We live in a roller coaster world. One day you’re up and the next day you’re down ¹

• Countries destinies are determined by social media crowding-sourcing and opinionating of the moment, devoid of plans for ‘now-what’ let alone the future.
• Company stocks are traded by computer super algorithms that disregard a company’s performance and just bet the odds, yet distinctly affect a company’s profits.
• CEO longevity is now an average of three years, hence the ballooning of compensation as hazard-pay reward for being the corporate shooting-gallery duck.

With this constant flux, every company needs an Elasticity strategy. They must be able to expand and contract, be flexible, agile and mobile – on a day-to-day basis. There probably isn’t anything more static and unmoving than the bricks and mortar part of the business – the physical work environment. The workplace facility and its equipment, fixed assets that are the second to third highest consumer of company monetary and other resources, is in dire need of more than a face lift.

Looking for a plug-n-play formula for Elasticity? There isn’t one. Nor are the answers found solely in more or new CRE/Facility investments. Elasticity is a mix and balance of components that span all operational and enterprise entities, intrinsically determined by the uniqueness of each company. And that mix, in and of its self, needs to be changeable on a dime. Hence the need for variable movement – elasticity at all levels and categories of the organization.

Is there a bit of the Ouija Board or witch craft in this? Maybe. More accurately, elastic strategies and plans are proactive maneuvers based on intuition and trending – moving on the aggregation of multiple data points available at the moment. For the workplace, the foundation is no longer made of concrete, rather a quicksand mixture of risk and experimentation, micro-markets desires, niches and a plethora of options. (See Pluralism)

If the ups and downs of the world are constantly volatile and ever-changing, then the solutions aren’t perfectly pre-determinable or static. They breathe, like a workplace diaphragm that expands and contracts and pumps oxygen equal to the extent of the corporate exertion and the varied, proportional and variable needs of its organs and limbs, at any moment in time.

¹ As so now famously expressed by Heidi Klum on the Project Runway TV show.

One size doesn’t fit all. I have said this so many times that I’m even getting tired of hearing it. So I am going to let some else say it – Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm, in his book What the Dog Saw, has an essay entitled The Ketchup Conundrum. Buried within this story is a sub-story about Howard Moskowitz, Diet Pepsi and spaghetti sauce.

Howard Moskowitz, now a legend in his industry, is the owner of a food-testing and market-research company. In the seventies, while trying to find the perfect sweetness mix for his client Pepsi’s new Diet version, he noticed all the data from his testing research was wacky. There was no clear winner. As Malcolm writes it, Moskowitz had an epiphany. “They had been asking the wrong question. There was no such thing as the perfect Diet Pepsi. They should have been looking for the perfect Diet Pepsis.”

Malcolm relates that Moskowitz spent years trying to get the food industry to understand “his idea about the plural nature of perfection.” Then in 1986 the Campbell Soup Company called. They were in huge competition against Ragu with their Prego brand of spaghetti sauce and losing. Moskowitz created forty-five varieties and, instead of just relying on professional food tasters, he took them on the road. Because, Gladwell quotes Moskowitz, “The mind knows not what the tongue wants.” Consumers don’t “know what they desire if what they desire doesn’t exist yet.”

What did the perfect competitive sauce turn out to be? It seems, after sifting through mounds of data, not one but three broad patterns emerged – “plain, spicy and extra-chunky.” Extra-chunky, the new version, brought “hundreds of millions of dollars to Pepsi” over the next decade. Thirty years later multiple flavors of spaghetti sauce is the expected norm.

Since the transition from factory work to office work, workplace designers have also been looking for perfection. They have engaged in a century-long effort to design that one, perfect place where everyone works full-throttle – happy, productive and efficient. The result is our current incarnation of supposed perfection – one-size-fits-all facilities. You know it, Dilbertville® on steroids.  Rows and rows, floors and floors, buildings and buildings of the same types of offices, varied only slightly based on hierarchy. Non-descript workspaces for a non-descript workforce of human cogs in the great corporate machine – modern age perfection.

