recognizes that he can use his experience from earlier jobs or projects to approach this task. The creativity and the knowledge transfer produce an extremely positive and motivated mood.

“Flow can easily be interrupted” An app programmer told me that flow requires a state of total concentration. In app programming, every interruption can lead to a break of thought that increases the risk for application failure, like in a “swiss cheese model”. To enable flow in highly concentrated individual work, the programmer uses the following strategies:

• Listening to music via headphones to set a positive mood and to prevent distraction (louder music if the background noise is high).
• Turning off email and instant messenger.
• Being available for requests in a much-frequented place before an important task.

“Flow can also emerge in teamwork” This occurs when colleagues perceive that they share the same “mental model”. This means they have the same understanding and the same knowledge background of a problem or task. Provided this is the case, collaboration can “flow”, but usually requires the following conditions:

• A clear goal, clear tasks, and clear roles and responsibilities.
• “Out of the box thinking” allowed.
• The opportunity for regular serendipitous encounters and thus exchange of ideas.

I’d like to thank my colleagues for these brilliant insights and ideas, which made this exploration of the subject a lot more vivid!

Finally, I’d like to repeat my questions from the beginning and add a third one – please let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

1) When did you last experience flow?

2) Was it at work?

3) How should space augment the possibility for flow?

 Jennifer Gunkel is a consultant with ArchTam’s Strategy Plus practice in Munich.

The post Flow: doing what you love, loving what you do appeared first on Blog.

The conference explored Next Generation Activity Based Workplaces (ABW). I shared an extended case study of SBS’ Agile pilot space in its Artarmon headquarters.

With a background as Australia’s multicultural broadcaster, SBS has a special charter to provide multilingual, multicultural and Indigenous radio, television and digital media services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians, reflecting Australia’s diverse society.

ArchTam has been helping SBS to rethink its workspace to seize the opportunities of media convergence – staff need to be able to work flexibly across content areas and drive multiple platform delivery.

Our SBS client, Manager of Corporate Services Martin Wright, has been leading SBS’ vision of a more innovative and efficient working environment through a period of high-profile budget scrutiny from the Federal Government.

In November, an Australian Federal Government report on possible expenditure cuts at Australia’s two public broadcasters flagged the concept of “variabilising” fixed property costs, suggesting moves by employers to more flexible work practices – and a portfolio of space options that encourage more collaborative consumption of space – might become even more of a priority.

Flexible work practices should be taken up more broadly in the public sector in Australia, where we lag well behind the UK civil service and the US General Services Administration. It was good to see representatives from the Department of Finance and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet paying close attention at the ABW Conference.

SBS’ Agile pilot is an island of raw, experimental energy in its Artarmon building. It looks, feels and sounds like a creative community. All work points are shared, and a wide range of options beyond the desk give staff plenty of choice of where to focus or collaborate.

New laptops, headsets and the wireless presentation screens were all part of the IT upgrade to enable mobility. It’s just celebrated its first year in action, and ArchTam’s Strategy Plus team has completed a post occupancy review of the pilot to understand how it is performing and to build an evidence base that shapes how its workspace develops from here.

The review process included interviews, workshops and onsite observations. It also revisited the previously completed online survey and space utilisation study. The review calibrated the performance of different work settings; while the establishment of sit-stand desks was popular, the ‘grassy knoll’, in contrast, was seen as a design folly that failed to meet comfort basics for viewing content over extended periods. The feedback was clear on what worked, and the evidence we gathered on the ‘workarounds’ confirmed where the change process required more attention.

Images: Design by Hassell, Photos by Nicole England

As we were putting the presentation together, Martin commented that the pilot review process has given him a solid foundation for future development. In much the same way the initial strategic brief for the space framed the design and implementation process, the pilot findings are now setting up the next evolution of the Agile program.

One key change is the need to give work groups the security of a location, but not the ownership of a desk.

SBS wanted to promote collaboration and crosspollination between different work groups in the pilot, so no team neighbourhoods or home zones were put into place throughout it. However, the feedback from participants was that it was more important to be within ear-shot of your primary colleagues than to work alongside people in other teams.

