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| Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose. -- Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Technology + People = NewWorkPlaces |
Embrace the Equation
Agile businesses have an increased ability to embrace the technology +
people equation in The New W.O.W.™.
Trying to enact change in a large corporation is often like trying to turn the Titanic with a feather.
Cumbersome and very slow to say the least, impossible, to state the most common reality. If you
steer your business like a smaller ship:
A key component as learned from the Titanic story is spotting the iceberg in time to change
course. No amount of agility, except for an extremely well-charted and well-executed trip, or
maybe luck, will keep you from bumping into things if you are sailing blindly at full speed ahead.
Whether executing small maneuvers or course changes with swift agility, understanding the
advantages of thinking like a schooner or ketch smart idea. On a small ship everything counts
and extra weight or baggage is undesirable.
In order to sail a business in treacherous, uncharted or even everyday waters, each and every
employee aboard, like parts and crew of a racing boat, must count. This means they are of value
to the business boat, not dead weight; their value or the potential for contribution to the journey's
success can be clearly identified; and as a boat's asset they are performing up to or above that
potential.
It is this latter piece, how to utilize your human asset to its best ability, that is changing in this new
world of work. It is arguable whether businesses, especially large corporations, have really
accomplished this in the past. As part of an industrial age business, the human component was
most often used as just another machine in the overall production process. But that one activity
did not utilize the full range of the multiple abilities of the human asset. As a result, the support for
the human - physical, technical, social - was limited to the accomplishment of the single task,
not the whole accomplisher.
For example, if a machine, human or inanimate, could accomplish its task, the job, in an eight
hour day, in a room at a given temperature, than the room was considered well-constructed.
Working 24/7 was not previously in the equation. Anyone caught in the office when the lights and
air conditioning go off knows this is the case.
Today, a sea of open office cubes is no longer a well-constructed environment. The given task
can no longer be performed at its best by the human machine in these conditions. We have built
very expensive, climate controlled environments for the inanimate machine, read computers and
servers, because we know that if they get too hot, they shut down. Yet the same performance
consideration is not given to humans.
Let's take a closer look at the office cube. Created to improve the performance of data input and
typing pool type tasks, they were an improvement of the time, providing some relief from visual
distractions and direct absorption of the click-click of the typewriter. But most cube dwellers today
no longer perform the same rote or repetitive tasks all day long. In a given day, they talk on the
phone, attend meetings, read and write email and create reports and spread sheets.
There is nothing to prove that the cube optimizes any of these activities, and certainly not them all.
Nor do all people perform each of these tasks at the same time, in the same way or with the
same thought process. One size no longer fits all and probably never did.
But we have built, and still build, the supporting environment to perform one task done at the
same time in the same way. We give everyone the same desk, same chair, same computer
keyboard, same mouse, same lighting, same sound absorbency, same visual privacy, the same
management policies, same performance standards, same reward structure, same start time,
same work schedule and same work location.
Our workplaces of today are mainly created to support the accomplishment of the work of
yesterday, single tasks that no longer take up most of a person's day. In many cases, it isn't even
build to support that, but rather to support artificial hierarchies - managers get offices, everyone
else does not. How productive is that? The right investment in the physical outfitting of the boat
is even more important for sailing these new waters.
To find out more about sailing the New Workplaces of The New W.O.W., contact...
Agile businesses have an increased ability to embrace the technology +
people equation in The New W.O.W.™.
Trying to enact change in a large corporation is often like trying to turn the Titanic with a feather.
Cumbersome and very slow to say the least, impossible, to state the most common reality. If you
steer your business like a smaller ship:
- You probably aren't even sailing in iceberg infested waters, so icebergs are not even your
problem - If you are sailing these types of waters, your chances of evading obstacles are greater.
You are able to veer out of the way more swiftly or even completely change course.
A key component as learned from the Titanic story is spotting the iceberg in time to change
course. No amount of agility, except for an extremely well-charted and well-executed trip, or
maybe luck, will keep you from bumping into things if you are sailing blindly at full speed ahead.
Whether executing small maneuvers or course changes with swift agility, understanding the
advantages of thinking like a schooner or ketch smart idea. On a small ship everything counts
and extra weight or baggage is undesirable.
In order to sail a business in treacherous, uncharted or even everyday waters, each and every
employee aboard, like parts and crew of a racing boat, must count. This means they are of value
to the business boat, not dead weight; their value or the potential for contribution to the journey's
success can be clearly identified; and as a boat's asset they are performing up to or above that
potential.
It is this latter piece, how to utilize your human asset to its best ability, that is changing in this new
world of work. It is arguable whether businesses, especially large corporations, have really
accomplished this in the past. As part of an industrial age business, the human component was
most often used as just another machine in the overall production process. But that one activity
did not utilize the full range of the multiple abilities of the human asset. As a result, the support for
the human - physical, technical, social - was limited to the accomplishment of the single task,
not the whole accomplisher.
For example, if a machine, human or inanimate, could accomplish its task, the job, in an eight
hour day, in a room at a given temperature, than the room was considered well-constructed.
Working 24/7 was not previously in the equation. Anyone caught in the office when the lights and
air conditioning go off knows this is the case.
Today, a sea of open office cubes is no longer a well-constructed environment. The given task
can no longer be performed at its best by the human machine in these conditions. We have built
very expensive, climate controlled environments for the inanimate machine, read computers and
servers, because we know that if they get too hot, they shut down. Yet the same performance
consideration is not given to humans.
Let's take a closer look at the office cube. Created to improve the performance of data input and
typing pool type tasks, they were an improvement of the time, providing some relief from visual
distractions and direct absorption of the click-click of the typewriter. But most cube dwellers today
no longer perform the same rote or repetitive tasks all day long. In a given day, they talk on the
phone, attend meetings, read and write email and create reports and spread sheets.
There is nothing to prove that the cube optimizes any of these activities, and certainly not them all.
Nor do all people perform each of these tasks at the same time, in the same way or with the
same thought process. One size no longer fits all and probably never did.
But we have built, and still build, the supporting environment to perform one task done at the
same time in the same way. We give everyone the same desk, same chair, same computer
keyboard, same mouse, same lighting, same sound absorbency, same visual privacy, the same
management policies, same performance standards, same reward structure, same start time,
same work schedule and same work location.
Our workplaces of today are mainly created to support the accomplishment of the work of
yesterday, single tasks that no longer take up most of a person's day. In many cases, it isn't even
build to support that, but rather to support artificial hierarchies - managers get offices, everyone
else does not. How productive is that? The right investment in the physical outfitting of the boat
is even more important for sailing these new waters.
To find out more about sailing the New Workplaces of The New W.O.W., contact...
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| Work. Anyplace. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Consulting ● Education ● Evaluation ● Facilitation ● I.D.E.A ● Speaking ● Workshops Copyright © 2005-2007 Catherine Adams Lee All rights reserved. Trademarks. |