The workplace’s parallel conundrum is that the workplace industry, from corporate real estate and facilities managers to architects, designers and furniture manufacturers, also has been asking the wrong questions. There is no such thing as the perfect workplace. They should be looking for the perfect workplaces. Because, as not everyone liked plain or spicy, not everyone works well in an office or cube.

Over the years, every time a new version of workplace is created, such as the original switch from offices and the typing-pool sea to offices and the system furniture cube-farm, or the current switching from four-sided, high cubes to low or sometimes even no-sided cubes, the same old pattern is followed. Everyone gets them. This is akin to totally dumping plain and spicy and offering only extra-chunky. A new group is now satisfied but the others are left out in the cold.

If the answer is found in pluralism, as Moskowitz, Gladwell and I believe, what are the perfect workplaces? I have my own thirty year study and I guarantee that it is not just some new combination of office workspaces. With the discovery of extra-chunky, that version was just one of forty-five tried that seemed to rise to prominence. Today there are even more flavors fulfilling every niche. For workplace, most companies and the workplace industry have yet tried only a few variations on the same theme.

Also key is another concept Moskowitz espoused – his mind-tongue ambiguity. That people don’t know what they don’t know is especially true for workplace. Having only been presented with two choices in their worklife, they don’t know what other types of workplaces really might be the right ones for them. Again, it comes back to asking the right question. The right question is not “What is the perfect workplace?” The right question is “Where do people work best?”

From my years of research and experience, I see there are also three strong patterns emerging. Most likely they are not the ones you think. Given the heavy industry pursuit in a single direction, you may never have been presented other choices to try. Try some, you might like them. But don’t just try one, try many. The plural nature of perfection is about choices.

http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html

Gladwell at TED, talking about Ketchup, makes the larger argument about the nature of choice and happiness.  “Embracing the diversity of human beings is the path to making them truly happy.” – Malcolm Gladwell

Copyright © 2011. Catherine Adams Lee Consulting. All rights reserved.

A tug of war is occurring in the workplace between face-to-face interpersonal relationships and those that occur at a distance over technology. As the old saying goes, if I had a dollar for every time someone said to me “Fact-to face is important”, I’d be rich. And I‘d agree. But the proverbial barn doors for work and interactions over technology have been open for over fifty years. To stay firmly planted and safe in the barn when the larger world is changing so rapidly is hard for everyone.

People of all ages and genders find themselves heavily guarding their comfort position, most often driven by the fear they won’t find a place in the new world outside the barn. This new world may not be better, or worse. It just is. And it’s different. Besides, face-to-face (f2f) is not the win-all answer. Face-to-face has always been a multi-edged sword. There is the good, the bad and the ugly of it.

The good – humans need to be around other people. The new, seemingly daily, discoveries in cognitive neuroscience appear to reinforce this as true. Proximity dynamics of the transfer of energy, brain waves, and pheromones enable accomplishment and exchange of ideas that don’t happen over technology – for most people. There is a qualifier. The jury is still out for future generations as to whether nature or nurture will overcome the f2f ‘deficiency’. Or if, like a blind person compensating with increased hearing abilities, people will develop a new normal – other skills to fill the void and accomplish the same thing in different ways. Not better, or worse, just different.

The bad – those who abuse and misuse f2f to influence. Not the charismatic speaker (good, hopefully), but the boss or other authority figure who demands compliance and obedience reinforced by the threatening, intimidating or bullying use of his or her physical presence (the bad). According to Wikipedia, research by The Workplace Bullying Institute suggests the #2 highest tactic used by workplace bullies is “stared, glared, was nonverbally intimidating and was clearly showing hostility (68%).”