For SBS, the point of the pilot was to take some risks. It needed to trial new settings and new behaviours and, most importantly, set up a feedback and learning loop for the next stage of the public broadcaster’s accommodation story. If you’re not scoring an epic fail in some part of the space or the process, then you’re probably not pushing hard enough beyond the frontier of the organisation’s comfort zone. Pilots let you test these risks before the size of the capex starts to rule them out. And the nature of a building project – long lead times and extended delivery – means that any major new accommodation project needs to position the organisation for where it needs to be, not where it is now.

Sue Wittenoom (sue.wittenoom@archtam.com) is a director of ArchTam’s Strategy Plus practice in Australia. Follow her on twitter @swittenoom

The post The point of a pilot appeared first on Blog.

When psychologist Martin Seligman introduced the term “learned helplessness”, he proved the principle: if you experience that you cannot change what happens to yourself, you are paralyzed, leading to a downward spiral, no success stories, no motivation, no success. This was a substantial insight into the psychotherapy of depression. However, during his further studies as a psychologist and researcher, Seligman realised that not all individuals react to adverse circumstances in the same way – some tend to give up sooner, whereas others seem to have resources that prevent them from getting frustrated. In the meantime, a movement called “Positive Psychology” evolved, focusing on exactly these resources. Instead of looking for ways to cure mental illness, Positive Psychologists began to focus on ways to improve the quality of life.

We can transfer the core idea of Positive Psychology to the workplace. There is a simple recipe. Barbara Fredrickson, a distinguished expert in the field of positive emotions, suggests that optimistic thinking can lead to “flourishment”. This might sound a little esoteric, but it is a valuable concept in everyday life, describing a state of entire life satisfaction, comprising “feeling good” and “doing good”. Fredrickson posits that this state is enabled by the Positivity Ratio of 3:1 – that, on average, people who experience three times more positive than negative emotions are healthier, more optimistic, have happier marriages, better relationships and are more creative (try testing your own positivity ratio here!).

Bringing this theory into the workplace, a study found out that in successful meetings, the number of positive interactions clearly exceeds the number of negative interactions. Negative emotions are often experienced as more intense than positive emotions but luckily, for most individuals, the number of positive emotions experienced throughout their usual day exceeds the number of negative ones. And if the ratio is 3:1 or higher, we “flourish” (depressive individuals usually have a ratio of 1:1 or lower). This lead to an “upward spiral”, with motivation for new activities growing with positive experiences, and better motivation creating more positive experiences.

In summary, the recipe for fostering positivity and thus productivity in the workplace is: make sure we all have three times as many positive emotions as negative emotions.

How can we do this? Consider trying out the following ideas:

• Start a meeting by reporting reasons to celebrate and success stories. This allows participants to start off in a positive state of mind. It could help more difficult and tricky issues to be solved throughout the meeting. Research has also shown that individuals can enhance their awareness for positive events by keeping note of at least one good thing that has happened every day – this could be translated into a meeting by making sure to recap any positive outcomes as the meeting finishes.
• Allow “flow” by activity-based working. Doing something you’re really good at and confident in, but with a sense of challenge, can be an extremely positive experience. When these conditions are met, researchers discovered a state of timelessness and sense of total mastery, known as “flow”. Leaders can help enable this in the workplace by assigning the right tasks to the right people, but another important factor is the environment: a space can be ideal for one task (concentrated working in a quiet library), but detrimental to another (the same library to conduct a creative and exciting meeting). If it is possible to choose a suitable space for an activity, it is easier to experience “flow”, which has been shown to be a great enabler for creativity in the workplace.
• Surprise your colleagues. The tiniest positive experiences have been proven to significantly enhance our mood and change the way we approach things. Think about how you might cheer up others at work. A joke on the noticeboard? An unplanned break to have cake? Some flowers?

There are thousands of ways to bring more positivity into the workplace. What else can you think of?

Jennifer Gunkel is a consultant with ArchTam’s Strategy Plus practice in Munich.

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