This is bad f2f. Included are the team members who dominate to control the outcomes their way versus team agreement, consensus or thought-out business intent. And the people who get included or excluded, rewarded or punished, promoted or passed over, liked or shunned, based on physical attributes – biases of gender, race, size, age, good looks, et al, not capability or value of accomplishment. All stereotype characteristics, the knowledge of which is gleaned mostly through visible, face-to-face interaction.

The ugly – the extreme verbal and physical abusers. People who overtly intimidate, scream, threaten, even physically hit and accost to get you to perform as they want or keep you “in line”. Yes, I have experienced pretty much every one of them. I even had a client who experienced a workplace shooting. So traumatic was the incident they disbanded the company. An extreme example of how f2f can be bad for business. OSHA statistics state that homicide is the second highest cause of death on the job, after motor vehicle accidents.

Distance and distancing can be a tool to ameliorate these bad and ugly situations. That’s not to say that you can’t be screamed at over the phone. But the verbal threat may be diffused with greater ease with a sort of distance-enabled ‘time out’, than a threat accompanied by physical presence. The physical gap allowing for a cooling off or cooling down period and faster reengagement when calmer heads prevail.

Finding success in this new world of work is about finding the right combination of f2f and non f2f. To do so, you need to:

• Learn to look at each with eyes wide open.
• Understand the role and the possibilities contained within each as a tool for the future and healthy growth both monetarily and psychologically of the business.
• Recognize and employ their attributes and avoid their faults.
• Open up room for positive opportunities brought by non f2f – like a more level playing field, increased productivity for both on-site and off-site or distributed employees.
• Develop a combination of all forms of relationship interactions that works for each individual, team or group performed at the micro-level.
• Reap the rewards of greater full-immersion diversity and accessibility brought by good ideas and innovations that come bubbling forth in a safer environment.

Work over technology at a distance is not a panacea for all corporate relationship ills. But neither is it the devil it is so often made out to be. I have been on global teams that functioned very well for extended periods of time. We invented new processes like global, round-robin brainstorming and time-zone IMing to deal with the asynchrony. When achieving consensus was needed or we felt alignment was slipping, we then came f2f, usually about once a quarter.

Conversations and work over computers may not be your preferred world, but this is the way of the new world. You just may not be living in it yet. You can choose to accept this as true, reject it or escape it. Just remember, the new world of relationships over technology may not be better, or even worse, but it is different. And it’s here.

Catherine Adams Lee is a workplace business strategist and organizational innovation coach helping businesses build their bridge between old and new work places. Catherine encourages businesses to engage in distance in order to make NewWorkPlaces work and become a 21st century business success story. To find out more about Catherine and NewWorkPlaces go to http://www.newworkplaces.com/.

Copyright © 2011. Catherine Adams Lee Consulting. All rights reserved.

Before you answer that question, let me ask you another one.

Which kind of player do you use to listen to music – MP3 player, CD player, computer, cassette player, 8-track tape player, record player, radio?

If you entered MP3 player, you are up-to-date, new. If you entered record player, you are old school. But the question isn’t about what you use. The question is about having your brain look at the idea of  using old or new things that were built to essentially do the same, one thing – listen to music. Let’s think about it together.

Things that play Records are:

1. Large
2. Cumbersome
3. Attached to the wall
4. Fixed in one place
5. Can only be heard from where the speakers and you sit
6. Need to be plugged into an electric wall plug for power
7. Scratch and ruin the record if moved while playing
8. Only play a prescribed list – the songs on the album

 Compared to say – MP3 players, MP3 players are:

1. Small
2. Light and portable
3. Attached to nothing but you
4. Easily operated anyplace
5. Can be heard anywhere
6. Power moves with it
7. Designed to be mobile
8. Play list is customizable to your wants and needs

There are more comparisons I could make, but you get the idea. So let’s take this process and apply it to the workplace.

Old workplaces are:

1. Big
2. Cumbersome
3. Is and is full of attached things that take a small company fortune to move
4. Takes another small army to keep operating in that one place
5. Seemingly can only be heard/managed if you are located right there
6. Everything needs to be plugged in right there to operate – equipment, technology, people
7. Moving any part takes 3 and 4 above
8. Can only used in a prescribed way, usually as determined by Facilities, HR and IT

You see where I am going with this. Does your old workplaces list match mine? It doesn’t matter if it does. Just like it doesn’t matter which thing you choose at the beginning to play music. Any answer is valid. If you play records, or tapes or digital media, all is okay. But pretty soon you can’t get the right or new music on the old media. When the records become unplayable, scratched, you can’t buy new ones. When the record player breaks you can’t repair it. If it works for you right now, that’s fine. The question is – will it work for you later? And if not, when is later? I think later is today.

So it’s not about right or wrong. It’s about saying out loud, truthfully what the ‘As Is” is so you can accurately and successfully plan what you want the “To Be” to be for you, for your company. I call this congruency – when the thing and the need are in sync. How does it work, here is an example.

Vision:   Play beautiful business music. 
Strategy:   Become a 21^st century business player of new business music.
Plan:   Be a  21^st century business.
Road Map:   Innovate to be a NewWorkPlace.

Coda:

My “New” WorkPlaces list:

1. Small
2. Light and portable/agile
3. Attached to nothing but you, the employee
4. Easily operated anyplace
5. Can be heard connected anywhere
6. Power moves with it
7. Designed to be mobile
8. Play list is customizable to your needs

Yes – this is the same list as the MP3 player. Think about it. It works.

Copyright © 2011. Catherine Adams Lee Consulting. All rights reserved.

I am now a Certified Scrum Master -
as certified by the Scrum Alliance,
“a not-for-profit professional membership
organization created to share the Scrum
framework and transform the world of work …
Scrum is an agile approach to managing complex projects.”

The Scrum and Agile movements today are moving beyond the software development venue. Those involved, I included, see the need and application in many parts of the company and for any business type that wishes to be creative, innovative or just ensure that true collaboration is occurring.

For me, this has been a circular journey, having operated in a similar manner with my own design business. Much of its success was built on such things as fast track (scrum translation = sprints) and having my designers meet directly with the client (scrum = product owner and team interaction, backstory creation), just to name a few corollaries.

I was introduced to the word Scrum about 4 years ago by a client whose new style of workplace I was creating.  As a VP of Software Development, he wanted rooms for virtual daily scrums. Daily scrums are quick, fifteen minute meetings meant to set up the framework and context for the day’s work. The virtual part was to enable these meetings between team members in California and India.

As the project progressed, I found that this VP and I similar work philosophies. The project was fast, tasks given were completed in a timely manner, input supplied was relevant, prompt and appropriate and key stakeholders participated in the design process and solutions. Though there was heavy pressure from outside, we both worked hard to follow Agile principles and not become a tops-down, hierarchical, isolated process. Ideas abounded and positive creative tension resulted in innovation and a design strategy that supported the work of the business line, not singly the demands of finance or real estate.

I ran across the term Scrum later while attending an Organizational Development conference. Their emerging interest was as a new change management process. Seeing Scrum start to move beyond software development motivated me to dig further, which eventually led to my training and certification.

Upon critical reflection, I have come to realize that the success of that original project resulted from all parties, the business VP (scrum=product owner), me (scrum=master/facilitator) and the team (scrum=broad, cross-represtational, horizontal, non-siloed), being truly invested in:

• the real concept of team and team responsibility, both as a group and as individuals
• invention and out-of-the-box problem solving, even if it has not been done before
• people and the work produced first, process and tools second
• the courage to truthfully define the problem and a willingness to find real, workable solutions

All results supported and facilitated by Agile and Scrum and, as evidenced by the exploding growth of Agile in the  software development industry, hugely successful when allowed to work freely, unencumbered and supported.

I look forward to continuing my facilitation under this framework and to helping people, teams and company’s to capitalize on their internal creativity and innovate to make workplaces work.

I was on a Mass Care conference call given by the American Red Cross Disaster Services from their headquarters in Washington D.C.

Right before the start of the call there was a fire alarm evacuation of the building. Instead of canceling the call, the participants conducted it outside on the sidewalk via their cell phones. They did a great job.

Good cell phones and noise cancelling head phones worked well so that the street noise was not a major interrupter or distraction. The transition between the presenters went smoothly as each had called separately into the Web Ex conference phone number instead of convening together around one speaker phone. While one person was talking another was able to multi-task and check on return status, which changed more than once. I believe we even remained connected while they were on the elevator back to their desks.

Most importantly was the calm and professionalism demonstrated by these Red Cross people in a crisis. Hey, they don’t let a little thing like a fire alarm stop the emergency business at hand. This incident is a good indicator of what is needed by good Red Cross staff and volunteers – the ability to be flexible, mobile, punt, adapt, think on their feet, include technology as a resource to facilitate – to respond and work well in a crisis or under pressure. Kudos colleagues!

 More companies need to understand the mindset and skills that result in this behavioral ability. In an area such as the Silicon Valley, reputed to be fast paced and progressive, I have unfortunately seen more than one person/group/division/company freak out at the slightest change in – routine, outlook, space, facility, place, technology, time, work, work arrangements, ad infinitum.

Here we have somehow groomed a workforce of drones unable to adapt or incorporate change without great pain and panic. Unable to work in any other place than their cube; unable to manage anyone not within line of sight; unable to lead any company without the symbolic full parking lot indicator that all are in attendance on site; unable to work anyplace, in any workplace.

Yes, there are the infamous “innovators” and even “early adaptors”, terms from Everett Rogers’ theory on the Diffusion of Innovations. But more often than not (as in mostly always) if the innovation is social it slides back down into the chasm between these two first stages. Momentum never to be recovered and forces lost that would push the innovation, the change, over the top into critical mass adoption by the majority.

I believe a mindset change is required, or rather a mind shift – a change of perspective, priorities and precedent in order to achieve work in anyplace. To do so, emphasis shifts from rote and repeatable to different and flexible/agile/mobile. Plug and play is replaced by try and progress. One size fits all instantly is replaced by the understanding of the various relational stages of transition such as knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation, to name a few. And that people are in different stages at different times.

Change, transition, movement is a process – a dirty word in some companies with short, quarter-driven spans of sight. Like thorough-bred race horses, their blinders keep them running fast around the track, but unable to see the speeding train coming at them from the side and thus, unable to jump to another track to survive.

The more I learn and am involved in the Red Cross the more I respect and admire the organization. They are a learning organization, from others and their choices, the bad and the good ones. They see the need to adapt and adopt new process, procedures and tools to meet their goals and mission, which ever remains solid and constant.- helping people in times of crisis and disaster. They are unafraid to say “no” when the world at any given time is not in accord or puts up road blocks and leap forward when and where the paths suddenly appear. Corporate American can learn a lot from this organization. I am proud say I am a volunteer.

I am once again returned from my travels, this time from Washington D.C. The main reason for the trip was an invite from Kennan Kellaris Salinero to participate in her first “UnSummit”. She gathered thought leaders from science and various other professions and industries to advance the mission of her non-profit Yámana Science and Technology  and “bring together the ideas, people, and resources alongside new trends in workplace practices to bring out the best in science”. It was an honor to be invited and participate. Thank you Kennan! More about the UnSummit in a future blog. 

 Kennan timed her Science UnSummit 2010 to coincide with Larry Bock’s USA Science and Engineering Festival in D.C.  They closed off blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue on the National Mall, put up rows of booths and drew a huge crowd.

Each booth involved some form of Science. Represented was anything from genomics (there was a traveling RV exhibit), to earthquakes (kids were tumbling blocks), to space (you got into a real space suit) to robotics (a small remote vehicle was traveling around). And all were mobbed by kids. My first thought was “how was this going to work?” You couldn’t just stroll down and see what each as about. You had to stop and participate – become involved. That, it turned out, was the real genius and success of the event.

As I wandered down row after row of booths, there wasn’t a single one that didn’t have at least 4 -5 kids with their hands active or mouths agape, brains raptly engaged – and parents beaming. Kudos to Larry and his small group! I heard that he and only three other people pulled this off. Talk about what a small group can do. If anything should become viral, this is it.

What a way to teach …

….. by and for all people of all ages.

At one point I was strolling down a whole row of NASA booths and looked up to see the signage above the booths. Each had a slogan that was individually and collectively inspirational. I was so taken by the words that I was about to snap pictures of each. Then I spotted a NASA literature booth so I went up to it and asked one of the young women if they had all of the words printed on something I could take with me or could be emailed to me.

She smiled and said no, but they were thinking of posting them on their web site. I exclaimed how much I like them and she answered with a thank you, I created them. Talk about fortuitous serendipity! I happened to go up to the one person that developed them. I think I made her day, as she seemed surprised that anyone noticed them let alone would want more info. Creativity and curiosity, the underpinnings of scientific and other kinds of discovery, comes in many forms. This reminds me that I have to find her card and email her at NASA.

Here are some more of her inspirational words.

Learn it. Engage it. Build it.

     Invent it. Pursue it. Code it.

            Know it. Brainstorm it. Try it.

                        Dream it. Imagine it. Find it.

                                    Define it. Invent it. Try it.

                                                Boost it. Encourage it. Form it.

                                                            Style it. Provoke it. Own it.

                                                                        Share it. Inform it. Plan it.

                                                                                    Find it. Create it. Engage it.

 Coda:

A couple of months ago I was talking with a business associate. At one point she exclaimed that I was so much like a child in my enthusiasm and curiosity.  At first I was sort of insulted. She seemed to imply I was acting like a child. She assured me that she meant it as a compliment and I thanked her.

Afterward it occurred to me how sad it was that the only way we have to describe joyful curiosity and the extensions of creativity, exploration and discovery was “childlike”. Implied is the expectation that after the age of say 6 or 7 we would, and should, lose that, and grow up, become what – dour and serious? How unfortunate for us as a society and the world. And does the latter behavior really produce creativity and innovation? I don’t think so. Something to think about next time you try to crush that energy – from any age.

I have recently undertaken Scrum Master training in southern California.

 “Scrum”, as per the Scrum Alliance, “is an Agile framework for completing complex problems … an innovative approach to getting work done.” Most often Scrum is applied, and has evolved from, the software development community. Its practices of fast iteration, sprints, daily communication (Scrum standups), transparency and team work are some of the parts leading to its blossoming success.

 Why Scrum for me?

1.  I was first introduced to Scrum about three years ago. The framework I experienced in support of the creative process was so similar to what I had experienced in my own company and its creative processes years ago that I was overcome with wafts of déjà vu. Scrum mirrors in many ways the original collegial gatherings of old design and architecture charrettes, which most A&D firms have lost or abandoned over the years. The camaraderie, appreciative critique and inquiry and team participative creativity of those days I find can be present and emergent in the current practice of agile.  Finally a vehicle for creativity in the corporate world!
2. Having spent years creating workplaces for software and hardware engineers I have come to the conclusion that there is a huge mismatch, a chasm of incongruence, between the workplace delivered and the real workplace needed by the knowledge workers within them. Watching the systemic business process changes emerging from Scrum further cements my belief in its application and success. However, Scrum’s success is only as possible as it is fed, supported and under the umbrella of the larger concepts of Agile.
   Agile has four overarching principles, paraphrased from the Agile Manifesto:   

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Completed functionality over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a planThat is, while there is value in the items on the right, the items on the left matter more.    

It is clear that without these principles Scrum would fail and that, conversely, the very adherence to the framework of Scrum is  inherently enacts the  principles. They are symbiotic concepts, one dependent on the other for success.

3.

I have come across emerging interest in Agile and Scrum in both of the traditional worlds of Organizational Development (OD) and Project Management (PM). OD comes at it from interest in the new organizational behaviors they represent that are seemingly compatible with trending in change and change management. PM’s interest is from the new project  process perspective. Unfortunately I see each interest looking at it mostly within their current siloed points of view. Scrum is not interested in change per se and adamantly eschews the labels of process and methodology, favoring the term “framework” instead.

But Scrum is not perfect. My research and discussions inform my current thinking. Scrum and Agile are only successful when there is a marriage of:

• A change to partnering and collaborative behavioral skills
• Adherence to the Scrum structural framework, including having the roles Scrum Master – team facilitator and  Product Owner/Manager embodied in two people, not in the same person.
• Respect and utilization of the Agile principles

There is a movement afoot within the agile community to take Scrum and Agile outside software development and into other parts and types of organizations, including non-profits. Stay tuned for my journey there.

Lately I’ve felt that I pushed myself so far out to the edge of the workplace transformation envelope that I am floating in the exosphere of space, barely able to be pulled back by gravity. It’s a lonely place out here. But finally I think I have company.

 The January/February 2010 issue CoreNet Global’s industry magazine The Leader published an article entitled “Moving beyond Alternative Workplace Strategy: After 20 Years Can AWS Finally Scale-Up?”, authored by Gagandeep Singh and Nadia Orawski, two Deloitte consultants. At last I have found some people who seem to “get it”.

Their definition of Alternative Workplace Strategies (AWS) is the current incarnation, “a combination of practices involving space design and usage, technology provision, and HR policies that allow work to be done from a variety of settings beyond the traditional office environment.”

 The gist of Singh and Orawski’s premise is that this is all well and good, and even though technology is well-advanced in support, a very small percentage of companies have successful implementations for an even smaller number of their population, mostly in pilots. Their rationale for this failure of large scale deployment, and I am in agreement though not stated as strongly by them, is the lack of commitment to large scale-up.

 What you do for a small, let’s stick our toe in the water and test the temperature pilot and what you do for full-blown, company-wide enactment is entirely different. The actions in the areas of intent, commitment and support, both in polices and attitude, change.

 Here are key points extracted from the article that illustrate both of our points of view. It’s almost as if I had written it myself. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve expressed that telework, et al, is not a one-off program but a new business process, a way of working, at a distance, over technology, that has now become business-as-usual. Hmmm – maybe they have read my site/blogs. Wouldn’t that be nice!

 Key points, the bold is my added emphasis, are:

 “Integration and alignment across enabling functions – Corporate Real Estate (CRE), Human Resources (HR), Information Technology (IT) and Finance. AWS often impacts and requires significant changes across HR, IT, CRE and Finance. In our experience … large scale deployment requires systemic and sustained enterprise wide cooperation across these “silos.”

Outside of transactional job categories, productivity is rarely measured in corporations, so improvements to productivity cannot be proven. This is a “red herring” issue and should be stated as such.

 … AWS is not a space program but rather a shift in how people are “expected” to work (even if in reality they are already working differently than expected).

 … the “enterprise mandate” approach relies on a compelling business case with high-level executive sponsorship for large-scale time-bound change.

 A sustainable “business-as-usual end state … AWS programs falter due to their inability to evolve from a project focused approach to an on-going “business as usual” state that would transform AWS from being the “alternative” to being the “norm”.

 … AWS needs to become a part of day to day operations and not be a special project that requires large teams of specialists and the associated costs.”

 To this I would add one more key ingredient necessary for success of Alternative Workplace Strategies – Congruous Branding and Culture

You have to walk the talk. Most companies publically espouse their “want-to-be” culture but fail to match reality with the cultural vision. Lofty goals replete with corporate altruism are wonderful, and necessary. However, a company that refuses to be real about the gap between what they ‘want to be’ and ‘what they are’ can never bridge that chasm. A strategy or plan based upon a false gap analysis leads to invalidation of purpose, a waste of valuable time, energy and money and, no matter how well branded, funded and supported, ultimately experiences failure through incongruity.

If you haven’t poked your head into a public library recently, you are in for a big surprise. These are not your ‘Marian the Librarian’ libraries of old with row upon row of book stacks and users sitting at long wood tables in high-backed, uncomfortable wood chairs, while shushed by matron-esque librarians. Today’s libraries are hustling, bustling places of reading, writing, computing, group study, collaboration and net surfing.

Is this just a fantasy of mine? No Way! Case in point, while out for a drive on a recent Sunday I passed a building that caught my interest. The architecture was new and different, reminiscent of the 60’s modernism with some late 80’s deconstructivism thrown in. A mix of corrugated siding, colorful stucco, high windows and a soaring buttressed fascia where I expected to see the word DINER floating above. But instead of a sign denoting an eating establishment, there was the word LIBRARY flying across the entrance.

Picture courtesy of Tully Library Archives 

I did a U-ie, turned into the parking lot and made three circles around as I and others were looking for an open spot in the full lot. Excited to find this much activity, I couldn’t wait to see what was inside. I wasn’t disappointed.

The Tully Community Library

Entering, you are greeted by a hubbub of activity and space designed to invite, excite and enhance your library experience. Huge clear story windows, exposed structure and mobile art pieces float in the upper spaces, carry on the external theme and add light and energy to the entire facility.

Picture courtesy of Tully Library Archives

But the real energy was generated by the space and people below. This is a new age happening – Guttenberg reborn for the second millennium – present in:

• A plethora of computer stations, used by all ages, seemingly sprinkled about at every opportunity.
• A separate “Tech Room” with computers set up classroom style, a ‘quiet’ space with a posted sign of  “drinks must have lids”
• Plenty of tables with electric outlets for plugging in laptops
• Reservable “Group Study” rooms; this day one was filled with teens and pizza boxes; another with tots on a blanket on the floor playing games
• An “Internet Café”, tables and flooring material designating a more obvious eating and reading area
• “Teen” rooms and kid areas
• Window benches! My favorite reading space, where I jotted down notes for this article.
• Electronic, self-serve check-out stations
• Lots of comfy or sturdy chairs for reading, whichever is your preference
• Plenty of cheerful help from the staff, each went beyond my question with information and resources

I even spotted one table with a school arts and crafts assignment in progress. Not your “typical” library activity of the past, but seemingly right in place in this more-than-a-library, community setting.

Photo courtesy of Catherine Adams Lee 

The space has a wonderful airy feeling created by plenty of windows providing natural light. The high ceilings do dual duty of attitudinal buoyancy and sound dissipation allowing for hushed and semi-hushed areas. Just about every seating setting imaginable is liberally distributed amongst the shelves of books for reading, learning, studying, collaborating, working and community – a new [work] place at its best.

 Best of all as on that day, for every one of the 70 full parking spaces, there can be two to three times as many people using and enjoying the space. Proof that places designed beyond the old ‘box’ of one defined purpose or people succeed, hugely. Come and enjoy the rebirth. It’s open to everyone. It’s today’s public library.

 Post Scripts:

1. For more on the Tully Community Branch Library, San Jose, California
   http://www.sjlibrary.org/about/locations/tully/index.htm
2. More pictures of the Tully Community Library   
   http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanjoselibrary/sets/72157604815848114/ .
3. This library is not just a random occurrence. In 2000 the people of the City of San Jose, California approved The Branch Library Bond Measure, providing $212 million over ten years, dedicated to the construction of six new and fourteen expanded branch libraries in San José.For more on the San Jose Public Library System
   http://www.sjlibrary.org/about/sjpl/index.htm